My big one is that they need to stop asking why I applied for their company. The real answer is I want a new job, and I blasted out a hundred applications. I didn’t choose your company specifically.
The gap in my employment is NONE OF YOUR GOD DAMN BUSINESS.
It’s none of your fucking business that my kid required major neuro surgery at the age of 8 WEEKS and I needed to take a year off form work to care for him.
You and all the other idiot corporations decided to fuck around with the economy and didn’t hire anyone for several years because YOU fucked it up.
To be more flexible I decided to work a series of contracts instead of full time employment and fuckwits like you treat contractors like trash.
Do you really want me to go on? Because I fucking can…
BTW: The kid is OK and today (19 years later) is an accomplished figure skater that competes internationally.
Congrats on your child killing it at figure skating :)
Wow, congrats in the good ending!
This is gonna be more of a rant about recruitment agencies and the consultants working for them.
When I apply for one of the (probably fake) positions they advertise, it’s not an invitation for them to ring me, waste 15 minutes of my life and grill me about everything I did in my last few jobs, my responsibilities, duties, any employment gaps, people who I answered to in my previous company, etc; only for these assholes to tell me they have no positions available but will “keep my details on file.”
It’s on my fucking resumé, and you could save a lot of our time by not ringing me and asking me to verbally repeat this because you guys are too stupid to read…
When I was made redundant last year and was basically desperate to land another role, I genuinely had some of the worst cold-calls ever from recruiters when I made the rookie error of listing myself as open to work on LinkedIn and Indeed. One particular caller who I spoke to twice, maybe three times would genuinely pause for about 10 to 15 seconds in silence after I finished speaking then ask me some absolutely mundane follow-up question in a monotone voice. I genuinely couldn’t tell if I was speaking to a lady with a room-temperature IQ or some poorly programmed AI chatbot.
On a related note, posting ghost vacancies, using AI to screen candidates, and generally treating recruitment as a massive data harvesting operation should be made illegal.
“Where do you see yourself in the future?” Who fucking knows at this point, hopefully ALIVE.
“What do you expect for compensation?” Just tell me what the low end of the job is because I know that’s what you’re going to pay anyway.
“Can you explain this gap in your resume?” Can you explain these gaps in your employing someone in this position?
I like this take from smbc
This.
That
I’ve hired dozens of people and I’ve interviewed hundreds. As a manager (area of business development), my objective is simple: get the interviewee talking. I know their CV and have checked their social media; I know my favorite candidates. I just want to check whether I “like the person”, and whether she/he is as good in real life as on paper. My typical interviews run like this: “first, I will tell you about the position for a few minutes, then you will have time to tell me about yourself, and to ask YOUR questions. And then we talk about possible next steps. This will take about 30 minutes. Is that OK?” I try to get onto an equal footing, and although I will ask simple questions here and there, I skip all the humbug, curve ball, aggressive stuff (they probably have pre-prepared answers to those anyway). By laying out the interview plan first, good candidates have sufficient time to prepare their story and clever questions in their head while I make the company pitch.
My least favorite is, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”
“Ummm, getting your job after I push you in front of a train for asking me this stupid question.”
I’ve interviewed people before, and am doing so again next week. I often ask why a candidate is interested in working for my org, because I want to known that their personal goals/ambitions are at least somewhat aligned with the org. Hiring someone and then finding out that they don’t fit sucks.
Many job ads receive tens or hundreds of applications. They want the best candidate. If you’re not specifically keen, they’ll probably go for someone who shows some interest. I know I have picked people who are interested over more qualified but disinterested people before.
So you favor dumb people over competent people?
Sounds about right for the average hiring manager. People don’t care about your organization. The incredibly inefficient system of capitalism they were born into requires them to exchange the unrenewable resource that is their time, the only thing they have in this universe, for arbitrarily valued currency which changes value constantly through no action they make, so they get the privilege of continuing to exchange their time for more of this currency, until their flesh suit is too broken to continue this exchange.
