January 25, 2012

Elephants, aliens and other interview tests of character

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Recently, glassdoor.com released its Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions of 2011. It's a worthy read and a good self-test. Statistically, the chances are low that you would get one of these fringe questions -- but what if you did?

In a competitive economy, employers are sifting through heaps of qualified applicants. Maybe asking about garden gnomes is what it takes to find the right one. Maybe, if you can turn a wacky interview question on its head, the right hire will be you.

I once went on a job interview that was like an episode of "The Twilight Zone." It was an opening for a reporter at a small newspaper in the California high desert, a depressed town with a name that sounded like a federal penitentiary and a thermometer that flirted with 107 on a cool day in spring.

I was a new college grad, but this was before the economy slid into the basement so I had reason to be hopeful. And maybe a bit cocky. I had lined up many other interviews, and from the moment I drove into Penitentiary Town I had already decided the place was too remote, too dust-obscured, too small-time for a San Francisco hotshot like me.

Maybe they knew this, the editors who were waiting for me. One, the news editor, conducted a strange and rambling interview with me and then, toward the end, threw me the most unexpected curveball of all.

Handing me a pen and legal pad (I am not so old that there were not computers readily available at every workstation), he said, "I want you to make up a news story and write it."

Um, make it up? I checked, just to be certain. Surely this odd but seasoned editor could not be asking me to invent a story? For a job as reporter? Wherein my job description would be, above all, to tell the truth? I could go into town and really report a story, or write from a set of facts, but make it up?

Fine, I thought, shaking my head. These were crazy people in a crazy place, so I would show them. I scribbled for 20 minutes and looked up smugly when I was done. My interview was over and I knew they would read my story later, after I'd gone. I was glad not to be there when they did. I wrote about aliens.

Specifically, I wrote about an alien spacecraft landing in the town and the ensuing emergency scenario. I really did. I wrote about aliens.

It embarrasses me now, because I think I likely failed the test (however weird and Twilight-Zoneish it was): I think that editor wanted to know more about what I'd do than what I'd write about. Was it a trick question? Could I have used it to my advantage (assuming I had wanted the job)? Was that "assignment" an opportunity to show my character and values as a potential employee?

I'll never know. But I learned from it. Ultimately, weird interview questions strike me foremost as an attempt to get to the candidate's character, something hard to sniff out on a résumé or with traditional questions. The candidate whose character and values shine through would be the one, as an employer, that I would want to hire.

Natalie Singer is a freelance writer and the founder and owner of Punkernoodle Baby, a Seattle-based cloth-diaper shop and ecommerce site. Email her at nsinger@nwjobs.com.

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entry level, interviewing, questions

1 Comments

Geoff on February 5, 2012 11:11 PM | Reply

I was once asked for a technical job to give a 'technical presentation' when I returned for another interview round in a few days. I asked "what on?" and they said "Any topic at all". I chose silverware. You know, that new product that lets you eat food without burning your fingers or getting them all greasy? They loved it.
I mention this because writing a story about aliens isn't all that odd to me -- they DID tell you to make it up!

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