Worst job interview answers 25

[Bernoulli31]

Just wanted to share this..
We recently had a young grad in our office to interview for an entry level mechanical engineer position.

Q: What type of systems would you like to work on / are you interested in?
A: HVAC! I want to design HVAC systems. I have a passion for it and want to do pursue my career in HVAC.
Q: What does HVAC stand for?
A: Heating, Ventilation,.. and.. err.. hmmm... I forgot!

I design aqueducts in a parallel universe.

 

[coloeng]

wroggent,

As IRstuff indicated, he seemed to already be in retirement mode and didn't indicate that he would be very motivated to actually do the job. Not an age issue, he was probably in his early forties. The person we hired was in early fifties.

 

[djm883]

In 2011 when newer grads were still having trouble finding jobs, we had an entry level position open. The candidate graduated 6 months prior with no work history on his resume after graduating. An obvious question in the interview was to ask what have you been doing since you graduated. His response was that he has been playing video games. The interview didn't last much longer after that.

In the same round of interviews, I found a candidate that was out of school for 1 year with no engineering jobs after graduation. He was working at a local store. Something on his resume caught my attention. He said he was doing some side work with a hobby of his. We hired him and he has been great.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

For those who didn't know how to answer a question (likely because the point/purpose of the question was unclear)... I have begun answering those with "The question is a bit vague, but I'll try to answer it in a specific direction, so feel free to correct me if it's not the type of answer you were looking for...". The last time I started my response this way, the interviewer added at the end of my response "That's okay, the question was intentionally vague to see where you would go with it." In cases like that, I try to cover multiple directions from a 10,000-foot view, and the interviewer can lead me down a specific path for more detail, if that's what they desire.

Sometimes a question is a test onto itself, and sometimes it's just a poorly formed question.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[jari001]

@Bernoulli31
Just some good natured needling, but If you should have the misfortune of finding a fresh graduate that DOES think your company is good and is interested in the industry you are a part of, what will you do? I would say that only someone that just wants any job would even venture to give such a glib answer - the stakes are too high from the candidate's side to do something so frank, especially if they are a fresh grad/new grad.

 

[Bernoulli31]

Well, of course, and my post was not meant to be taken 100% seriously. But it would be refreshing.



I design aqueducts in a parallel universe.

 

[racookpe1978]

Was invited by a headhunter from the corporate offices in Orlando to interview for a field engineering position headquartered in Pittsburgh. Didn't know the company, the position itself, but had been in power plant field construction and repair (hardhat & steel-toed boots engineering, never any calculations) for about 25 years at that point, so I figured it was worth the trip - and since they were paying for the trip, it was worth their money for me to spend it on me on my potential employment.

Anyway, got to the Pittsburgh airport hotel lobby for the interview a little earlier than my future boss and his boss, and wandered over to look at an abstract welded steel design in the lobby. So, the first thing they see is me bent over looking at the bottom of a steel "tree" to see how the leaves and branches were bent, curled over and welded. They didn't have many technical questions after that - More like, "When can you start?", "How many days a year can you work on the road?" and "How much do you want?" If they had asked "design" questions, or beam and moment calculations, I'd have failed. I could have pulled out enough heat transfer and power plant theory from left-over nuclear power plant training to manage a little bit. But practical field safety, job site scheduling and coordination, welding and machining and technical supervision? Easy.

 

[aap2]

I was caught off guard once when I was asked "What is my sense of humor?" I thought it was a question that wouldn't really affect the process to begin with, so I gave a too honest of an answer. Needless to say, it was probably the wrong answer.

 

[WARose]

I sat in on this one:

Guy giving the interview: "What is it you like the most about the position?"

Candidate: "I like the fact you guys take Fridays off."

Guy giving the interview: "Really? What kind of hobbies do you have?"

Candidate: [100% serious] "Drinking. Getting Friday off lets me get the ball rolling early for the weekend."

And believe it or not: they actually made him an offer.

