How to handle those impossible interview questions

Gaga attributes a good deal of her early successfulness as a well-known musician and performer to her gay and lesbian supporters and is without a doubt considered to be a gay and lesbian icon

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If they observe and/or require you to explain the process, they likely are looking for unique and innovative ways of problem solving. The more types of strategies that are in any group of people, the better results and outcomes are possible.

Now all I can think about is how to describe an orange (lol)! I think that whatever questions an interviewer asks are asked for a reason. I don't think they necessarily want you to know the answer, but want to know your thought process as you work out the problem.

I would have a complete blank face if a company asked me the integer question.

After 33+ years working, I would say to just be yourself. If things don't work out, you weren't meant for that particular job/company anyway. You will find your niche. I do agree with the honesty many writers expressed. Also, be willing to take responsibilty and to show loyality.

The question of the orange. If described from a technical viewpoint, ( a sectioned fruit grown in semi-tropical regions having an abundance of juice and a tough skin making it suitable for shipment and containing vitamin C) or a more aesthetic answer, ( it's an orange fruit that's really sweet and juicy with orange colored flesh that's rather meaty) would tell me the mindset of the person answering. If hiring for a tech position it may influence my decision. the type of answer is important, not the correctness of it. PC disclaimer...Please excuse the generalization. It's used only for illustrative purposes and brevity.

I have been on both sides of the issue. First as a job seeker and now as a Human Resources Director. Trust me, there are idiots and "shining stars" on both sides of the table.
Many of our jobs are governed by civil service, so we are required to hold competitive testing. A great deal of effort is put into selecting the test to ensure it is applicable to the position. After the applicants have been narrowed down to either the top 3 or 5, we have them complete an online personality assessment. It is not a "graded" evaluation. However, it provides us with an analysis of preselected personality strengths. They are selected based upon the qualities that are vital to successful performance of the position. The online assesment is administered and analyzed by an outside very reputable company. We utilize the analysis when developing interview questions - and no - we do not use weird "off beat" quesiton. The whole purpose of the interview is to get to know the applicant. We also conduct background and reference checks.
I know it seems like a lot, but you have to understand that it is a huge investment when you hire a new employee. The laws are very scewed to protect the employee (even a bad one), especially if there is a Union involved so you must be very prudent in hiring. I have a responsibility to not only management, but to the other current employees to not hire someone that will make their lives miserable. The most important thing is to be yourself in an interview. If you can't be yourself and get the job, then you would just be miserable in it anyway.

I was once (2009)asked asked a question similar to "how would you describe an orange". I stood up, extended my hand and said, "I appreciate the opportunity to interview with XXXXX. However, when your company is ready to do a serious interview related to my qualifications pertaining to the open position, feel free to call me, you have my number" and walked out. I got a call from them offering me the job two days later. I passed.

My former employer always said his "favorite" interview question was, What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?" which supposedly can tell you something about a person's personality and ability to function as part of a team. I call bullsh*t.

I agree they’re ridiculous questions, but here are possible answers:
“Approximately how many garbage men are there in California?” (Apple)
First, it’s not politically correct to call sanitation workers garbage men. After being amused by the dumbfounded look on the interviewer’s face, say that you assume the population of CA is 20 million, of which half are adults and have addresses which require garbage pickup. Also assume that half of the adults live together (total of 7,500,000 households). Also assume that a sanitation truck can do 500 stops/day. That means that 15,000 trucks are required. Each truck has two sanitation workers: one driver and one spotter. Therefore, there are approximately 30,000 sanitation workers working the sanitation trucks in CA. However, since it’s CA we must triple that number to include management and others who push papers. So, the total number of sanitation workers in CA is about 90,000.
“Given an array of integers, find the maximum number that can be reached by summing the best possible consecutive subsequence of the array.” (Facebook)
This is the most nonsensical question of the four and reflects, in my opinion, the true uselessness of a company like Facebook that produces no product. Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea and software from his college colleagues. What else would you expect from Facebook?
“Estimate the volume of water on the Earth.” (Yahoo)
The oceans have an average depth of about 1 mile (I read that somewhere) and cover about 75% of the Earth’s surface. There are at least two ways to derive the volume: (1) calculate the surface area of the Earth and then multiply by 1 mile and then by 0.75, and (2) calculate the volume of the Earth (4/3*Pi*4,000 cubed), calculate the volume using the radius of the average bottom of the oceans (4/3*Pi*3,999 cubed), and then subtract the two results and multiply by 0.75. (Answer is about 150 million cubic miles)
“Find the anagrams in a dictionary.” (Microsoft)
This is the second most ridiculous question of the four. Since Microsoft asked it, I suspect they were looking for the interviewee to say he/she would use Microsoft’s Bing (which is mostly useless and far inferior to Google) to look up the answer.
About the orange question, I’d say that it’s the only fruit with a color that rhymes with no other word in the English language and then watch the look on the interviewer’s face as they try to figure out my answer.

