Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Applied last week for an office job through a multinational recruitment firm, using their online form. Wading my way through the process – viz mainly cutting and pasting chunks of my CV into their tiny boxes – soon became tedious. When eventually, I got to the last online page to fill out – surprise, surprise – they actually wanted me to provide written answers to what are surely the four hoariest old interview questions in the world.
So I got thinking: surely some public minded individual out there has composed, and then posted online, model answers to such hoary old questions? Unlike with the download-a-uni-essay “cheat” sites, I can’t see how there could be any ethical problems using such a service to pin down a job; after all, if one uses sheer originality, and one’s own brain only, to compose the answer, one is very clearly NOT a “team player”.
Alas, my Google search turned up nothing of any use. It did turn up, however, an American food-court-in-the-mall sounding outfit that has a seriously scary application form that asks some hoary questions, and much more (one wonders what they may have left for the interview – a cloth hood and polygraph hook-up, perhaps?).
I’m posting the four hoary interview questions then, as a kind of challenge/competition for readers – model answers, please [email me] (no prizes, other than the winner being posted here, which will in turn hopefully lead to the answers finding broader Internet fame, and doing a public service too, of course.
If you’re up to the challenge, here’s your raw material:
(Note: in case it’s not immediately obvious, each question follows the same 3 part pattern: the situation, [your] actions and the outcome).
1. Tell us about a time when you found it difficult to deal with a customer. Describe the situation and your actions. What was the result?
2. Describe a situation where you were required to complete many urgent tasks within a tight deadline? What did you do to ensure a quality outcome in the work you produced? What was the end result?
3. Tell us about a time when you were required to understand and interpret complex policies and procedures. What actions did you take to ensure your understanding of the information? What was the outcome?
4. Describe a situation where you have set yourself personal targets to achieve a specific goal. What goals did you set and how did you achieve them? What was the end result?
So I got thinking: surely some public minded individual out there has composed, and then posted online, model answers to such hoary old questions? Unlike with the download-a-uni-essay “cheat” sites, I can’t see how there could be any ethical problems using such a service to pin down a job; after all, if one uses sheer originality, and one’s own brain only, to compose the answer, one is very clearly NOT a “team player”.
Alas, my Google search turned up nothing of any use. It did turn up, however, an American food-court-in-the-mall sounding outfit that has a seriously scary application form that asks some hoary questions, and much more (one wonders what they may have left for the interview – a cloth hood and polygraph hook-up, perhaps?).
I’m posting the four hoary interview questions then, as a kind of challenge/competition for readers – model answers, please [email me] (no prizes, other than the winner being posted here, which will in turn hopefully lead to the answers finding broader Internet fame, and doing a public service too, of course.
If you’re up to the challenge, here’s your raw material:
(Note: in case it’s not immediately obvious, each question follows the same 3 part pattern: the situation, [your] actions and the outcome).
1. Tell us about a time when you found it difficult to deal with a customer. Describe the situation and your actions. What was the result?
2. Describe a situation where you were required to complete many urgent tasks within a tight deadline? What did you do to ensure a quality outcome in the work you produced? What was the end result?
3. Tell us about a time when you were required to understand and interpret complex policies and procedures. What actions did you take to ensure your understanding of the information? What was the outcome?
4. Describe a situation where you have set yourself personal targets to achieve a specific goal. What goals did you set and how did you achieve them? What was the end result?
