CMU School of Drama


Friday, August 04, 2017

How to Handle Inappropriate Job Interview Questions

lifehacker.com: Job interviews can be challenging to navigate even without the added stress of trying to diplomatically field inappropriate, invasive, or downright illegal lines of questioning. We asked you to share the most insane interview question you’ve been asked on Facebook, and boy, did you all deliver. In the interest of helping future job-hunters navigate these choppy waters, we took the worst and weirdest of your interview experiences, and sought out expert advice on how to handle them.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I thought that, though the article title may have been slightly misleading, the article did bring up an interesting point about interviewing for jobs. The article seemed to be focused primarily on drawing attention to bizarre questions rather than to actually inappropriate questions. It does, however, bring up a couple questions that do not need to be answered by the person being interviewed, such as inquiries about relationships and politics, and that the person being interviewed should feel comfortable refusing to answer. I was also intrigued by the point that if the interviewer is asking inappropriate and uncomfortable questions, the place may not be the best setting to work in. Interviews should be helpful, in my opinion, for the interviewee as well as for the interviewer. The interviewer is obviously trying to decide whether or not to hire someone but the interviewee also needs to know if they want to work with certain people and in a certain way. If the interviewer is asking questions that don’t suggest a solid and cohesive workspace, it might be best to cut the interview short and move on.

Unknown said...

Interviews are so common nowadays that I find it odd that an employer would ask a question such as one of these. I understand asking brain teasers, as it allows them to see the potential employee's thought process, and how they would attempt to solve a problem, even if they don't end up with the correct answer. However, I do not understand what importance a question like "what church do you go to?" has. It is possible that they want to know more about them, and are interested in how their personal lives might affect their professional lives. If the interviewee would like to skip a personal question because they feel uncomfortable, they should be allowed to without having any consequences, as personal questions can sometimes be too personal.

GabeM said...

I think this article's title is a little misleading, when I think inappropriate questions that pertain to a job interview I feel more as if the interviewer is stepping over some sort of common boundaries that should be respected in a workplace. However, this article did bring up some valid points that made me think about some of the things I have been asked in a job interview. I do believe that there is a fine line between trying to understand the know a little more about the applicant's personality and lifestyle and just being nosey and not relating questions that may apply to the job. The last section are a group of questions that the author claims don't relate to the job at all and except for the last one, which was completely absurd, they are all personality based questions which can be valid especially in our changing society where soft skills are being harder to come by in people, those questions help an interviewer find out how willing and able you are to talk about anything without being scripted or rehearsed, a skill that is bound to be applied at some point in anyone's career.