I am reading a lot of negative comments about Human Resource administrators. Prior to early retirement, I was an HR director for 15 years. Any question I asked that was somewhat atypical was to get a handle on something very subjective--personality traits.

Nothing is worse than hiring a chronic malcontent or someone who thinks they are above the duties called for in the job description. If hired, they would negatively impact overall morale.

One of my favorite questions that might be considered out of the ordinary was as follows: If you could be any one of the following people, who would you choose: Hillary Clinton, Rosa Parks or Donald Trump?

I never had an interview where the applicant felt ill at ease, and turnover rate at the facility decreased by approximately 30% during my first two years of employment. My M.O. was to make each applicant not selected realize that they had impressive qualifications, but not in the not for profit, or whatever other area the deficiency existed. The "stroking" would vary in accordance with the position applied for. I would make suggestions as to more suitable industries or career choices, and if possible, provide contact people.

I've been on both sides of the fence. I've been a malcontent and an elitist. I've worked for excellent supervisors and supervisors who were a waste of skin. Job rejection can do a number on one's psyche and unless the applicant was a total jackass, he or she would leave my office feeling confident in their abilities to secure a job and maybe ace the next interview. That's how HR recruitment is done. Very time consuming, especially since an HR Director has an entire litany of responsibilities. However, if the correct people are in place, this portion of work effort is greatly decreased, leaving more time to concentrate on keeping the current staff happy, thereby reducing turnover and keeping overhead costs under control. The higher-ups love that since H.R. is typically considered an overhead expense rather than a department that is revenue producing. Hope I made my case for HR people.

During my work career I was on both ends of the interview/interviewee process numerous times. It amazed me at the responses I received when inquiring (in either role) as to why others involved in the process decided to reject/cull out applicants. Sometimes they could not even tell me why (or perhaps were unwilling to admit to). One of my "favorites," reflects the stupidity of even some of the "rules of the road/eliminators" listed in these articles: A consultant revealed to me that I was eliminated from a university vice presidency because during a final two hour interview with the president, while sitting at an office table, at one or two points I had crossed my arms on my chest. What does that indicate about anything? (Was I supposed to sit with my hands on the table for two hours? That could not possibly have been the reason for my rejection; was I supposed to sit on my hands if they weren't on the table? I and other persons frequently sit with arms crossed while talking to people; no one I know of ever recommended to me that I or others were somehow reflecting social mal-adjusted or incapable of dealing well with other individuals, or perform job tasks well, because of the habit of crossing one's arms. As a matter of fact, people frequently mentioned my ability to get along with difficult people
The bottom line is that an interview consists of a number of things (professional qualifications, ability to interaxct well with others, dressing adequately within certain profesional norms, etc.) No one factor should eliminate any candidate, particularly if (within legal norms) the interviewer finds the job applicant meets all the other qualifications and reponds well to the suggestion that the "annoying/unprofessional" quality diplayed might adversely impact their candidacy. In other words, many of even the five, eight, ten "absolute no-no's" of interviewing indicate something very shallow about the interviewing organizations (i.e. probably not very creative, employee friendly and possibly with micro-managing management; i.e., it would be distressing to work for them).

I interviewed with an airline company. They had lots of these types of questions in a group interview. Mine was "A newspaper is writing a front-page article on your life, what would the title be, and why?" other people got, what breakfast cereal would you be, what super hero would you be and what special powers would you have. It is all about thinking on your feet. Like the article said, most of the interviewers won't know the answer, they just want you to think through it and give an answer.

I recall reporting to an interview for a marketing position within a large hospitality company. When I checked in, the receptionist insisted there were no marketing positions open and there must have been a mistake. At which time, she called two managers to see if she had missed something. Well, evidently someone goofed because I ended up in a group interview for hourly jobs and during the interview, the group was asked to stand up and dance. That's right, DANCE. I walked out.

An you wonder why everything is made in China.

During a tough interview for a parts counterman, being conducted by the CEO of an automotive dealership group (the HR director was ill that day), he asked me "What would you do to make this dealership more marketable and profitable while increasing customer loyalty and cusomer positive feedback?"

I focused on rapid response to customer needs while maintaining a positive and helpful relationship with the customer or the technician working on the customers vehicle. A week later I was hired as the Parts Dept Manager...not just a counterperson. I used my quick thought of ideas to formulate a plan and within a year our sales had almost tripled, profitability and increase nearly 7% and our customer loyalty response had increased from 70.9% to the upper 90s. Technicians increased their "flag" time to over 100%. Everybody made more money!
He made me think..I got an oppurtunity & made an action plan and initiated it with his blessings. He shared in the success and it soon became a model for for the other 5 dealerships! Thanks to his question, it worked well for EVERYBODY!

