Some Job Interview Questions

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http://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/youth/so ... roblem.pdf

Some of my answers are tongue in cheek and some are real questions.

First, I would voice my objection. If they did not accept my objection I did what they told me to do and left it alone. They may have had access to data I did not have.



No, I have never been able to use persuasion to successfully see things my way. Why would I do this if I am not sure if my way is the proper way or not?


What aspects of this position would stress me out in which I would have to demonstrate my coping skills?

Why would I need to solve a problem when it is the manager's job to solve the problem? Am I not just the grunt who implements the solution? I do not understand.

Yes, I was able to set a goal and meet it. I was able to create a Tic Tac Toe game with an artifical intelligence player I could not beat.



The policies I did not agree with were contradictory in nature and therefore unconformable.



I thought it was management who prioritized the tasks.



I have successfully dealt with another person when I did not like them or they did not like me by walking away from them and if I can't do that I remain courteous.



I failed at failing to create a Successful Tic Tac Toe Game with an artifical intelligence player.



I have had successful failures at dealing with an upset customer and I've had successful failures at dealing with an upset co-worker.



I have successfully failed to motivate others whatsoever.

My dear friend, if you are ever going to go on an interview, please let me know because you will not get a job with those answers!

Well, I'd hire you (But not sure for what)!

I was screwing around and trying to use some humor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_me ... 4_-_Mature

I was serious as well. Some of the questions make no sense to me.

I answered some of their questions by producing a logical paradox through double negation. If one succeeds at something then why can't one say that he has failed at failing at it?

Why isn't an optimist really a pessimist who is pessimistic against pessimism? I used critical thinking and one element of critical thinking is the use of a double negation.

~ means negation

~~A This is not non-A.

Therefore, it is A.

This is how I constructed my answer.

1. We have the entity Tic Tac Toe the game with AI player.

2. I failed in creating a Tic Tac Toe game with an AI player

3. I failed at failing to create a Tic Tac Toe game with an AI player
4. I successfully created a Tic Tac Toe game with an AI player.

Conclusion: Some of my failures were some of my successes.

They wanted a critical thinker. I displayed one element of critical thinking which was the double negation. I gave them what they wanted. I don't get it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negation

How do I make myself sound good without lying? These are my honest answers to those questions.

Screamed and cried and pitched a fit, then got sent home from school. This happened at least once a week from grades 1-7.



Many times. I've often encountered someone with a false opinion on a scientific fact and presented them with the evidence to refute their opinion, and convinced them that way. However, if they are strongly emotionally invested in their beliefs, this will fail.



When I volunteer with disabled kids, I often handle their meltdowns well. I never get mad at the kid (in fact, the only times I've ever been mad at a child was when I was a similar age to them). In fact, I get into this eerie calm focused state and think through all the possible responses. If I start to get overloaded, I just stay near the child but disengage emotionally for a bit to take some deep breaths and calm myself back down. Then I can return to the situation and figure out what to do.



That's an incredibly vague question.

Um, I guess one problem-solving situation I was quite proud of was when my Mom wanted us to get text off of a video of a phone scrolling through text messages (she's a lawyer, it was for a case, and she hired my Dad and I as her technical support team). We were going through it the hard way, pausing and doing 'print screen' over and over, and panicking because we were extremely short on time. Then, suddenly, I remembered an automatic print screen program I'd used for an unrelated project...



In Japanese class last semester. I usually struggle a great deal in language classes due to a lack of study skills. My goal was to simply 'not fall behind like I always do'. For that, I got my Dad to take the class with me and got him to guide me in how to study, and I studied as hard as I could. My final mark was in the 60s, not a great mark but I passed.



I never do this. Last year I quit a summer volunteer program because I couldn't bring myself to follow their policy of calling the female-to-male transsexual teen in the program by female pronouns. I knew it was harmful to the child, I knew the research did not support treating transsexual teens as their natal gender, and I got so distraught over it that I finally had to quit the program.

I refuse to go against my principles and do something I know is wrong. No matter what incentive you give, I will do what I consider to be morally right. I'm the kind of person who'd hide the Jews and risk their life to save them from the Nazis. If you don't want that in an employee, I don't want to work for you.



