Weird interview-cant tell if went well

lazydaisy

I had the strangest interview this week. I am usually able to tell if an interview went well or not but this time I have no idea.

It is fairly conventional to be asked about your work experience. Not this time.

Here were my questions:

What makes you angry?

He then listed 7 qualities: punctuality, work ethic, health, ambition, multi tasking, organisation, work well with others, and asked me to rate myself from 1-7 without repeating a numeral.

He then asked why I rated what at the bottom and why I rated things at the top. And I tried to answer the best I could given that this was an arbitrary and unfair way of gathering an impression of someone.

This is the first and only time I have never been asked about my skills and experience.

Does anyone have any way of telling if an interview went well or not?

funk-you

HR people really have too much time on their hands.

If he didn't ask about any work experience he was probably satisfied with what you had on your CV. It was probably more of a trying to find out what type of person you are interview. If it wasn't that company needs a new HR manager who isn't living on a commune eating lentils.

im sure you did grand!

jrey1981

some of these HR people are w***ers would be my first thought

leeroybrown

Generally this type of interview are based on employing someone who will 'fit in' at the company as opposed to finding out if you are qualified for the job.

seamus

If a question seems ridiculous or unfair it probably is - sometimes HR people throw in these questions purely to see both how you cope under pressure and how you deal with a new challenge (instead of the stock answers to usual interview questions). How you answer the questions is irrelevant.

drdre

donot worry u will get the job,hr people are just timewasters

Siogfinsceal

he sounds like a right HR @rsehole that kind of crap would really annoy me and I wouldnt want to work for a company who tries to psychoanalyse people with stupid tests like that!

Peace

Just serves to reinforce everything i think of HR. Fire them all expect the one that does the wages/salaries each week.

TempestSabre

funk-you wrote:

HR people really have too much time on their hands.....

Exactly.

lazydaisy

Thanks for your replies.

THe thing is the guy who interviewed me wasnt from HR, but the man I'd be working for/with.

But yes, it would seem that he has too much time on his hands and some crazy fantasies that these kinds of questions can actually tell you something about someone.

Vokes

@lazydaisy: Well. look at it another, more positive, way

If he's the person you'd be working for and he didn't ask you about your prior work experience and skills, then perhaps, from looking at your CV, he already feels that you have what it takes to do the actual work.

So you're past that stage and what he wants to know is do you have the right personality/attitude fit for the team/office. If you answered honestly enough, im sure you did as well as you possibly could. No point in beating yourself up about it.

Alun

Personally, I'd say that if someone has to resort to these kinds of 'trick questions' in order to get an accurate idea of a person's personality and suitability for a job, then it's a sad inditement of their own interpersonal skills, not those of the potential candidate. Bunch of tossers the lot of them.

kippy

Looks like the guy spent a long time on the internet looking for "Really really good questions" to ask people that will provide the magical formula to determine if thay are fit for the role.
All of which to me are a pile of horse crap.
I wouldnt be able to tell either how an interview like that went. Looks like pot luck....
In that position I would have asked him at the end(you know where you are asked if you have any questions)
How does this job rank for *insert seven different items here* on a scale of one to seven without using any number twice......:cool:
Anyway-best of luck with it-
Kippy

leeroybrown

kippy wrote:

Looks like the guy spent a long time on the internet looking for "Really really good questions" to ask people that will provide the magical formula to determine if thay are fit for the role.

From what I've seen you normally see these kind of unusual interviews from companies that have decided to adopt a particular documented interview strategy and trained their HR people to interview in this fashion. Most people are used to the typical skills and experience interview so they can be a little thrown by other interview techniques. I have sat a behavioural interview which was an interesting experience (especially after four hours of travel and a shed load of coffee) but I've thankfully avoided these type of psychological test interviews.