have an interview tomorrow and trying to prepare myself as much as i can.


Most troubling one right now is "Describe your weaknesses?"

A legitimate one is that I'll never sign off on anything until i'm giving a deadline or i'm actually asked for it, but that's too close to sounding like the cliched perfectionist answer.

2 people interviewing me, head of the section and a recruitment manager so a bit worried that the recruitment manager will ask shitty questions.

Job specific scenario ones are the biggest pain in the balls because depending on what you're doing there's a fine line between a loose cannon and some pleb with no initiative. I think if you say anything rational in a convincing way you'll be grand with them though.

I think the deadline one is far enough away from perfectionist but what I'd be worried about is it sounds like bad time management.

I guess i have to start preparing for interviews again. So much effort.

I wish i was more natural at bullshitting

Eczema

for the weakness one, I've gone with a genuine answer and then sore about the steps I've taken to make it less of an issue.

I'm generally over optimistic in my estimations so I've started validating them with other team members and putting together standard estimation charts to ensure they're at last consistent.

yeah the weakness one always throws me. sat there silent for what felt like an age the first time i heard it

The weakness question is the worst in general but the worst one I was asked was for Gap.

"What's the security code for our door?"

I thought she was taking the piss - she wasn't.

do you still remember it?

*note pad at the ready

I was tempted to use it afterwards actually.

I didn't get the job in the end but I wish I could have found out what the whole point of that question was.

I'm very confused.

You were interviewing for the job, so presumably you weren't given the code, right?
Were they asking to see if you had some Jason Bourne skills and you noticed and remembered it when the person bringing you in for the interview input it?

A friend of mine was asked once how many petrol stations are in Ireland.
That would have completely thrown me.

He copped on they just wanted to see him thinking on his feet and his reasoning skills.
He went with there's 2 petrol stations in Maynooth for a population of around 10k therefore there's one petrol station for 5k people.

For weakness I used to always say I can take on too much work but then try and spin it to showing you use good time management and prioritise well and make sure to flag in plenty of time that a deadline may not be achievable.

Two I hated were
"Tell me about a time you had to deal with conflict in you job" or
"Have you ever worked on a team where somebody wasnt pulling their weight"

No, they gave it to me. I was a bit confused in case I misheard the question so I clarified. They told me to go and ask someone for it.

"where do you see yourself in five years"

HATE it. obviously you cant be honest and say "hopefully not still working here" or be funny and say "sitting where you are" but they want some bullshit thing about career progression etc

ughthghghghth

I could answer that one now with myself as the example in my current job Just lost all motivation. Have started doing application forms again cos my contract here is up in a couple of months and the app form questions are as bad.

All of them

f*ck interviews

thats a great question actually.

the interviews to our place are full of quickfire odd questions to test difference competencies as well as then having the standard team working questions.

it wasn't like that back when I did mine thankfully. mine was just a grand conversation.

the most difficult question i've had to answer is why my results showed a steady decline from junior cert through to second year college, esp the drop between 1st and 2nd year in college.

I havent done an interview in ages but dreaded that question coming up, fortunatley it never did. The drop off in my results was rediculous. Missed huge chunks of my final year through laziness.