Interview Questions

I want to start a segment on some of the interview questions that people have heard during their job searches. I’ll lay out some of the most common interview questions I’ve heard. Then, I’ll answer them honestly like you’ve always wanted to. No advice or scripted answers, just the same answers that you usually give in your head, out loud. If you can relate to any of these, feel free to comment and share some of your stories!

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

“I know I’ve already read your cover letter, resume, and application,

 but please tell me everything about yourself for the third or fourth time so

 I don’t have to think about what questions to ask.”

How did you hear about the position?

“Our HR department wants us to keep statistics, so I’m required to 

task this question. Yes, even though I can see what website you applied through...

 and even though you answered this on the application already.”

Why do you want this job?

Because I need money to pay my bills.

What are your greatest professional strengths?

Correct answer: I enjoy taking on the workload of 2-3 people,

 forgoing benefits, and staff pizza parties!

Tell me about a challenge or conflict you've faced at work, and how you dealt with it.

“Are you crazy?”

What's a time you disagreed with a decision that was made at work?

“Are you going to follow to the directions I give you? Or are you going

 to incite a riot every time I change something?”

How would your boss and co-workers describe you?

“Seriously, are you crazy?”

If you were an animal, which one would you want to be?

If you looked up meaningless, “edgy” interview questions in a Buzzfeed

 article, which one would be the least likely to warrant a relevant response?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

“Will you pledge yourself entirely to this company, even if we 

won’t commit to giving you time off or benefits until 6 months in?”

Do you have any questions for us?

This is your opportunity. Flip some of these silly questions around on them. 

Assert dominance.

That’s all for now. I’d like to showcase more questions like this in the future, so please send me the craziest questions you’ve been asked in an interview!

Interviews require questions to be asked and answered, but it’s a little silly that every employer uses the same handful of questions. Even better are the articles that dictate exactly what answers you’re supposed to give. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose if there are “correct” answers? Is this an opportunity for you to get to know me as an employee and person, or is it a test with rehearsed answers? I’m sure interviewers mean well, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t groan inside every time I hear them.

What would your honest responses be?

The Job Hunt: For Beginners

Virtually everybody has had that first job, usually as a teenager. You’re so proud, you’re finally contributing to the community and society in a real way. You’re important, you’re free! That is... once you finally find someone willing to hire a 14-year-old with no experience.

I was unusually young when I first tried my hand at the job market. I was around 12-13 when I filled out my first few applications - typical jobs that you’d expect at that age: ice cream shops, grocery stores, tourist shops downtown, etc. It turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected. Gone was the era of stopping by businesses and asking to hand your resume to the manager like I’d been taught. Even the “mom & pop” shops referred me to their corporate website and refused to talk to me. But, I kept trying. I didn’t have the connections to start up a lawn-mowing business or a lemonade stand, just family members as references and a determined attitude.

After the first few summers went by without any luck, I started getting discouraged. All of the kids my age in movies and television shows have these cool summer jobs! Making friends, earning money on the side, embarking on classic summer job shenanigans, why couldn’t I find anything? Well, child labor laws are largely to blame for that. Don’t get me wrong, child labor laws are necessary. But the unfortunate downside is that very few people would bother to hire someone under 18, let alone 14. Most laws put strict and often backwards limits on the hours we could work and the tasks we could do. For example, I could work until 11pm on a school night, but I wasn’t allowed to take out the trash. I was in charge of the welfare of children, but I couldn’t work more than 4 hours straight. So why would someone hire a person with all of these restrictions, even if they are allowed to pay them substantially less than minimum wage? Don’t even get me started there. Most places would happen upon my age and reject me right then and there, sometimes in the middle of an interview.

The places that did interview me? Most of them were nuts. You don’t have any experience to go off of when you’re hiring young people, so most of them put candidates through odd personality exercises to see if they “fit the brand.” This ice cream shop I interviewed at asked me to sing Row Row Row Your Boat as loudly as I could in a shop full of people. I guess I wasn’t eccentric enough to serve ice cream, so I didn’t get that job.

