Selecting new people or can be a stressful experience. Many organisations maintain extensive procedures to try to find the right person for the right job or even hire specialised consultants to do the job for them. In interviews strange questions are asked that no normal person would ever dare to ask anyone: “What are your three trademarks?”, “What are your biggest mistakes?” or “What is the meaning of life” and “What is the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow?”. Some even resort to pseudo-scientific personality testing to throw some insights into these strangers across the table.
The problem recruiters have is that it is a lot easier to not hire someone than to fire them later, which leads to complicated processes to reduce this risk. Job interviews are thus a bizarre environment that often bares no resemblance to a real professional situation. The fear of taking a risk with a person and a lack of self-confidence in their own people skills motivates recruiters to resort to pseudo-scientific tools and hiding behind bizarre interviewing techniques.
Every company gets the employees they deserve.
Specially in a customer service related position a person’s ability to smile and understand customers is more important than the results in a personality test or the answer to weird questioning. Asking strange questions only motivates the applicant to bend the truth. Recruitment methods should as much as possible be normal human interaction as ultimately every company gets the employees they deserve.
What is your strangest job interview moment, as a recruiter or applicant? Share your thoughts with us in the box below.