Pretty much every term of university. I have so many past-times and projects I enjoy that could easily take all of my time, but when I'm in classes I have to refocus on doing course-related stuff - not all of my time, but enough that I can get them finished.



Never. I am really bad at this. I need to like and be liked by someone in order to work effectively (or at all) with them.



Many times. It's more of a surprise to me when I actually achieve my goal. Sometimes I feel like I do nothing but fail. I tend to avoid trying unless I'm sure of success, because failure hurts so much.



Never been in that situation, but I did deal with an upset member of my parents' congregation. She had a newborn nephew who was critically ill, and she was crying about that. I was very sympathetic, reassuring her that her nephew's condition has a good prognosis (I have a fascination with medicine and I'd heard of the condition before) and at the same time being sympathetic about her feelings and telling her I agreed that it was very sad to see such a tiny child struggling with a serious medical condition.



My younger brother suffers from depression, and I've often had to motivate him to try something when he feels to down on himself to do it. It's not easy, but sometimes I succeed. I've helped him get homework done, get out of bed in the morning, go to school instead of taking a sick day, etc.

Yes, I know. That's why I gave you a

Seriously, though - if you want some coaching on how to answer questions like these in a way that will satisfy the employer, but still satisfy your own need for truth, let us know. What you want to do is answer them in such a way that you give an accurate picture of yourself - which, knowing you from this forum and even knowing that these answers are tongue in cheek - you aren't doing.

We could start with the questions you don't understand.

Yes, I would love to have coaching.

OK, so rank the questions you listed in order of most to least understandable.

This is how I think.
Think of a sphere, our earth to be more precise.

I go to the north pole. Eventually I go so far north I go south. By going north, I go south.

When I see a full glass of water I see it as empty of emptiness. If a glass of water is half-filled with water I still see it as empty and full. It is empty of non-existence because non-existence does not exist and it is filled with existence because one axiom is that existence exists.

Therefore, a optimist is one who seems pessimism as folly and pessimistic against pessimism and a positive thinker is a negative thinker who sees the folly of negative thinking. We have the negation of the negation.

most understandable
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…tried to accomplish something and failed. ----For my tic tac toe game by my negative attitude and belief I couldn't do it. I set out to fail. In the end I successfully do it. Therefore, I failed at failing to create this game so therefore my failure and the idea of failure becomes a strength.

…did not agree with a teacher or supervisor? How did you handle the situation?......I just went along with it unless their edicts were contradictory. I used the logic of their rules to go around their rules. Sometimes, If I didn't want to follow a rule because I thought it was ridiculous I used the rule or other rules to get out of following the rules. For example, I was told to copy the questions in one of my classes. Some of the questions were paragraphs long. I came up with an idea. The paragraphs consisted of declarative sentences that ended with a period. They were not questions. The questions that would end with a question mark would be the word "why?"

…had to deal with a very upset customer or co-worker.---I thought it was management who did this.

…were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills. ---why would the employer put me in a stressful situation unless it was emergency type like police, firefighters,etc?

…were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way. ---Huh

…set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it.---huh

…had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.---With the example of my class the only way I don't conform to a policy is if I find the policy contradictory. Contradictory means that one is and one is not at the same time. With anything else, if I did not agree with it I was able to use the rules to disregard the rules therefore still conforming. I find backdoors, loopholes, and secret compartments. This is why I have the hypercube as my profile picture.

used good judgment and logic to solve a problem.---I thought it was management who did this.
…you motivated others. ---huh
… were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have
personally liked you (or vice versa). --- huh
…had too many things to do and were required to prioritize your tasks.---huh
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least understandable

OK, the key to job interview questions is to think about it a bit backwards. Ask yourself what the ultimate goal of a question is - then you can re-phrase the question in a way that makes sense to you, and answer your version of the question...and I think you will give the employer an honest answer that will give them the information they want, and that you want to give them. (Sorry, this is going to be a bit rambl-y, my filter isn't working well today.)

Another thing to keep in mind, any example you use should be an ideal. Use examples of your best work, not your average response. Interviewers are going to expect this.

