Bizarred interview questions

[PaloAltoCougar]

Have you tried a $100 million retention bonus? Mr. Liddy says they work.

Yes, but we've learned $4.6 Million is not enough.

[creekster]

What's your favorite board game?
Settlers of Catan

If you were one of the seven dwarfs, which one would you be?
Hybrid of Sleepy/Grumpy

What is your favorite collegiate sport?
Football. Duh.

Which vice-president do you admire most?
Tie between Jefferson/Adams

Why did you pick the last book you read?
Some guy named creekster said it was good

How did I do?

I, for one, think you displayed excellent reasonaing and critical thinking skills. I am very impressed.

[cowboy]

Is the avg tenure of a CEO around 18-24 mos. at your hospital? It's amazing the turnover rate of CEOs.

We can usually get 36. CEO turnover is a huge problem. It was tempting to hire a local person who who had education and skills but no experience, then have them learn on the run. Ultimately, we decided it wasn't worth the risk.

[kccougar]

Us engineers must be an incredibly boring bunch. I have never once been asked any question remotely similar to those during a job interview. I hear things like this all the time but never really believed them.

[SeattleUte]

Yes, but we've learned $4.6 Million is not enough.

Liddy earning $137 million for running Allstate 1999-2007 is laughable. It's not like he's an irreplacable ace like Randy Johnson. Seriously, don't you think there are a lot of people who could have run that company as well as he did for, say, $2 million a year? For the love of God, how can managing Allstate be worth that kind of money? Did he get shot at? Did he regularly pull all nighters? I never heard Allstate's stock or profits set any records. In fact, the article said the stock underperformed. The only reason that Allstate isn't the most staid company imaginable is if it's been managed as poorly as AIG. It's been around forever, its insurance products tend to be boilerplate GL, auto policies, and the like. What is there to innovate?

[TripletDaddy]

Since I am involved in on-campus recruiting, I think I have conducted literally hundreds of interviews over the past 4 years. I think they are boring and tedious, so there is no way I am going to invent even more questions to ask when I can tell in the first 5 minutes if the person seems cool enough to get a fly-back to the office. The resume tells me if they are smart enough/qualified. If I don't care what board game my current co-workers are playing, I certainly won't care which board game an applicant is playing.

Am I the only one that prefers short interviews?

[SeattleUte]

Since I am involved in on-campus recruiting, I think I have conducted literally hundreds of interviews over the past 4 years. I think they are boring and tedious, so there is no way I am going to invent even more questions to ask when I can tell in the first 5 minutes if the person seems cool enough to get a fly-back to the office. The resume tells me if they are smart enough/qualified. If I don't care what board game my current co-workers are playing, I certainly won't care which board game an applicant is playing.

Am I the only one that prefers short interviews?

you couldn't pay me enough to do those interviews. Okay, maybe you could. I'd do it for $10 million.

[TripletDaddy]

you couldn't pay me enough to do those interviews. Okay, maybe you could. I'd do it for $10 million.

I am with you. I do them because, in a way, I do get paid to do them.

For BYU on-campus, I get a free flight, hotel, and car for me and my wife. The campus visits are always scheduled around a football game, so we get to attend and we use it as a chance to do a weekend date with one of our children, each of them taking their turn during the season. We usually have a recruit dinner up at Sundance or Park City, so that is nice.

For SC we get football tickets to one game a season (usually homecoming).

For fucla, we also get tickets to one game, but what am I going to do with those? I use my fucla campus visits as a chance to walk down to the Village and get a Diddy Riese.

I do a few other local schools, but stopped going to the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus events after we went late one night and needed LAPD to escort us to our cars. Yikes.

[Mormon Red Death]

We've been looking for a hospital CEO, and we have interviewed a number of candidates. The interviews have been interesting. I get tired of asking the same old questions, so I try to ask some off-the-wall questions just to see how they react.

A few of my favorites:

What's your favorite board game?
If you were one of the seven dwarfs, which one would you be?
What is your favorite collegiate sport?
Which vice-president do you admire most?
Why did you pick the last book you read?

I don't much care about the answers, it's more the reaction to the questions that interest me. What questions do you folks ask/get asked?

Why aren't you hiring Mormon Red Death?

[il Padrino Ute]

We've been looking for a hospital CEO, and we have interviewed a number of candidates. The interviews have been interesting. I get tired of asking the same old questions, so I try to ask some off-the-wall questions just to see how they react.

A few of my favorites:

What's your favorite board game?
If you were one of the seven dwarfs, which one would you be?
What is your favorite collegiate sport?
Which vice-president do you admire most?
Why did you pick the last book you read?

I don't much care about the answers, it's more the reaction to the questions that interest me. What questions do you folks ask/get asked?

I was once asked by an interviewer what my favorite color was. My answer must have thrown him off a bit because I answered "Why?"

I didn't get the job.

[Katy Lied]

Am I the only one that prefers short interviews?

At my current job, my first interview was 15 minutes.
My second interview was almost 4 hours. With the same guy in the same room.
My third interview was 2 days after I started working there.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

What's your favorite board game?
Wits and Wagers
If you were one of the seven dwarfs, which one would you be?
Happy
What is your favorite collegiate sport?
Football
Which vice-president do you admire most?
Aaron Burr
Why did you pick the last book you read?
CugarUteForum.com

[Jeff Lebowski]

Which vice-president do you admire most?
Aaron Burr

Bastard.

[il Padrino Ute]

Bastard.

A burr in your saddle, eh?

[kccougar]

At my current job, my first interview was 15 minutes.
My second interview was almost 4 hours. With the same guy in the same room.
My third interview was 2 days after I started working there.

My favorite interview was my longest. I was finishing up at Virginia Tech and did a phone interview with a guy from a firm in San Jose. We got to talking and it turned out that we both liked mountain biking and vintage BMWs. He insisted that I come to San Jose for 3 days minimum, and he wanted me to bring my bike with me. I didn't bring the bike, but I did fly out for an extended weekend. He picked me up in his South African-built BMW and we spent the first morning cruising around the bay area. Then I met his coworkers and we had lunch at a very cool german restaurant.

While I was at the office, another employee asked if I would like to play soccer that night with him and his wife on a rec team. I went by his house after work to borrow a pair of shoes, and we had a great time. After we went for pizza and beer (or Coke) with the team.

The next day, they gave me a company car to use so that I could drive to Oakland to interview w/ another office of the same company. That guy was a stuffed shirt, and I knew I didn't want to work in Oakland. So I went back to San Jose, and had a backyard bbq at my interviewers house with a few more friends. The last day he set me loose to check out housing around the area and to just look around. He knew I was married w/ 2 kids and that my wife didn't work so he also knew he couldn't pay me enough to live in San Jose. But, he was very cool about it. It was almost enough to make me reconsider.