Job interviewers are asking more odd ball interview questions than ever before.
These odd ball questions on the face of it “why are manhole covers round and not square” sound ridiculous, and it is the uncertainty of the meaning of the odd ball interview question, that creates fear in the job interviewee.
The answer is in the job specification. All questions asked in the job interview are asked for a reason; there is a skill or quality the employer, through the odd ball interview question, is trying to dissect.
What An Odd ball Question!
To prepare for odd ball interview questions you first need to read the job specification for the position you are applying for. Breakdown the skills required for this role; creativity, logic, communication. Employers also know the importance of hiring someone with the right fit and it is these odd ball job interview questions that uncovers your personality type, your values and your skills and qualities
5 odd ball interview questions
“How many hamburgers were consumed in the UK in 2014?”
This isn’t a question for a McDonalds team member! The question is designed to uncover your thought process and how you can handle complex problems.
What you need to check via the job specification is: does the employer want to recruit a creative thinker or logical problem solver?
There is no right answer in terms of the number of hamburgers as only the directors of McDonalds know this, but the interviewer wants to understand how you approach complex problems.
“If you could be a character from a book or film who would you be and why?”
Questions asking you to pretend to be a famous film star, what animal would you be or which well know political figure best represents you, are designed to uncover your personality traits and values.
Before answering this question, profile the job role and list the skills and qualities required to fit in with this particular organization. Answer the question by saying “I would be X, as X is (add skill/quality relevant to the role….”
“If you won the lottery what would you spend it on?”
No-one cares how you spend your money, rather the employer wants to find out how reasonable you are and what you value.
You could answer that you would invest, that you would treat your friends, that you would spend it on silly things, give it to charity, split it between several options or hide it under your mattress.
The job sector you are applying for can give you an insight into the best suitable answer – I financial role would want to hear how you would invest, whereas a job in the caring sector are looking at your values.
“If you could take 5 things with you to a desert island that you were stranded on, what would you take?”
Your answer (water, food, knife, fire starting kit) doesn’t really matter compared to your thought process. This and similar worded interview questions, are designed to test your logic.
When answering logic based question give explanations behind your reason “a fire lighting kit because fire can be used for 3 things 1…..” To answer this question focus on your reason for picking an object.
If you were in the Army and you had recently returned from a failed mission how would you explain your failure to your senior officer?”
Situation questions can be hard as your brain searches for the meaning of the question but first needs more detail “what was the mission” “who was on the mission” “what went wrong” because the more of an understanding of the situation you have, the better placed you are to answer the interview question.
Stay away from this train of thought and instead think about the reason why you are being asked this question. This question is looking at how you reflect on your work, how you take feedback and what steps you take to learn from past failures.
When answering the question discuss the 3 steps.
Step 1 Discuss the build up to the mission as this give detail to the generic question
“Prior to the meeting with my senior officer, I would review the mission objective, the resources and equipment we had available, what went well and the overall reason for the failure.” In step one, you are showing how you reflect and learn from experiences, as well as how you prepare for situations
Step 2 In step 2 explain your approach would you take charge of the meeting? Would you let the officers opinions go over your head? Would you negotiate? The best approach is the approach that would need to be adopted in the company you are applying for
Step 3 Here show how you learn from mistakes, explain what steps you would take in a future mission.
With all interview questions, the employer has an agenda – they want to uncover a desired skill or quality or to check if you don’t possess these essential criteria. With all odd-ball interview questions, ask what skill or quality does the employer want to uncover?