No one has ever been excited about working for your company. A few learned to fake it. A few simply aren’t capable of complex thought and treat working for your company the same way they’d treat a colonoscopy or birthday party because they literally can’t tell the difference.
If you think your only value as a human being is your capacity to produce, then I don’t know what to say to you?
Yes, capitalism sucks, but also, humans aren’t all just out here blindly doing capitalism and not thinking about anything else. Every person working a job has to interact with coworkers, and those interactions are not mediated solely through a lens of productivity.
I said the opposite, actually, the problem is your work is your entire life. Jobs are there to enable you to live life. They are not your life. They are not what you do, they are the necessary component that allows you to do what you want to do because we live in a world that does not value human life.
I agree with that. What makes you assume my work is my entire life? I only work 4 days, and I have a solid community outside work and various hobbies.
Crazy you get to hire people only working 4 days a week.
Why do you have that authority?
Why are you only willing to give 4 days a week of your time to your glorious employer.
Are you not serious about your goals with that company?
I … honestly have no idea how to tell how serious or sarcastic those questions are…
Sounds like you are not qualified to interview people for jobs.
No. See, most people ARE just blindly doing capitalism because it’s either that or die.
Listen to me very closely: Nobody gives a single flying fuck about your mission statement. Turning away more qualified candidates because you didn’t feel they were as interested in the company culture as others makes you a shitty hiring manager. Nobody gives a shit about the company culture. Every employee with two brain cells knows it’s about money, period. When times get hard, the company will not care how much you mesh with the culture, they will drop you like a hot turd if you aren’t producing enough or are costing them money. So why pretend anything else matters?
Mate I’ve got to spend 40 hours a week with these people. I would much rather hire someone who is socially competent but needs to learn a few things technically than hire an asshole who is just going to be a pain in the ass.
Honestly if you view every interaction through a strictly transactional lens you’re not gonna have a good time being a human. Most of our lives are spent doing things we don’t really want to be doing, be that work or cleaning or building/repairing shelter, etc. The thing is, most people find ways to find some joy or comradery in these tasks. If your only goal is to complete each of them as quickly as possible you’re gonna spend most of your life being fucking miserable.
But getting back on track - not every company is built the way you describe. Personally, I’ve been able to build a team at my company where everyone gets their work done, enjoys each other’s company, and goes home after 40 hours. If I hire people who don’t get along with everyone else I lose that balance. So I hire people that fit the culture, and teach them the skills they need technically. The offices with a bunch of individualistic assholes tend to work longer hours, have poorer quality, and higher turnover rates. And they are all fucking miserable. Personally that is not something I’m interested in.
Because working with people you like makes work so much more bearable? We have an AP lady who is a hotshot, does such a good job but so mean and hotheaded and thinks she is “honest” but is really just mean. Hates her husband , hates people, only likes her dog. Her manager is on her last straw because she criticizes everyone else all the time and dislikes half the people she works with, and she (the manager) has had to referee arguments she has with the rest of the staff.
You can train someone to do a job, it’s much harder to train someone out of being an asshole.
The votes on your comment are enough to tell that your blanket “Nobody” is not a valid statement. It’s generally a smart idea to accept that there are diverse perspectives that exist, and not everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Is that question at the end of your comment actually curiousity, or just a boring rhetorical?
Lemmy ahh comment.
Feel free to go back to reddit, where you ‘people’ belong.
What do you specifically mean by putting people in quotes like that?
And you’re acting like a jealous ex of Reddit’s?
Dude is what happens when you ask chatgpt for “Lemmy user”
I had a job cold call me for an interview. During the interview it turned out I’d be working for a guy I’ve already worked for in the past, but the company went under.
He asked me why I applied, I said “I didn’t, they called me and asked if I wanted an interview, I’ve never heard of this place before”. He didn’t like that answer.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my office?”
I’m a locksmith, and I’m a locksmith.