Most HR people are sociopaths anyway. These kinds of questions are just a waste of time and indicative of the fact that the interviewer doesn't really know what they are doing. If someone admits that they don't even know the answer to these stupid questions, than they aren't in a position to evaluate the answers anyway. What a stupid waste of time! However, if we want the job we have to answer the stupid questions along with the pertinent quewstions. I am a career counselor and I instruct my clients to say as an answer to stupid questions, "Hey, that's a thought provoking and challenging question. I'm not sure what you are really looking for on that, but I can tell you that I am ready to meet the challenge that you have posed with this job offer. My major areas of expertise are _________ and __________. " etc. To the question, "What are your future goals?" The answer should be, "Everyone has dreams and goals, but my primary goal is that when I start working here on Monday, I will be excellent on the first task that I'm presented, and I know that if I do well you'll reward me in the future." BTW, real trained interviewers don't waste time with these "just want to see how you react" idiocies.

I avoid recruiters like the plague, but that doesn't stop them from asking dumb questions:

I once had a male president of a branch of an internationally known NGO 5 states away from me ask me right off the bat if I was willing to earn entry level despite having a degree and experience, because it was an issue for their previous employee who left said position By entry level he meant $20,000. I told him he was interviewing the wrong person.

Another time, a rather "crunchy" nonprofit HR person asked me to describe my Meyers-Briggs personality type and how it would help me "create" my ideal work temperament. I didn't get that job despite a more "normal" followup interview.

YES I AGREE WITH AMBER

Gee, could those questions, answers and ultimate decisions cause disparate impact, be questioned for job relavence, and possibly become a lawsuit?

Jumped the gun. Sorry. Regarding teeth. If an interviewee is more concerned with jewelry, expensive clothing yet his or her teeth have big spaces or look rotted, and they are not willling to purchase good dentistry to enhance their appearance and health, this speaks volumes about their priorities.

For a period of time, I was responsible for pre-interviewing candidates for a few positions in a law office. It is amazing to me that neither of the two factors we stressed were even mentioned in this article or the comments.

Those factors: 1) English proficiency and 2) teeth. If a person cannot speak without serious grammatical errors (double negatives, beginning sentences with the objective ("Me and my friend we . . . "), 3) mispronounced common words "axed" insteadof "asked," "wit" instead of "with," and "udder" for "other," and 4) the obvious, "like" this and "like" that -- How do we even consider hiring a person to speak on the phone with our clients and other attorneys -- and sometimes a judge or two? Sorry. They went to school, they had the same English book as everyone else, but they chose the lazy track.

Maybe the point of silly questions is to gauge how seriously you take yourself (ie. how far that stick goes up the backside), and how much of a fuss you make over tiny, insigificant events.

How about when they ask illegal questions? When I was unemployed, it took me a year-and-a-half to find something. In that time I was asked if I was married, if I had kids, and what religion I was. But as other posters have said, this is useful in screening the company out.

That last question (religion) was on a phone interview. I answered that I was Catholic just to see what would happen. This produced a long monologue about how the company had strong moral values, a prayer meeting every Wednesday at the office (Really? On company time?), and "Oh we have a Catholic lady in the office, she is fine with it." I thanked them, said I didn't think the job was for me and hung up.

Then I called the local EEOC office and reported them. The lady said, "Oh yeah, THAT GUY!" I'm so very glad I didn't take any offers from that place. Religion doesn't belong at work unless you work in a church. This was a title office!

I'm a recruiter at a staffing firm and while I've never asked questions this strange, I understand their intent. It's amazing how many people who seem perfectly presentable during a standard 30 minute interview will soon reveal their true colors when placed in even moderately stressful work situations.

These days, I would say that half the resumes I receive are from people that have no experience relevant to the position for which I'm hiring. Another quarter are either so littered with typos and misspellings or so incredibly vague that I rule them our immediately. By the time I get down to the people I'm actually going to call, the playing field is pretty much level in regard to skills. Personality is the one thing that is going to set you apart from the other applicants.

Unfortunately, experience will only get you so far in an interview. Asking questions that differ from the norm and shake up expectations a bit can be very useful when trying to gauge someone's personality. If you get that pissed off about an out of the ordinary interview question, what's going to happen when you're faced with an out of the ordinary work situation? I've had people whom I adored during interviews throw tantrums in training, threaten to sue clients over humidity levels, show up to work drunk, etc. It's amazing how well people can hide their crazy when they're trying to land a job.

Everyone I place on assignment is a direct reflection of me and my abilities. So like it or not, at least 50% of what I'm looking for in an interview is how well you'll present to the client.