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That was easy! Very odd job interview

A few years ago, I had one of the strangest [but successful] job interviews ever. No pyschometric testing, no criteria-based formula, there were just three direct questions put to me by the interviewer.

Question 1: how would you describe your management style?

Question 2: what hours would you like to work?

Question 3: do you drink?

HR departments everywhere would cringe at the prospect of these becoming standard interview questions. But the interviewer knew the basic facts from my CV and just wanted to know if I would fit into a difficult situation.

Have you ever had such an unusual job interview experience?

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  • http://www.fallingblossoms.com Bob Marshall

    Hi there,
    Just came across your interesting blog thanks to Grant Rule’s recommendation over at SMS. One question first-off. Where is the left margin on all the pages? Lack of a left margin makes everthing much more difficult to read…

    HTH

    Cheers
    Bob

  • http://www.colin-beveridge.com colinb

    Bob

    thanks for visiting and commenting.

    It sounds like there might be a browser issue, if you are not seeing a page margin. The template for all pages has a clear margin defined.

    I develop the site in a Chrome browser and occasionally check it with IE7 and Safari (3.1.2)

  • H.-P.

    …comes up fine so far in Firefox as well.

    Colin,

    Thanks for your site, discovered through LinkedIn, and your (Socratic) way of engaging the discussion.

  • mandy

    I once went for an interview where I was shown around and then told I would have to come back for the actual interview when a key member of staff returned from annual leave. Two weeks later I was duly ushered into a room to wait, with the words “don’t worry his bark is worse than his bite”. ‘He’ entered the room and said “they’ve already decided they want you. I hope you’re not a vegetarian I’ve brought you a beef sandwich.”

  • http://www.lean4business.co.uk Andy

    I was supposed to be interviewed by 2 people from a large telecoms company (I’ll call then Colin & Jane for the sake of the story). About 15 minutes late, the 1st interviewer arrived and said “Andy, good to meet you, let’s go and talk”, we sat down and I said “I Jane not coming” he replied “No, I’m sorry, she’s busy”. I thought how unfortunate/rude but never mind, carry on!

    After about an hour, he said, let me arrange a tour for you.

    On walking to meet someone to show me around, he stopped and introduced me to “Colin” – I said “so who are you?” – he said “my name is Dave”! I looked at Colin and “said weren’t you supposed to be interviewing me?” – he said “Oh we just sent Dave, if he says your ok, we’ll get you back in for a proper interview with both of us. Bear in mind I had driven over 100 miles to get to the interview!

    I (not very poiltely I’m afraid) made my excuses and left, I also made a formal complaint to their HR system which illicited a mealy mouthed reply with a distant apology.

  • Bart Van Brabant

    Once I was invited for a whole day of thorough testing. Although I am not so keen on this types of job hunts I went in. I enjoyed myself very much on the various simulations and psycho tests, but some of them were very difficult to say the least.

    At the end of the day I was dismissed (not so polite) because I did not pass the mark and was not invited for a job interview. Ok – no problem, I thought some of the test very heavy.

    The next day however, I was called by the HR department – I excelled in the tests and they wanted to invite me for a next step. When I inquired about the story of the previous day, I was told there was something wrong with the computer system.

    I did not pursue the job any further