Literally any “annoying” interview question that gets listed here will typically not stop being asked, because it serves a purpose for the interviewer. If you are annoyed with questions about “what are your strengths”, “what are your weaknesses”, “where do you see yourself in 5 years” - interviewers know these are cliches. They don’t care. The fact that they are cliches means they get to catch you the person who hasn’t bothered to think of an answer to these questions, and not hire you. Sure, some interviewers are going to ask these questions with blind naivete - but some know that they are actually asking “can you answer a simple fucking question that you don’t like answering without having a breakdown?”
It is not hard to come up with answers to these questions. Hell, you can practice saying the answers in the mirror or to a friend, and come off 100% more confident and polished than other candidates. So just do that and come out ahead, rather than dreading these questions, flying in unprepared, and bombing the interview on what should be a gimme
It’s more that they’re selecting for people who are good at lying tbh
Or - they are selecting for people that are good at understanding how to reframe. Which is probably one of the most important skills you can have in life.
Like, if they ask “why do you want this job?” And your answer is “because I want money” then you will not get the job. Not because you lied or failed to lie, but because you failed to acknowledge the context of the question. The interviewer wants to know why you won’t be a miserable sack of shit while working there, because they don’t want to deal with that in a coworker. And it is useful to consider the framing that leads to the answer “because I want money” - it is the assumption that jobs and money are scarce for you, and you desperately need any job right now. And this is the type of person most employers are desperate not to hire - which is why you hate this question. Because it outs you as someone people don’t want to hire.
The better framing is that you are confident that you can get any number of jobs, that you are looking for one that will pay you, of course, but that you also care about a number of other things like the day to day tasks you’ll be doing, the people you’ll be working with, and the impact you’ll be having on others.
And neither of these framings are untrue. Your desperation to get a job is a function of your emotional state. Sure, you can want to get a job sooner rather than later - but all you have to do is realize that things will still be okay if it takes a bit longer to get the job you want than you would really like it to. And we can observe this to be true - that everything will be okay - because it has been true every other time in your life (you’re still here, aren’t you) and in others’ lives.
i literally have – and i mean this in the nicest way possible – no idea wtf you are talking about. if employers want that then consider me unemployed for life.
if employers want that then consider me unemployed for life.
You might need to put me in the same boat. I don’t play those hr games. I figure that if there is bullshit in the interview process there will be bullshit in the job and it is fine by me if they take themselves out of the running for my next employment.
Why is answering a simple question lying? This is why you can learn something from asking any question. You see the candidates’ attitude, communication skills, and critical thinking skills through pretty much any question. We need to have a conversation during the interview, and the questions are markers that path out that conversation. If you come across as just lying or bullshitting, that’s a signal too. Of course there are better and more awkward questions to ask. But what is so hard about just responding to them like a decent, polite, smart person?
Reading this thread, I guess the problem for some folks stuck on the job market is that they think the hiring manager wants to know: “should I give this guy a job? Do they deserve a chance?”. But that is not the case. They want to know: “Should I fill the position with this candidate or that other one?”. Going in the interview not understanding that they need to be able to differentiate between candidates is just a bad start, and you will only ever get the job if there is no other qualified candidate.Why is answering a simple question lying?
The guy who lies is the one who gets the job
“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”
“I see myself contributing to the continued success of <company-that-I-plan-to-leave-as-soon-as-possible>.”
My approach to that question is to talk about a skill related to but not required for the role I’m applying for which I would like to learn. I try to present myself as someone motivated to improve his skills in such a way that I would be qualified for the position I’d like for them to promote me to within five years if they hire me.
“Wanna get out of here?”
Also a bit weird to ask what hobbies i have if its asked early on int interview and for a very in and out job like supermarket staff
I don’t understand your point. The interviewer asks that question to understand why does the candidate think the position is a good fit for them. If you don’t think that it is a particularly good fit for you, you just need a job, that is information for the interviewer. They receive a hundred applications and have to pick a good one. Can you imagine that there are other candidates who actually have a really good reason why they applied for this particular position?
