Personnel recruiters often confuse job seekers with questions that are not directly related to professional activities. In this article we’ll talk about usual questions which may surprise every applicant with the strange point.
Tell about your parents
Frequent answer: This is not related to my professional skills.
In fact: Many applicants react excessively violently, taking the question as an invasion of privacy. But since it is not uncommon, you need to be prepared for this turn of events. It is important to understand that in most cases the employer does not want to go wherever he is not asked – the question is aimed more at building your behavior scenario. HR assesses which environment you are from, based on the theory that there is no future without the past.
Describe your biggest fail
Frequent reaction: Confusion.
Actually: Every person in life had ups and downs, therefore it is impossible to deny the possibility of failure. And if the question was asked, then it is necessary to honestly answer it, focusing on solving the problem and taking the situation out of the critical zone.
How do you feel about social networks?
Frequent reaction: Confusion and reflections on whether it will be possible to remove all the photos from the last party before HR reaches its workplace after the end of the meeting.
What to do: Here it is necessary to emphasize that you clearly control the time spent on social media. And it never affected the quality of your work. If you are an expert whose part of the work is built on the Internet (PR manager, journalist, recruiter, designer, and many others), then you need to focus on how you fulfill your obligations and what you have already achieved.
Do you have a good sense of humor? If so, tell a joke
Frequent reaction: Confusion.
What to do: If you have in mind a neutral anecdote, not tied to politics and vulgarity, you can share it or show creativity and tell an interesting case from working practice. But the worthy response of some candidate, who said that, despite the fact that it is not his profession to make people laugh and an interesting anecdote did not immediately come to his mind, he does not lose a positive attitude and hopes to have the opportunity to prove himself already as an employee of the company.
Would you continue to work for us if we stop paying you money?
Finally, an interesting story from colleagues. Several successful and professional candidates were rejected by the client with reference to a lack of motivation. After a brief investigation, we found out that all of them were asked: “Will you continue to work for us if we stop paying you money?” Our candidates often answered “yes”, believing that this was the expected answer. However, the employer wanted to find people who were goal-oriented.
