The Craziest Interview Questions
“If you could be any animal, what would you be?”
A sales manager once posed that question to me. And I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was interviewing for a high-end, take-no-prisoners sales job. That meant I couldn’t respond with “Labrador Retriever,” a gentle creature content to gobble up table scraps and laze away his summers. No, I needed to be tough, a beast who commanded respect and conveyed a fierce drive and decisiveness.
So I answered with “a shark.” And I didn’t get the job. Perhaps he wanted an anaconda, instead.
I’m not sure why he beaned me with that curveball. Maybe he was testing my ability to improvise. Or, he intended to take me out of my comfort zone, to rub away the polish to see how I really viewed the world. While he confessed that I really knew the product, perhaps my “shark” answer revealed that I truly didn’t understand the customer – or the company culture. Then again, maybe he recognized that I was more Marley than Jaws.
Yes, off-the-wall questions are a fact of business, particularly when you’re seeking six-figure jobs that generate seven (or even eight) figures in value. Here, your answers can either raise a red flag – or make you a truly memorable candidate.
In a recent survey of MBA alumni from top-100 schools, the Financial Times asked this question: “What has been the most difficult question that you have been asked in a job interview since graduation?” Wondering what you should expect in your job interviews? Here are some questions cited by MBAs:
- How can you think that a company will pay you $100,000 a year after your MBA?
- How many hours would a dog take to walk from Madrid to Barcelona with a can on its tail?
- In what circumstances would you allow a lie?
- What is the weight in tons of Manhattan?
- What would you do if a lion entered the room at this moment?
- So you want to work in finance – tell me how would you value a dinosaur?
- Explain your last job profile to a 10-year-old.
- Two, six, 42, 1806 . . . what number comes next?
For additional questions, click on the Financial Times link below.
Feel free to share with us the strangest interview question you’ve been asked. We’d love to hear your answers.
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Source: Financial Times
