Most job-seekers wouldn't mind job interviews if they knew that they could go on an interview and actually talk about the job.
When I teach people how to interview job applicants, I ask them to think about times when they've hired a plumber or an electrician. We would never ask a plumber "What's your greatest weakness?"
We give plumbers and electricians a lot more respect than we give job-seekers. Obviously, plumbers and electricians deserve the respect they get and a lot more -- but job-seekers deserve respect, too.
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Somehow a huge number of HR people, recruiters and department managers have all fallen under the same delusion. They have grown up with the idea that the company is mighty and job-seekers are a dime a dozen.
I was the head of HR for a Fortune 500 company. I could see that the only way to hit our company's goals was to hire amazing people. Once you decide to hire great people, you will quickly see that you have to bend.
You have to treat job-seekers like equals, and that is hard for many interviewers to do.
Here are five of the most offensive interview questions, along with a sample answer for each question.
If you hear all of these questions in the same interview, you may want to stand up and leave the interview -- but you can make that decision in the moment. Listen to your body!
The people who ask these tired and brainless questions aren't bad people. They just don't know any better.
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The Five Worst Interview Questions:
1. With so many good candidates, why should I hire you?
2. What's your greatest weakness?
3. What would your last boss say about you?
4. Where do you see yourself in five years?
5. What do you bring to our department?
All five of these obnoxious questions have something in common. None of these questions has anything to do with the job! They are questions no one would dare to ask a plumber or electrician.
These questions demand that a job-seeker genuflect and prove their worth as people -- unrelated to their ability to do the job -- and that's not something good employers require job-seekers to do.
Good employers ask job applicants about their experience and how they would approach the job they're interviewing for.
Bad employers tell job-seekers to put on their tap shoes and perform! They want you to tell them why they should hire you instead of other applicants you will never meet.
In other words, they want you to grovel and say something like "You should hire me because I'm smart, loyal and hard-working!" We are adults.
Adults don't ask other adults to bow down to them, but unfortunately some poorly-trained interviewers never got that memo.
When you ask someone about their weaknesses, you commit a grave social error. Only in certain faith traditions do people believe that humans come to earth with weaknesses, for starters.
Many other faith traditions believe that babies come to our planet perfectly equipped to do their work here. They don't have weaknesses. Who is an interviewer to put their "everybody has weaknesses" viewpoint on you?
Even if you feel you have weaknesses, why would you share yours with a complete stranger?
It's insulting to ask a job applicant "What would your last boss say about you?" This is another interview question that comes from the worldview "all bosses are superior to all employees."
Who cares what your last boss thought of you? Your last boss may have been fired for embezzling for all this interviewer knows.
When did it become important to pay close attention to what other people think of you, such that you can repeat their impressions on a job interview? Interviewers don't realize how impolite and brainless their most-beloved interview questions can be.
Old-school interviewers love to ask job applicants "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
This done-to-death interview question needs to die. Why on earth would anybody care about your five-year plan? They aren't making you an offer to work for them for five years. You could be gone in three months.
Not only is your five-year plan none of the interviewer's business, but these days five years is too long a planning horizon to make sense for most people anyway.
"What do you bring to our department?" is just another way to get a job-seeker to trumpet their own fabulousness -- something no job-seeker should be asked to do.
The employer is not going to spend the interview begging the applicant to consider working for them, and you shouldn't beg for the job, either.
How To Answer The Five Worst Interview Questions:
1. With so many good candidates, why should I hire you?
How about I tell you what I understand the job to be, and then you can let me know where I'm off base?
2. What's your greatest weakness?
I used to think I had weaknesses, and I used to read books and take classes and worry about things I don't do well. Then it hit me that there will always be things I don't do well, and that my job is to get better at the things I do well and love to do, like graphic design.
3. What would your last boss say about you?
She would probably say that I was a positive force in the department and also challenged her to see things a different way at times. What would your boss say about you?
4. Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years if I'm still alive I'll be working on something important alongside smart and enthusiastic people -- what about you?
5. What do you bring to our department?
I love to reinvent processes and I'm excited about the possibilities for doing that here, if that's important to you. Let me know your questions about my background -- here's another copy of my resume!
