65 Job Interview Questions So Bizarre, You Won’t Believe They’re Real
Interviewer: What is the binary equivalent of ?
Me: You want me to convert that number to binary, right now?
Interviewer: Take as much time as you need.
…and that was the first of many strange questions…
In general, the whole “why do you want to work here” question. Because I’m f*****g poor and need money, we both know that!
I was in an interview for a clothing store in the mall, and they asked us what store had the best customer service.
If I said their store, I looked like a suck up (not to mention it was a group interview) but I felt awkward saying another store…
they also asked which had the worst. I said the dollar store. Safe answer.
I had one f****n’ nutball interviewer ask me if I would be able to handle the weeds around his store. Which would’ve been all well and good if I was applying for a gardening or landscaping position. But I wasn’t. I was applying for a computer sales/front desk customer service position at a computer store in a local city.
On and on he went about the g*****n weeds, like he was at war with them or something. And I’m thinking, like, dude, this is a computer sales position. Shouldn’t you be asking me stuff about computers? He barely did.
I’ve never been more happy to not get a job in my life. Sometimes rejection is a good thing.
I had an interview a few weeks ago and the last question was ‘if you were an emoji, which one would you be?’ Thought that was kinda weird.
I have a direct report that when he interviews people, he asks them to sell the pen like Wolf on Wall Street. Cringy as s**t. They are not directly sales positions either (blue collar work).
I had an interview at a VERY small company (~5 people). It was this guy who thought very high and mighty of himself who apparently only hired women. Not only did he make fun of my school I just graduated from (because it wasn’t ivy League), but asked about my plans on starting a family because he didn’t want to hire me and have me leave like the last person. It’s super illegal to ask that. I could not get out of there fast enough.
I guess he scared all the other candidates away because after telling me he was moving on I got a call asking if I still wanted the job. No thank you sir.
Maybe he was going for mechanically inclined. Like are you naturally intuitive about how mechanical things work.
All that said, not sure why he would ask that of someone with your background in engineering. Seems like maybe he had a list of questions to ask and that one was next… weird
I got asked what my sign was by a CTO one time. Like my astrology sign…..
Not stupid but definitely meant more in a negative manner “how would we measure your commitment to us”.
In 1990, right out of college, interviewing for a computer programming job – “What kind of car do you want to be driving five years from now?”.
After drilling into a bunch of DNS questions, I learned my interviewer did not know that the hosts file skips DNS entirely — no DNS ever happens, it’s just a lookup map handled by the OS. That was… fun.
Best actor portraying Batman.
I answered Keaton because he is the first Batman I watched and liked the Tim Burton version as a kid. Hiring manager was delighted to hear that as she couldn’t stand Bale and how he was always the popular choice. I almost pumped my fist.
I still didn’t get the job.
I applied for an auditor position at a solid waste removal company. They tested me and then had ride on one of the solid waste trucks. I live in South Florida , the trucks and there over 75 of them. Had no a/c , I was dressed in a jacket & tie , I was inside the truck an hour and it literally got to 115 degrees . .. I asked the interviewer, aren’t there trucks with a/c no only the inspector, also they are men and should be able to put with the heat. Are you man enough to put up with the heat ? I said , I would b if I lived in the Middle Ages and there was no a/c. But I’m not Barbaric , thank you have a great day. A day later they called for a second interview😳😳.
OP, that was a poorly worded “tell me about a time when you had to make engineering decisions under extremely tight deadline or on the spot.”
They were looking for “more than book-learning and extensive time to prepare to dazzle” — they wanted “rubber met road and you showed your skill under fire.”
