Strangest question a recruiter has asked you?

[stickydancefloor]

Had an online meeting this week with a recruitment agency.

It was all the usual questions until she asked me about the role I held previous to my current one...

"So you were there for 7 years?"
"Yes that's right"
"Who do you keep in touch with from there?"
"Well, no-one nowadays"
"Why's that?"
"I think that's natural when you move onto a new employer that you gradually lose touch with your old colleagues"
But why don't you keep in touch with them?"
"Like I said, we drifted after I left, I think that's quite normal really"
"So you don't speak to any of them?"
"No, it was 7 years ago I left there"
"But why don't you speak to them anymore?"
"Because I'd moved on and things change when you move on and aren't at the same employer"
"So you don't keep in touch with anyone there?"
"NO!!!"

Round and round in a circle!!!!! It was most bizarre!!!!

What the strangest questions you've had from a recruiter?!

@BonnyandPoppy

I was asked if I was offered the job would I take it. Thought that was a bit weird. I got the job. Maybe I should ask my boss why she asked me that!

I’ve been asked that a few times. Who would say no??

Mine is
Do you know x?
me: No
Works at xyz company (not my company)
Me: no, I don’t know anyone who works there
Really? X person does a very similar niche role, it’s s small area (not a niche role and the ‘area’ is Liverpool)
Me: no don’t know x
Had I ever been to a small niche networking group and met X there? No
X knows someone else I don’t know. Still no
Wow, can’t believe you’ve never come across X, in the same tone as if I’d said I’d never heard of the Queen.

I was so flustered I didn’t get the name of the legendary X so I couldn’t look them up to see what I was missing.

Have also been asked what car I drive, I thought it was basic chit chat, but realised most likely trying to suss out if it’s a family car.

What my Mum died of

I was at a job interview in the UK and was asked...
"Are you sure you can speak Greek as you don't look Greek"

I am half Greek Cypriot and have lived in Cyprus through the years, parents sent to Greek School every Saturday.. so yes I can speak Greek!! I didn't get the job, not that I would have accepted it after the comment they made..

I got asked at a job interview (UK based job) last week what my marriage status was and if I had kids. Job came with school places and accommodation. Thought it was a normal question (as have been asked it before) but according to this tread it is not a normal question.

Will say I get annoyed at job applications that ask what primary and secondary school you went to. Why on earth do you need to know that.

About 15 years ago I went for an interview which didn’t bode well when at Reception the interviewer arrived to meet me and blatantly, and repeatedly, looked me up and down like I was dirt (was wearing a suit).

The questions from her and colleague went:

Who do you live with? (flatmate)
What job does flatmate do?
Where does flatmate work?
Do you have a boyfriend?
Do you like to go out drinking? (then she said ‘we like to work hard and play hard’ in a petulant tone)
Do you want children?

And a few other irreverent personal questions which I’ve forgotten now, all asked in between whispering and giggling amongst themselves. Basically, I think I looked too boring and uncool for them.

I rang the agency when I left and withdrew my application, and complained about the personal questions. A few days later the agency rang me back and said they had spoken to the company’s HR about inappropriate questioning of candidates.

I had to do a psychometric test as part of an interview process.
Each question gave me four words and asked me to say which best and least described me. All fine until one set of four words were shy, passive, introvert and submissive. Submissive ! What possible professional benefit could there be in asking me that. No surprise their workforce was 91% male.

I had another interviewer ask if I could provide my previous employer's customer list.

Will you be doing this for pin money?

‘You’re not reading from a script are you’
Last September, Microsoft teams interview.
I wasn’t.

Told this story before.

On my THIRD interview, having travelled from Liverpool to Manchester, I was asked why my joints kept clicking and could I stop because it was really unprofessional.

No I can't stop it, I'm not doing it on purpose?! So weird.

They also told me - third interview remember - that they wouldn't hire me because I lived too far away. I had told them I was looking at flats within walking distance and was on a rolling rental so could move almost immediately.

I was SO annoyed. I told them off for wasting my time.

I went on a group interview once for a high street store, they asked us to act out a scene from a play they gave us a script of...
Very, very odd!

