Thursday, November 3, 2011

Job Interview Questions.

We all need to work. To get work, we all need to endure overly long applications, and interviews. An interview is someone trying to size you up, see if they think you will work well in there company, and accomplish whatever it is they are trying for. Sadly, there are certain question asked at an interview for which there is no right answer.

One question that always seems to come up is "Why are you interested in working here?" or some variation on that. You can't answer honestly and say "I need the money", or "Because I want my power and Internet turned back on". Instead you need to bullshit out an answer about how you care about whatever it is the company does. The sad part is if you were to be honest you would never be hired.

Another question that has no real answer is "Where do you see yourself in (insert number) years from now?", as if it you have some grand and detailed plan. Again, honesty will lead to you not getting the position. If you said "Hopefully in a position where I never have to deal with a gentleman like yourself again", or "High enough above you in this company to fire you and blacklist you in this industry". So you need to give a completely made up answer where you  seem ambitious, but not enough to be a threat to the interviewer or the company on question.

The real problem is that you can't really be honest with the interviewer. No one is really excited to start work anywhere. You are working to get money. It doesn't matter if you work for Microsoft or McDonald's, you are there for the pay check. The interview process is about you feigning excitement and motivation about the company in question. You get a job by lying, you keep it by not putting a bullet in your head, you advance by sucking just slightly less than the people around you.

4 comments:

  1. I don't know. If I got a job at Valve I'd be really excited to start working.

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  2. Yeah, this can be rough. The question about the where do you see yourself in x years from now in particular.

    Have gotten that one and once didn't get a job because I answered "Most likely working for the family business (small company but will probably have to help if dad retires). "

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  3. That's a very interesting post!

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