cricket

dammit blame_the_gods, now i'm getting even further behind w/ work. Thanks a lot!

I don't want to work.

Never.

What makes you think I've had a job?

As long as I don't have to do anything.

Bree

I'm thinking the same exact thing - hence this thread.

I'm going to be interviewing someone for a job within the next few weeks, and HR has asked me to conduct my interviews myself. This is supposed to help HR hire the "right" person for my shift, since I supervise the shift and I know the most about the job the potential employee will be doing.

I have an HR degree and I have been through the role-playing and the mock-interviews with job candidates et cetera. However, I never have thought the job interview was useful. I know I can interview someone well - I just need to figure out what I should ask. Everyone has prepared answers to the most typical questions asked - I would like to try and get away from that.

Undercurrent

And there's the irony trying to convey the message, "I have many original and creative thoughts" through the use of a trite cliche.

Two "lateral thinking" interview questions I've encountered are:

"Suppose you have two condoms, and three ready-and-willing women. How do you satisfy all three of them without risking transferring STDs (assuming you're male and not very creative in your sex acts.)"

"Suppose you have two rooms. In the first room, you have three light switches, which control three light bulbs in the second room. You can't see the light bulbs unless you're in the second room and can't toggle the light switches unless you're in the first. If you can only enter the second room once, how can you determine which light bulb in the second room is controlled by each switch in the first."

Solsticin

HAHAHA .... if they answer yes, don't hire them. They are full of it

I used to interview for a company you would all know and love *snickers* and I NEVER used the template to interview people. EVER. I would drill them on their job (this was IT related stuff) and what they liked and disliked about it.

I found that asking people what they didn't like to be the best way to find out what they knew. It's one the thing to KNOW something (learned knowledge), it is another think ENTIRELY to form and opinion about something. What they dislike will tell you if they are honest about something (asking stuff you know is irritating to see if they will admit it), and it tells you the depth of knowledge (whether they've USED it as opposed to KNOW about it ...a common issue in IT!).

Kinross

What are the current and possible future tasks that the job entails? Ask questions about that.

For example I work in engineering.
I would ask a canidate to describe their problem solving process for a typical problem encountered on the job.

What do they do when they come up against a wall and can't think of a solution?

Some projects can be solo or in a group, how do they prefer work?

What are their views on documentation and formal design.

What is thier design process?

What ideas or actions have they done in the past to make make the thier previous employers more competitve?

callmejay

Okay, I've only interviewed a few times, but it seems to me that the important things are to:

a) Get the interviewer to like you as a person. This means (at least for me) smiling and being charming. Talk about shared interests if you can find 'em.

b) Act confident. This can be just an act. They can't tell the difference.

c) Act enthusiastic and energetic.

d) Manage to pull off a-c without seeming fake.

chekmate

I'd say that you should skip the interview, and hire the cute one... You can train someone to do their job, but you can't make them look good!

Shake

Someone who's a good management candidate would say something to the effect of: "Schedule a meeting to discuss how we're going to decide which tasks should really be completed first. Create some graphs and slides and put them into a PowerPoint presentation for a subsequent meeting, which half of the people can't attend due to prior engagements."

Kinross

Nothing. The company will change direction tomorrow obsoleting those tasks.

Beetle

The only time I had a difficult interview was when I applied for a job as an insurance investigator. The purpose of the interview was to attempt to rattle the interviewee and see how they would react under pressure (preparation for getting yelled at by lawyers).

The first question was "Take five minutes and tell me things about yourself and your interests that aren't on your resume." When your interests are best left untouched (religion and politics), five minutes is a looooong time.

Then, halfway through the interview they pulled out: "On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being terrible and ten being fantastic, how well do you think you're doing in this interview? Why?" That was fun.

BTW - yes I did get the job.