So, to that end, I'm going to try to explain the aim of all of these questions; other posters - please help me, as there are probably interpretations I am missing:

Tried to accomplish something and failed. The aim of this question is to find out several things: are you going to freeze up and stop trying instead of allowing yourself to fail on occasion? Are you able to fail gracefully without lashing out or taking others with you? Are you able to learn from your failures and use them to improve? http://www.careerfaqs.com.au/careers/in ... andled-it/

Tell a story about a time when failing at something helped you improve. You work with computers, right? I'm sure you had a time where you broke a computer beyond repair: was there a time when that happened where you didn't melt down, but in fact learned something? That's the story they want.

did not agree with a teacher or supervisor? How did you handle the situation?. Unfortunately, this is a social skills question. What they want to hear is that you successfully negotiated a compromise while still doing your work, without angering anyone or becoming upset. (I would not use over-literal interpretation of the rules as an example, as you did; that will cast you in the light of someone who uses loopholes to try to evade work.) Basically, they want to know that you can politely disagree and keep coming up with alternative solutions until you find one that is agreeable to everyone.

had to deal with a very upset customer or co-worker.Have you ever dealt with an upset person successfully? Doesn't have to be an employer - you could talk about negotiating something elsewhere. Keep in mind that you don't want to disclose something private when you do so. Again, this is a social skill; they want to find out if you can diffuse a situation and keep it from snowballing. If you are going to be dealing with customers and co-workers, you will need to show that you can manage when they are angry.

were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills. Here, they're thinking about work deadlines and job stress, not emergencies. They want to know that you can handle things like changes in workload or the type of work you will be doing, or that you can solve difficult problems pertaining to your job.

were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way. Basically, they want to know you can sell something to someone who may be undecided, or change the mind of a client who needs to do something differently. In a situation where your knowledge and expertise are greater than the people you are serving, how will you explain what you know? What if they disagree with you, will you try a different way of explaining?

set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it. This one is pretty simple - they want to know you are willing to improve. Tell them about learning about computers...where you started out, and where you ended up. You may not have been aware that you set a goal, but at some point when you decided to learn computers (or whatever your skill is) you set one!

had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree. They are looking for someone who can negotiate, or who is willing to conform to something they don't agree with to keep the peace at their job - again, someone finding loopholes is the opposite of what they want when asking this question. The answer they are expecting is either a story about how you helped the company become even more successful by coming up with an even better policy and politely negotiating to put it in place, or that you decided you loved the job enough to ignore the one instance where you disagreed.

used good judgment and logic to solve a problem.-OK, this is WHAT YOU DO!! ! Tell them about it! Be succinct - tell a story about how you solved a problem, preferably a small one that is related to the type of work you are interviewing for. They want to know that problems aren't going to stop you, and that you can think things through on your own. Talk about how you use research (try to keep the research on-topic, so any research related to the job you are going for or the specific problem you solved) Talk about how you try to learn from other people.

you motivated others. Again, social skills. On this one, though, you can talk about being a good example. Has there ever been a situation where you just did your job, and eventually people around you who might have wanted to chit-chat got to work, too?

were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa). -Every workplace has personality clashes, they want to make sure that if there is a bad mix of personalities, you won't derail the whole worplace. Were you ever assigned a group project in school? Did you ever have one that met this criteria and still got the project in?

had too many things to do and were required to prioritize your tasks. This one is about executive function. They want to know that if they suddenly get busier than they anticipate, you will be able to handle changes in your workload. They want to know that you have some kind of system so that tasks don't slip through the cracks and go uncompleted.

In reading these questions, I wonder if this job is a good fit for you: they appear to be looking for someone with good social skills and good organizational skills, like it's a customer service or management-track position. Is this just some HR department's screener, or is this job for some kind of retail or management work?

I'd also say this: if you are reading my responses and see that there are questions you can't answer honestly, the right answer may be "That is an area where I might need some extra support. I'm the kind of person who does really well with __(for example, engineering)__________________ - I am probably better at that than most - but I do need __(e.g. you to give explicit instructions via email)_____________________________ to help me ______(e.g. prioritize tasks)_______________________ I am fine as long as I have that support.

And, again - you might consider working, if not with a disability rights lawyer, at least with an employment counselor who understands people on the autism spectrum. I'm not an expert and am just guessing here. Also keep in mind that there are numerous books on interview questions that can give you an even better idea of why these questions exist.

As I wrote that, I want to reiterate that you need real-world, real-life support. Most public libraries offer this service for free. Much as we care about you, don't let a bunch of strangers on the internet determine how you go about looking for employment: it is too important.

