Transcript
Speaker: Hi everybody, my name is Fate and welcome to today's top 10.
Speaker: It's a weekly show where we can talk about your stories, my stories, rank them from one to 10, have a laugh and maybe some realization or change in mindset along the way.
Speaker: So be sure to follow us in our social media and let's go on with the show.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to another episode of today's top 10 and this week's topic is about sharing the weirdest or most uncommon interview questions that you've been asked.
Speaker: Some of the questions that came in are bordering on offensive and weird definitely and I want to thank all of the participants who joined this week's theme or shared
Speaker: about this week's theme.
Speaker: I really appreciate it and so let us start with a simple one.
Speaker: Top 10 at the 10th spot is can you tell a joke?
Speaker: As someone who's not... I mean I do not consider myself as someone who's funny or humorous.
Speaker: This is probably one that's weird and really hard to answer like top of my head.
Speaker: It's gonna be hard to think of a joke that's gonna be HR appropriate because if this were a job interview, you definitely want that to be HR appropriate because you want to make a good first impression.
Speaker: But at the same time, if it fails and it's like a dun dun dun,
Speaker: that's a fail but there you go can you tell a joke at number 10 at number nine is what is your hidden talent i was asked this question during an interview and it's like uh i am really not sure
Speaker: It's not something that we often think about, I guess.
Speaker: If it's related to somehow, can you tell a joke?
Speaker: It's not something that you can answer at the top of my head, but this is what we call your oddball questions.
Speaker: Like when you go in an interview or when someone is being trained to do interviews, they are actually...
Speaker: advice to ask one oddball question or two but ideally an interview should be based on what we call competency-based questions because you are interviewing people to hire them so that being the case we go to number
Speaker: Which is, how heavy do you think this building weighs?
Speaker: And the person who shared this said like, oh, I'm confused.
Speaker: I thought I was applying for a call center position.
Speaker: And yeah, that's another oddball question to see how you react under pressure or to see if you get caught off guard easily.
Speaker: And I don't know, anything that involves math is probably something that's going to be hard for me personally.
Speaker: At number seven, we have, it wasn't a question I was asked, but I hear someone got this from an interview.
Speaker: Describe the color blue to a blind person and its cousin or sister describe the color red to a person who's been blind since birth.
Speaker: So it's a tough one, but it's something that you can probably answer in creative ways.
Speaker: The thing with oddball questions is that there is really no right or wrong answer and so it's really just about how you deliver it.
Speaker: If it's delivered in a cohesive logical sort of manner you should be good to go.
Speaker: Six.
Speaker: Oh no.
Speaker: So this one is probably very very common especially here in the Philippines.
Speaker: If you make it or if you make it to work despite flooding your area you're glorified and that's called hard working.
Speaker: That's how messed up employment in the Philippines is because about employment you would be asked like would you still go to work?
Speaker: if uh if there was an emergency would you still come come to work so that is the question right there so yeah of course you would say yes because you want to get the job and people or employer the company or your trainer or your hr would hold you accountable to that answer because oh you said during your interview that you'll be
Speaker: willing to work on weekends on holidays even if there is a flood or whatnot so it's a trap so definitely a trap and what
Speaker: Oh, that's now we're going to top five, the top five.
Speaker: So this is a question that's asked out of nowhere.
Speaker: What is 17.5% of 440?
Speaker: Again, it's math and I would find that difficult to answer.
Speaker: But the one who shared this said she was given a minute to impute mentally.
Speaker: No calculators, no pen and paper.
Speaker: she was able to answer correctly and this is for applying for the role of an executive assistant to the ceo she said that she didn't get the job uh and said that her ask for the price is too high so but good job in calculating it without any uh calculator that's definitely a very good skill at number four is
Speaker: Why is your UP grad pick your profile picture in LinkedIn and it's said with an irk?
Speaker: Yes, the university is included in the question because it seems that the interviewer was biased against the school.
Speaker: Those are definitely cardinal rules of interviewing.
Speaker: You should never put your personal opinions.
Speaker: out in the open like that because well it's not really something that's necessary for the job you're applying for unless of course you have certain qualifiers for people who should come from certain schools but typically
Speaker: That is not something we want to hear.
Speaker: And then we have at number three is being asked.
Speaker: So what happened to your salary?
Speaker: Now, the person who contributed this question clarified that it was coming from someone who's trying to give them money.
Speaker: financial advice and she kind of really felt offended about this question because she was with her husband and I personally would also be offended like these questions are really
Speaker: not something that you should be asking out of the blue.
Speaker: It's very taboo and it's very unethical, especially if it's being asked in a professional environment.
Speaker: So there is that.
Speaker: Another is
Speaker: Not in a question format, but more of a, again, an oddball thing, statement.
Speaker: Tell me how you'd sell ice to an Eskimo.
Speaker: So most of these kinds of questions typically come up.
Speaker: with sales accounts or if the job that you're applying for is for a sales position, you'd probably be asked this question to see how you would react, how you can highlight things about the product or whatnot.
Speaker: So definitely that is something that
Speaker: That's really odd or weird.
Speaker: Especially here in the Philippines where there is no snow.
Speaker: There's no Eskno.
Speaker: Not very common.
Speaker: And at number three is... Hold on.
Speaker: We have... Excuse me.
Speaker: We have...
Speaker: If you were a food, what type of food would you be and why?
Speaker: A little weird.
Speaker: Not very common to ask.
Speaker: And it's gonna kinda catch you off guard sometimes.
Speaker: But yeah, that's what happens.
Speaker: And number two, we have the question, why should we not hire you?
Speaker: So...
Speaker: It's kind of a question that you need to think about because th is is something that would often
Speaker: merit responses that put you on the negative side of things and so sometimes it's gonna be tricky to answer so how would you answer that question let me know in the comments and number one spot is do you have a boyfriend or husband so the person who contributed this gave us context and she's from Colombia
Speaker: So she says in Colombia, it's very normal in all situations, including in the work environment, to ask about your family situation.
Speaker: Huge culture shock for me because in the US culture, it's pretty forbidden to ask these kinds of personal questions as part of the interview process.
Speaker: And she goes on to clarify that they don't tend to ask this in the US during interviews to try to be fair and keep discrimination out of the hiring process because there are well-documented, subtle, but impactful biases in hiring.
Speaker: For instance, women of childbearing age
Speaker: might be viewed skeptically as in i wonder if this person is going to need to go maternity leave or if they have kids while working here so once you get hired people do ask you this just not in a direct way as i was asked in colombia they'd most likely they're most likely to ask where do you live
Speaker: Or do you live with someone?
Speaker: Not do you have a boyfriend or husband?
Speaker: And that's number one on our most uncommon or weird interview question list.
Speaker: Next week, the topic is very much related to this as this question has given birth to really odd or difficult.
Speaker: really the worst types of interviews ever so if you have anything to add for next week's top 10 something that you have experienced some type of interview that left you dumbfounded offended then please do share that and a lot of thank you again for listening to this week's podcast see you next week bye
