The ‘worst’ job interview questions people have ever been asked | UK | News

Job interviews can be a nerve-wracking experience, with many candidates spending hours researching the company and preparing for potential questions.

However, some interviewees have taken to social media to share the most bizarre questions they’ve been asked in an attempt to help others prepare.

Answering the Quora question: “What’s the weirdest interview question you’ve ever had?”, one user recounted how the hiring manager leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and smirked before asking: “Tell me why I shouldn’t hire the guy I interviewed before you came in?”

He continued: “I had to pause for a moment. ‘Having never met or interviewed the guy, I can’t make an informed opinion.’

“I assumed the purpose of the question was to see if I made hasty decisions without any facts. He shook his head, ‘Now that’s a cop out. Give me another reason.’ Let me see his CV and give me a few minutes. Cover up his name. ‘I can’t do that, but I’ll show you his cover letter.'”

“He folded the paper so I couldn’t see who sent it, and slid it across the desk. I read the first sentence and said, ‘He makes careless mistakes. He misspelled the name of your company.'”

“The hiring manager’s eyes widened and he exclaimed, ‘What?’ He looked at it again, then declared, ‘This meeting is over.'”

“And that was the end of it. I never heard back and no one in HR would take my call. I don’t know if it was a fake letter he used as a test or a real one.”

Another user shared a job interview experience they experienced in the mid-1980s at a book publishing company. They said: “I went for a job interview at a medium-sized book publishing company in the mid-1980s, and I nailed the interview. I was perfectly qualified, and I got along very well with the woman who was interviewing me.

“After speaking together for about 45 minutes, she decided I filled her qualifications, she offered me the job, outlined the salary and benefits, and asked if I wanted to take the job. I said I did, and that’s when she asked me: ‘Are you Jewish?'”.

“I’m not Jewish, and while I simply said no, my face must have betrayed my reaction. She instantly realised her mistake, and corrected herself. She explained that she was going to ask me to start on the following Monday, but since that was a Jewish holiday, I could start on Tuesday instead.”

A final user shared their experience of arriving to their drenched from the rain, only to be met by an interviewer who was as “unenergetic as humanly possible.”

They revealed: “I thought I had zero chance at the job. He mumbled his way through a few questions and then finally dropped this on me.

“‘I don’t know why I’m even asking these questions. I’m going to give you a test and if you pass you get the job and if you fail you don’t.’ So I tell him, ‘Well, you could stop asking me questions and just give me the test.'”

“So he did. And I passed and got the job. And the interviewer turned out to be a decent boss. He was just one of those programmers who got promoted even thought he had no social skills.

“So the most ridiculous question was anything he said because they were all totally irrelevant, he just felt that that that is how interviewers acted and he was just going through the motions.”