I was asked the classic "what type of animal would you like to be and why?"

If someone asks that question in an interview, they are either a genius or an idiot. I think my face gave away my opinion on the side the interviewer fell upon, so it was lucky I'd already had a different job offer in my pocket from somewhere else.

Are you renting or do you own your own home?

Do you play darts?

During an interview for a job as a PA at a Solicitors about 30 years ago, the older, male interviewer asked me if I was married, engaged or had a boyfriend. I was 22 at the time and felt very uncomfortable but answered no to all of them. At that moment a younger man walked past where I was being interviewed and the man interviewing me shouted "there's a nice young single lady here for you ___ shall we give her the job and you can get together? The younger guy looked highly embarrassed and just smiled awkwardly. I was eventually offered the job and declined it. The guy interviewing even turned up at my house one night asking why I didn't want the job (apparently, he had a relative who lived near me) and my dad had to tell him to leave me alone. If that was acceptable behaviour during an interview then I dreaded to think what actually working there would be like!

@Pinchmybun

OP was this with REED? As with a previous poster late last week they have some very questionable interview practices!

@Pinchmybun no it wasn’t but I did have a random experience with them prior to this one tho!

The person I spoke to there kept commenting on my speech patterns and the way in which I speak?!?! But things that literally NO-ONE has ever mentioned to me before!!! I ended up asking friends and family about it and no-one agreed with her at all (and they are friends and family who would definitely say so ). It really put me off interviews for a while because I got really paranoid about it!!! 😂

I'm reading this thread and wondering what the answers would be if men were answering the question.

I very much doubt so many of them would refer to questions about children, future plans for children, relationships or contraception

I've not actually had a job interview for over 20 years having been lucky enough to have found a place I loved and saw no reason to leave. I'm not sure I'd know where to start to be honest.

I applied to work at an alternative gothic shop as a teen. I figured I'd be fine selling platform boots and piercing stuff. I never made it past interview because I couldn't name the most common ingredients in a love spell! I told her I had no clue which really seemed to annoy her. Apparently I should have said rose petals.

About 20 odd years ago my sister once went to an interview for an agency factory job during her summer holidays. She was asked if she liked cherries... specifically glace cherries. She was puzzled but said she did....

and spent the next 4 weeks putting a cherry on the middle of every trifle at the end of a production line..

She no longer likes cherries!

I was once asked for quite an innovative US IT company- "if you could take a taxi ride to Heathrow and you could have any passenger living or dead who would they be". I have to say I liked this one...

How would my husband describe me in 3 words...

What does your father do for a living? (I was 23 at the time) this was in the 1990s not the 1950s!

When I was hired in the Middle East I was asked if I had my husbands permission to work and travel - but that's the Middle East for you

Describe yourself in 3 words.

If you were a colour - what colour would you be?

What makes you tick?

Tell us a joke.

Sell me this table.

Are you planning on moving back to Scotland? - No, Been here 28 years.
What if you suddenly decide to go back? I won't, my life is here.
What's wrong with Scotland? Don't you miss it? It's lovely, I go back to visit lots so don't miss it.
Why do you go back to Scotland so much if you don't miss it?? I have family there and like to see them.
What would happen if a family member got seriously ill, would you move back then? er...

The only weird question was when I was 19 and applied for a retail job. The interviewer asked me to bring in an “object” which represented me and made a huge deal about it with several follow up questions afterwards.

It doesn’t sound that weird, but the same interviewer ended up being my manager and was generally aloof and creepy. It was the start of a long line of strange things he did and several staff left within weeks of starting

After a preamble about working in a small team at a large media company...

"So how would you manage a colleague with an addiction problem?"

Wasn't a managerial position I was going for so I asked them to clarify how they meant "manage".

"Someone with a drink and drug problem, how would you deal with it? Like report to HR et cetera..."

I turned down the role later on but did notice that there was a high turnover for that particular position...

I was once asked why I chose to give up History at AS Level and "only" did full A-Levels in two foreign languages and English. I was about 26 at the time and had a first class degree behind me and several years of work experience, not sure why my A-Level subjects mattered!