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?!

@CorianderBee

Isn't the asking what your parents did for equality questionnaires? Your class is determined on those by your parents job, so if they hire someone who's parents were labourers they'll fill a diversity gap for working class hires.

Perceived ‘class’ is not a protected characteristic and therefore would not be included in Equality quotients. Thank fuck for that!!

@PomegranateQueen

Very weird! I was asked if I had my husband's permission to work

Really?

What century was this?

@stickydancefloor That IS very odd. Most people don't keep in touch with old colleagues from years back. I wouldn't think ANYthing of someone not being touch with old colleagues.

@whatnow41

What my mum and dad did for a living. I was 28 and left home at 16, went to Uni, live in a different city etc. I didn't get the job and was told afterwards that they are a family friendly firm who look for people like them. My mum was a single parent, kicked me out of home at 16 and had very little input in to my education, employment or life achievements. They didn't like that.

Fuck me! That's awful. Did you really want to work for such judgy horrible twats anyway? You're too good for them.

@giraffelonglegs and also @Overdueanamechange and @Bluesheep8

I was asked when I planned to start a family. This was over 20 years ago but still pretty shocking!

People asked this just 20-ish years ago? I could understand it in the early 1980s - or before - but the year 2000-2001??? That's shocking!

As for the odd questions asked at an interview... I was asked 'if we went to the pub and asked your friends what you're like, what would they say?' Maybe not the most bizarre question, but WTF was I meant to say?

When I was younger and trying to get into veterinary nursing I was invited to interview and asked about my former employer. Not what experience I gained from them but how she could get an interview/job as VNing didn't pay her well enough. I'd travelled 4 hours for that interview and to say I was PO that I was only asked so she could get the inside track was an understatement.

Yesterday!
Man: So you are newly qualified?
Me: No 16 years in this field with 12 of them fully qualified so lots of experience .
Man: So have you any experience of this role?
Me: Yes 16 years, 12 fully qualified, it is the area of job that I am really interested in.
Man: So do you work in this field?
Me: Yes.
Man: So you have experience in this field?
Me: Yes and gave examples of what I have done, ideas I have and experience of what sort of clients etc.
Man: So you are newly qualified?
Me: No.
Man: Do you have any questions?
Me: No...

That was it!
Email this morning to say they wouldn't take it any further as I had no experience in the field!

Logmein is there any way you can give them feedback to ask wtf was going on?

I haven't had particularly strange questions but I do remember interviewing for a library assistant role about 35 or so years ago and the man interviewing me asked what I'd do if a customer refused to leave at closing time. I said I'd ask them again and then if they wouldn't go, I'd get my manager. He didn't seem to like this answer and proceeded to go into some sort of strange role-play scenario where he was the difficult customer - but he didn't tell me we were going to role-play the scenario, just launched into it. Bizarre.

I was asked who my 'favourite' serial killer was, was as if I was being asked what band I liked, or my fave colour

A colleague of mine, with whom I was interviewing, asked some poor girl (who had done geography at uni) to explain the process of coastal submersion. This was for a job in financial services risk management! She had a minor meltdown before mumbling an answer and I sat there looking a bit perplexed. Didn’t get the job.

"It's really annoying when people leave after a short time when we've spent time training them so we need to ask, can you commit to being here for at least 2 years?"

After a long pause I said something polite but inside i was thinking well no, I usually see if I like a job before deciding how long I'll stay!

The sound of more than one previous post-holder leaving quickly put me off the job plus I wondered whether it was a veiled way of asking whether I was planning a pregnancy.

Quite a few places have asked me what my husband does during an interview, yet I've asked my husband and no one has ever asked him what I do when being interviewed.

@WeatherwaxOn

Logmein is there any way you can give them feedback to ask wtf was going on?

I haven't had particularly strange questions but I do remember interviewing for a library assistant role about 35 or so years ago and the man interviewing me asked what I'd do if a customer refused to leave at closing time. I said I'd ask them again and then if they wouldn't go, I'd get my manager. He didn't seem to like this answer and proceeded to go into some sort of strange role-play scenario where he was the difficult customer - but he didn't tell me we were going to role-play the scenario, just launched into it. Bizarre.

TBH @Weatherwaxon I really can't be bothered, this was the most senior person in the company, I would have to report to him and also have supervision with, my confidence in that being what I need would be negative! I'll stick to the job I have as I love it and it is super flexible.

