People Spill The Tea About 30 Of The Dumbest Questions They Were Asked During Interviews

There is a thread in the AskReddit community, which topic starter, the user u/Correct_Spray5890, asked netizens: "What is the dumbest question you’ve been asked during an interview?" As of today, the thread has over 840 upvotes and around 1.1K various comments, literally reflecting all facets of human stupidity, which from time to time is embodied in job interviewers...

Some of these questions simply show the blatant incompetence of the interviewers. Some are inappropriate in any work environment and, in fact, represent one solid red flag for a potential job applicant.

However, such questions still take place - for example, regarding the employer's attempts to lowball the probable employee, even below the legally established level. By the way, we have more than one or two examples of such stories as well.

A separate category is strange and unexpected questions, literally borrowed from books written by unicorn companies' CEOs. But if some strange question, designed to show the unconventional thinking of the jobseeker when hiring, for example, a designer or programmer at Google, seems appropriate, then copying it word for word in a small company that is completely unrelated to creativity is at least weird.

But still, the example of top companies looks incredibly tempting - and employers, unconsciously trying to adopt this success, in fact, adopt only its external side. While the main thing lies, of course, inside. Just believe me, they do not talk about this left and right.

Returning to the "immortal classics" of questions with attempts to look into the future, convince the employer to hire you, or, conversely, make you admit your biggest weakness yourself - now, it seems, no one takes any of this seriously.

"While gauging a candidate’s long-term aspirations is helpful, this question assumes that life unfolds predictably. In reality, career paths twist, turn, and sometimes loop-de-loop unexpectedly," this dedicated article on Ere.net reasonably claims. “And really, how would you assess the response to this question? Is there a ‘right’ answer?”

On the other hand, it all depends entirely on the employer and their status in the professional world. After all, if a huge corporation with a reputation for genius geeks on the verge of insanity asks you weird questions, how should we perceive it? Most likely, we’ll think that this is just another manifestation of ‘dark genius.’

"I’d ask you this… If Google asked any of these 4 questions in an interview, would you be criticizing them for asking dumb questions? Or would it occur to you that it’s just one reason they’re so successful?" Vertical Elevation podcast host Carol Schultz wonders quite sarcastically. So, in any case, every coin has two sides, and every interview question probably has too.

Be that as it may, I sincerely believe that you will find it rather interesting to read the stories from this collection. And perhaps in one of them, you could remember an incident that once happened to you during an interview somewhere. So please feel free to read the list to the very end - and maybe share your own interview tales in the comments below.