Even better if you can find someone who specializes in autism. Check with your local Department of Human Services, and with your state Department of Employment to find out if they have a free program where they can match you with someone who can help you in specific.

I can tell you this. First, we use internet explorer 9. My wife had a problem with her email at register.com. It would not download attachments. In the file name in the save as box it would have the url that tells where the file is from. There was no error message shown to me. We have an anti-virus scanner called Kaspersky. By the way, it is an awesome anti-virus. I highly recommend it to you. Anyway, I had it apply the recommended security measures. I believe it changed something in IE 9 it shouldn't have changed.

I uninstalled IE 9 back to IE 8. When I tried to download an attachment again it gave me an error message this time. I was able to Google the error message. I tried various pieces of it until I was able to find an answer given by a Microsoft engineer to another person having the same issue. I also called the technical support guys at register.com and I bounced ideas off of him.

I was able to fix my own problem by using a program to restore my internet settings based off of the Microsoft engineer's suggested fix. What do you think?

That is an excellent answer to the "how I solved a problem" question. You showed that you tried various different things, explored all the options you had available to you, and reached out for help. You stated what you knew about the problem clearly and explicitly.

This is exactly the direction you want to go with job interview questions.

Thank You!! ! I can tell you another one. It occurred with my mother's machine. My mother had a really horrible virus on her desktop. She is a book reviewer. There are some programs that act like anti-virus scanners when they are actually viruses. This is what I did. First, I tried using Mcafee that she had to remove it. Even though Mcafee said it removed it was still there. I tried looking for specific fixes to remove this darned thing. It was a monster and whomever created it was a crap head. I couldn't find any. What I had to do was a manual removal.

First, I went into the windows registry by typing in regedit. (Do not screw around with the registry if you do not know what your doing and if you do before you do it back it up.) Second, I typed in the name of the virus program in the windows registry and I had it do a search. I was able to find and delete the entries. After that, I had to kill the process that the program was running under. Finally, I deleted the files at the directory the program was at. The virus was gone after that.

Semi-rant now:
As I was doing this, my mother would not leave me alone. She was a nervous wreck about it. Every time she kept nagging me I kept becoming upset. I have become a lot better but when I do go over there I do slip from time to time. What she has to understand is if she wants her computer fixed she can't nag me especially when I am in the zone (partial vent). For me, it is easier to fix a computer to deal with an upset person.

Here is another thing. She will install programs like weatherbug and wildtangent which are known spyware. Sometimes she will have five or six toolbars in IE that slows her down. I tell her these things but she does not listen. In fact, a lot of people do not listen. Here is the kicker, when they encounter other issues because they don't listen to me, guess what they do instead? They blame me and state that my fixes caused their new issues. I'm thinking to myself "ugggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh and WTF" I just want to hit my head against the wall a few times. Don't they know that correlation does not necessarily equal causation?

http://www.cracked.com/video_18480_5-re ... s-you.html

This is another excellent story an employer will want to hear



I assume you wouldn't go into this part of the story in a job interview - but I will tell you, this is where you're going to run into trouble. What an employer needs from you is for you to show you can set boundaries and handle frustration with people - even if the frustration is totally understandable. Lots of people can fix computers - but the ones who get the jobs right now are the ones who have developed strategies to handle frustration with people.

For example, you could explain to your mother up front about needing peace and quiet when you're in "the zone" and maybe redirect her to another task so you can get some space. (I once heard that paramedics responding to an emergency sometimes give tasks to family members to keep everyone calm and out of the way, for instance, finding the patient's favorite music to play in the background, or finding an old sheet or towels to tear into strips.) Don't lie to her, just ask her to make coffee or something else to keep her busy (you could ask a client to get themselves a coffee while you work and let them know that you'll text them if you have questions.) Practice figuring this out in a way that works for you until you DO have a story you can tell at an interview.

People always blame the repairman (and, for that matter, fall for the correlation thing most of the time.) You can tell yourself that it is because THEY aren't thinking clearly, not because of your work. Another strategy is to find someone to back you up: research these widgets and see if some reliable source has a list you can show them of the programs that are problematic.

Here's some other strategies that may be useful: http://blog.firespring.com/2012/06/15/d ... -business/