Stupid Questions
So why do you want to work for <insert company name here>?
Well, I have outgoings of x and you are offering me an income of y which is greater than x and so will sustain my lifestyle, you know this, I know this but instead lets offer some complete twaddle about you being market leaders in whatever bullshit area I can think of and gush about how you nurture your staff and how it’s an environment I could work in. Or perhaps we could dispense with the question and I could have that 5 minutes of my life back. Not really sure what the relevance is.
Where do you want to be in 5 years time?
Exactly where I am now. Dossing about on an income provided for me for not actually turning up to work. Absolutely ideal if you ask me, however, this is not a viable long term solution hence me pitching up on your doorstep offering to pimp my services for obscene amounts of cash. Oh, I’m sorry, you’re trying to work out if I’m ambitious or not, well in that case I see myself running the company in 5 years and I think I have the tallent and the balls to do it. Next infuriatingly stupid question please?
God I hate interviews.
yes of course you hate them, though usualy not as much as the poor idiot sat on the other side of the table that is asking mind numbing questions because someone once told them to do it. What they really want to know is (i) Can you do the job, (ii) Will you keep coming in if I keep paying you negating the need to replay this stupid scene in 3 months a (iii) Are you going to roughly fit in with my current team reducing the amount of inter-personal stress that require management input to resolve.
The problem is that (i) can’t be answered without you trying it for a while so really is best guess based on the lies in the cv, (ii) is transient and even if the candidate believes it to be true it might end up not being when they get in on the first day and discover all the lies on the job description and (iii) you’re not really allowed to ask about properly because it might be seen as discriminatory in some way if an incredibly fine line is not trod.
So make the best of it, answer the banal questions like a good candidate and let the poor interviewer get back to browsing the web
Having sat in what seems like hundreds of interviews as an interviewer I know how tedious it is for them too. There were times where I felt like saying “Right, I’m going to read blogs on my iPhone for the next hour, you will try to impress me while I’m not really taking note. Good luck”. So, in summary:
(i) Probably not. But then I learn fast so I will be able to do it in a couple of months.
(ii) I’m easily bought. Just make sure the money is enough and that you didn’t lie about the job.
(iii) Hmmm…. should I tell them about the swords?
I hate interviews too! Just had one