Friday, January 06, 2006
Interviews, Walking out of
If you are a candidate for a librarian position and someone from the search committee asks, "If you were a garden tool, what kind of garden tool would you be? And why?" ... it is perfectly acceptable for you get up and walk out of the interview without saying another word.
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15 comments:
You mean "I would definitely be a hoe" is not what I should've said?
I have sworn that if I ever get another interview where the idiot interviewing me asks what I want said in my eulogy I will just leave.
No, I think the worst interview question is still: "What's your biggest weakness." My answer: "Wouldn't it be *your* job to find that out?"
If they have time to ask crap like that, they're not asking enough real questions that would actually tell them if you can do the job. I'm on a hiring committee right now, and we cut all the irrelevant questions, including "Where do you want to be in your career in five years?"
Gosh, I hated the "where do you want to be in five years" question," especially given that I have been in school for a while, so the goal was really, "get a job once and for all." Of course, one restrains oneself from being snappy and answers, but the temptation was there to walk out. Never heard the gardening tool one.
Right up there with what color would you be. But finally there is a website that will tell you.
"What is your philosophy of customer service?'
- Supression of nausea?
- Never to be the kind of person who has "a philosophy of customer service"?
Great weakness, kryptonite. Bwhahahahaha!!
I actually once had to ask a person, what they would do if they were a piece of cucumber in a salad and somebody wanted to eat them.
I didn't have a choice, the question was set by my director, and she was in the interview, despite it being more my assistant. I wish I remember peoples answers, I'm sure they all had the same internal dialogue response "WTF!?!"
I'm right there with you, sal. I hate that question. They asked it in the interview for my current job, I basically told them I didn't want to answer, but I may have said it better like "If I knew what my greatest weakness were, I would work to correct it and make it my greatest strength."
Or maybe not THAT eloquently.
I'd want to be a shovel.
Worst I've encountered: Is chocolate a foodgroup? Are you a cat person or a dog person? Are you married?
"Are you married?" That's a nice illegal question to ask a job applicant. Sheesh.
I got the "If you were in a circus, what would you be" question in an interview, got the job, and of course, the questioner (my supervisor) turned out to be a micromanaging ringleader.
The worst part for me is fighting down the rising urge to laugh uncontrollably while struggling out of the chair to leave. I had one guy say "Hey! I'm gonna throw out some words here and you tell me how they, you know, apply to the library media stuff and everything...ok, first word: Excitement!" I'm sure he wondered why I kept eyeing his wastebasket longingly.
In my current position, I loathe interviews wherein one administrator asks a candidate who their hero is (yes, she means male) - and judges the answer to a sublimely stupid question on who is chosen, not the elegance or literacy of the answer. (Folks who manage not to laugh and give an interesting answer get points from me: shows they have some traits that would, indeed, be valuable in a middle school!)
Have to remember the hoe. Thanks!
Actually, we have a really good one on our list that tells a LOT about the candidate:
"If a parent came up to you at the desk, and said, 'I'm terribly sorry, but my three-year-old child just threw up in your 300's section, and we have to go.', what is the first thing you would do?"
Of course, the answer we are hoping for (and have received from some good prospects) is something along the lines of taking care of it. But, we get a lot of pushing it off to other people, calling the maintenance guy at home, leaving it until nighttime so the janitor can get it, etc. My all-time favorite was, "Well! The first thing I would do would be to get the mother's name and phone number so that we could _hold them liable for all of the damage!"_ (We didn't hire him.)
Hmmm...this sounds interesting...sort of along the lines of what I posted on my blog in 2004:
www.lipsticklibrarian.com/blog/
LInda
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