 

[JohnRBaker]

It's like what I assume was a joke, about the guy applying for entrance to medical school. They asked him, "What do you you expect to be doing 10 years from now?" He answered, "Well, since it's Wednesday afternoon, I expect to be out on the golf course."

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[WARose]

In 2011 when newer grads were still having trouble finding jobs, we had an entry level position open. The candidate graduated 6 months prior with no work history on his resume after graduating. An obvious question in the interview was to ask what have you been doing since you graduated. His response was that he has been playing video games. The interview didn't last much longer after that.

I got a bone to pick with this......the answer that guy gave is ridiculous, but a lot of times: so is the question. I've heard this one when I have been between jobs for a grand total of a [red]month[/red]. (And about all I've had a chance to do is maybe get some CEUs.) And for a lot of people (for just about any length of time) it's hard to do anything because money is tight. In my case I've been lucky: I'm financially well off......and one time when I was between jobs I was a part-time grad student so that allowed me to focus on that 100%. But for someone who has finished their education and is licensed......what the heck are they supposed to do? Especially in a indeterminate period that you really can't plan around. If you (for example) took a on-line course that required 8 hrs a day attendance.....guess what? You might have to drop it if they guy who asked you that question offers you a job! Silly question.

Another time a guy asked that and I just told him the truth: took a vacation, got back in the weight room more regular, and got some outdoor work done. And I'm simultaneously thinking: if you don't like that answer.....too damn bad.

 

[IRstuff]

"the answer that guy gave is ridiculous but a lot of times: so is the question"

Not really, it weeded someone who should have answered with, "I sent out 1573 resumes, but got no responses." Someone who couldn't come up with the correct answer for a ludicrous question shouldn't get hired.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[WARose]

Not really, it weeded someone who should have answered with, "I sent out 1573 resumes, but got no responses." Someone who couldn't come up with the correct answer for a ludicrous question shouldn't get hired.

And guess what? The "I sent out 1573 resumes..." reply isn't the correct one either. (At least from what I have heard.) The correct answer is something about improving yourself and your job skills. But for someone for whom money is tight.....that can be a tough to do considering the facts I discussed above.

 

[IRstuff]

Either would be still be better than the playing video game response.

Few gamers are playing without Internet, so the respondent could have taken advantage of lots of MOOCs.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[WARose]

Either would be still be better than the playing video game response.

No argument there.

 

[IRstuff]

I think the notion that one would immediately recognize that they're off the air for a long enough time to start thinking about job-improvement classes is a bit far fetched. At any instant in time, an optimistic person is thinking they're going to get a response and return to work soon; it'll be months before one realizes that nothing is going to be happening soon.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[spieng89]

Here's one:

Interviewer: What's you dream car?
Me: 1st generation Toyota Tacoma
Interviewer: **laughs obnoxiously long**

Guess I was supposed to say some sort of luxury car...

5 years later...I didn't get that job offer, but have my 1st gen Tacoma...life is good

 

[CWB1]

JMO but I couldn't give a dam less what someone does outside office hours so long as its legal, but nice to know those holier than the rest of us. Personally I respect honesty more than the drivel most would claim, those that need to bs in interviews tend to be very poor in technical matters.

 

[controlnovice]

I was interviewing for a job I knew I didn't want after the first hour. Technically it would have been interesting, but in that first hour, they pretty much said 10 hour days for 6 days a week...salaried.
During lunch, the general conversation part of the interview, the topic of movies came up. I said my favorite was "Falling Down".

I didn't get an offer.

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

CWB, would you have preferred if the guy said he masturbated? There's a time and place for everything, and while you shouldn't BS, telling the whole truth isn't much better. I have no doubt the guy played video game sin his off-time... I would to... but if his first inclination is to go to video games rather than some self-learning exercise, then he probably didn't do much learning. If there's not some modicum of self-teaching during a time when you have no job, I take that as a sign of how they'll use their down time while still at work.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[bridgebuster]

Years ago, I interviewed a kid for an entry level position as a construction inspector. He had two questions:

1. What time is lunch?
2. Plans, What are these for?