Finally, at 16 I landed a job at a resort water park as a lifeguard, which still took 2 rounds of interviews. And let me tell you, I was not qualified to administer first aid, serve as a first-responder, or watch over small children's lives at 16. I was terrified most of the time. Also, 16-year-old girls in Baywatch style red one-pieces and creepy, middle-aged dads did not mix well. I would have preferred to work at a mall store or a smoothie stand, something with less responsibility and baggier clothes. But alas, that’s the only job I could get at that young age, and I was grateful.

Your first job is always rough, and at some level it’s supposed to be! It builds grit and maturity, and it’s a great starting point for jobs later on. But between stringent corporate policies and nutty managers, it’s a lot harder than it looks in the movies. These days even small, kid-friendly businesses like dog walking are dominated by apps that require you to be 18+, so what are they to do? Stick to your allowance, and ignore the casual “when I was your age I worked in a steel mill” stories from your relatives. That was a different time, and they’re to blame for the crazy child labor laws anyways, so the fault is on them. ;)

My Job Description

For my first blog post, I might as well lay out the mission and the circumstances in which I’m starting this.

This blog is not a platform for me to whine, complain, and yell about the job hunting experience today. Rather, I hope to accomplish a few things:

1. I want to provide a forum for people who are going through the same experiences - to express their concerns. I cannot be alone in this, and I don’t want others to feel that way. We aren’t losers who struggle for months to find even entry level jobs, we are overcoming some major hurdles.
2. This will also work as a great way to show your friends and family the experiences that millions of us go through in the job hunt today. Things have changed dramatically, and maybe reading my posts will encourage them to cut you some slack. We are trying, we really really are.
3. Finally, just like pay or working conditions, the more we share our experiences the more likely change is to happen. Who knows, maybe employers will look at how their processes affect workers and make positive changes. Honest conversation about what exactly job hunting today entails can also educate younger job hunters about the journey that lies ahead – but hopefully it doesn’t stay this way for long.

Additionally, here are some ethics of mine in writing these posts:

• I will not use any company or employee’s names. I may describe the work that they do if the context demands it, but only as much as is necessary to tell the story. My intentions (seen above) do not include bashing these employers, they have their own struggles when it comes to to today’s hiring processes.
• I will not embellish or lie about these experiences. That’s silly and it doesn’t further this cause.
• I will not tolerate shameful commenting on these posts. I encourage people to share their experiences, but I will not have people shaming or down-playing others’ stories. If you think that they are silly or that we brought it on ourselves, fine. But I bet even you can relate to a lot of this, so just don’t bother. Again, it doesn’t further this cause.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s why I’m starting this. I have recently been bamboozled out of a job that the employer promised was mine. My husband and I started looking for jobs in larger cities than the ones we were from - searching for bigger and better opportunities. We loved our town, but we saw the cap that it would put on our careers if we stayed. After a few months of looking and saving up, I got a job through a staffing agency at a government office in Philadelphia, PA, so we quit our jobs and moved to the city of brotherly love. 

Once we moved in and got settled, I got a call from the staffing agency saying that my background check had been rejected. There was a very small and insignificant blight on it, which I had discussed with the hiring managers at length before I accepted the job. They assured me repeatedly that it was fine, that I had already passed the clearances that I would need to pass, and that it wouldn’t be a problem. Low and behold, when it did turn out to be a problem a month later, the company told me that because they only hire for government agencies, there was nothing they could do to help me. Every other job they were filling would reject me for the same reason. “Oh well, sorry.”

So, having moved several states over for this job, I was thrust back into the job market. At least I had a degree and a solid work history, right? Wrong. Things are looking up, but it has been a struggle for us to get on our feet after that happened. So I continue with the job hunt, hoping that someday this move will have been worth something. My husband is having a worse time than me, he will be the subject in a lot of these stories, too.

With all of this experience being slammed by companies and ghosted from applications that I’d spent hours on, I figured I might as well put it to good use. I found a lot of blogs with advice for job seekers, but none of them were really truthful about the horrid experiences of those searching. No advice here, except to KEEP GOING. That’s all I’ve got, because at the end of the day, very little of the process is in your control. Most of it is pure luck, so don’t get discouraged about your resume or cover letter. Keep going, and check in with us from time to time to vent and air out your concerns about the hurdles and challenges you’re facing. You are not alone.