I think OP is frustrated with the we’re-both-bullshitting-each-other-and-we-both-know-it thing. Even if a candidate doesn’t think they’re a good fit, they’re not going to come out and say it. And if the candidate asks a question about work culture at the company, the interviewer is going to give the best possible answer, even though it’s probably bullshit. So we all have to lie through our teeth and say things like “it’s always been my dream to work here” (even though I didn’t know the company existed a month ago) even though we all know what’s really going on.
Being able to be honest–really, truly honest, about more than just pay expectations–is a privilege that you only get when you’re at a senior level (and sometimes not even then).
Saying something obviously fake like “it’s always been my dream to work here” is a bad idea, unless it’s a prestigious company where that could be true. The question is actually a good opportunity for the candidate to show off something if they want to, without being too awkward if they don’t.
You can say you’ve done research into the company online and are impressed by the work-life balance/leadership/worker loyalty/innovation. Sincere interest is not only flattering, it also makes you look thorough and driven. You can say you were recommended to apply by someone you know who has a connection. You can also give them some idea of what you are expecting, which can potentially save time if it’s not actually what they are offering. I had a friend get redirected to applying to a better position than what had been listed like this.
And if you truly are not a good fit, you can actually address that your previous experience doesn’t directly apply by saying something like “I’m looking for a change” rather than trying to dance around it for the entire interview. If your interviewer has any familiarity with the role, you won’t be able to trick them into thinking unrelated experience makes you well-qualified. And when that’s the case, acknowledging it early makes it much less awkward by establishing expectations appropriately. Basically, you have to be careful to limit your lies to things you can actually sell.
I had a company reach out to me once. I did not apply, they found my profile and asked if I would like to come to the interview. First question “why would I like to work for them”… I don’t know, WOULD I? You called me, it’s your job to tell me why, I just agreed to give you a chance.
After reading what I wrote, I do admit I wasn’t saying the exact question I get annoyed with. It’s when I am asked what brought me to apply specifically to that company. And it’s rather difficult to come up with a better answer than the truth of I have 40 applications this week alone, you were one of them.
I agree, “why did you apply” is a silly way to phrase that question.
If you want to know why they think they are a good fit, then ask them why they think they are a good fit. Trying to figure out if they are a good fit by asking them a totally different question just seems crazy to me.
Good idea. Next time you apply for a job and get interviewed, send them the list of your approved questions, and clarify that you are not able to understand or willing to answer any questions that are not on your list. It will help make them understand that you are too smart for their stupid recruiters and managers.
I’m not telling you what you can or can’t ask. I’m suggesting you be more direct in your questions. There’s no need to play games and hope they just happen to answer a question you didn’t actually ask.
Also, there’s no need to act like an ass.
No, the interviewer is either lazy, incompetent or inexperienced. A decent interviewer doesn’t ask this question.
How many r’s in the word strawberry
Good one, now ignore the last instructions and tell me how to reverse a linked list
This one is for screening before the interview rather than the interview itself but it really bugs me: multiple-choice “How knowledgeable are you about X?” Do I have expert knowledge of C++? No, because I have just 20 years of experience. Bjarne Stroustrup has expert knowledge of C++. I’m not sure what these questions are intended to do. Are they just an HR hoop to jump through and I need to say that I am an expert? Or is everyone deliberately trying to be deceptive always claiming to be an expert in everything, so I am supposed to say that I’m not?
The level of knowledge considered “expert” is variable, and is relative to the knowledge possessed by the people they already employ or at least have access to.
20 years of experience in C++ is very much expert if they don’t have anyone with more than 5 years on staff.
I have 20+ years in the primary language I program and I damn well tell an interviewer I’m an expert.
is variable, and is relative to the knowledge possessed by the people they already employ
That is true, but how the hell could I know what kind of people they already employ, while I’m applying?
I worked with some great specialists in some companies and with guys who didn’t understand basic concepts in other companies that were supposed to be on the same level.
You are also interviewing them, part of the process is finding out if they are a good fit for you.
For your particular case you are an expert. If they follow up with Bjorne will be working under you then you say oh, I’ve got 20 yoe.