Not a question I was asked but I once went for a job interview where the manager interviewing put on a name badge upside down to see if people would notice and tell him, I was offered that job and declined because it just seemed like an idiotic, cuntish thing to do.

I was asked to spell done really basic words.

I spelled them fine and the interviewer said ‘you didn’t write this, did you?’

The recruiter had misspelled several common words - ‘liaise’ being the only one I remember - and made a few grammatical errors.

I was bloody livid.

Oh the irony 🤣

When I left uni I applied for a ICT help desk job at a firm where the qualifications required was just GCSE and a level.
Interview date etc confirmed in letter.
I turn up for the interview and the gentleman that came to interview me was quite baffled by me being there.
Apparently the regular interviewer wasn't in so as head of ICT he had been sent to interview me.

Asks me about experience and my qualifications ,
I said I had a levels in ICT - what's A Levels he asked. So I explained.
Then advised I had also gained Microsoft qualifications, and uni degree.

Next phrase was - I don't understand these qualifications they are so new , I only understand NVQ or BTEC.

This was in 2006. Im sure A Levels had been around for about 20 years by then. Never mind a uni degree.

He also had no questions prepared, so after my qualifications conversation , showed me round the office, asked me if I was ok working in a mainly male environment and then said they would be in touch.

Never did hear from them. Of which to be honest I'm glad.

@Merryoldgoat

Oh the irony 🤣

Ha ha, I thought they’d asked you to spell “done”. I thought that really is basic! 😂😂

A recruiter suggested I shave my hairline to remove the downy baby hairs I have where my hair meets my forehead.

She also told me I needed to straighten my hair in future as wavy and curly hair isn't 'polished'.

I didn't shave my face.

Back in the day when it was acceptable!
I was asked on if I had any plans to have children in the next 5 years - genuinely answered no as wasn’t even engaged and was then asked what form of contraceptive I was using and was it reliable

A recruiter tagged a date invitation on to the end of an email after we'd met in person. I accepted.

@hauntedvagina

Former recruiter here.

They want to know who you're in touch with so they can have a friendly "in". The minute you speak to an agency, they will be looking at candidates (or just making up a CV) with the same skills set as yours and sending it to your line manager.

An agency will recruiter will want to know what your childcare plans are, especially if you've been a SAHM for a while. There have been numerous occasions where I've secured a role for a candidate and they've bailed at the last minute because their childcare has apparently fallen through. Obviously you don't have to answer this but it's much easier for everyone if you're all on the same page.

You may feel like you're getting a right grilling from an agency recruiter but that's only because their clients are paying them a hefty sum to ensure the only candidates they interview face to face are right for the job. They will want to know about employment gaps to ensure you haven't been in prison (I have been caught out here). Your recruiter will have spent a great deal of time finding out as much information about your future employer as possible, they've already worked out that some of these employers are arseholes (and likely have former employees on their books to back this up) and want to be sure that you'll be able to handle the work environment. Equally, they may be recruiting for an extremely chilled / set in their ways manager and sending in a candidate who wants to barge in and start making changes would not go down well.

There's a lot of hate on here for recruitment consultants and I get that, because some of them are cunts. Just remember that the good ones are genuinely happy when you get a job and not just because they're making a fee but because we really like making people happy!!

We're adults. We know we have to find childcare and how to do it.

In my case, I already had a job I was looking to move from. It wasn't a recruitment agency, I was interviewed by the school.

I've never been a SAHM.

I had my childcare cover bases covered.

Still wasnt good enough.

I'm a all growed up person. I know how it works.

@Logmein

Yesterday! Man: So you are newly qualified? Me: No 16 years in this field with 12 of them fully qualified so lots of experience . Man: So have you any experience of this role? Me: Yes 16 years, 12 fully qualified, it is the area of job that I am really interested in. Man: So do you work in this field? Me: Yes. Man: So you have experience in this field? Me: Yes and gave examples of what I have done, ideas I have and experience of what sort of clients etc. Man: So you are newly qualified? Me: No. Man: Do you have any questions? Me: No...

That was it!
Email this morning to say they wouldn't take it any further as I had no experience in the field!

Why not email them back asking if they've confused you with someone else given your 16 years experience, 12 of them being fully qualified...

Probably won't change anything, but might wake that chap up.

That reminds me.

I went for an interview recently for a coordinator for a disability charity. The role was part time and paid just £13k a year.

The experience they were looking for was understanding of disabilities, ability to communicate with people on all levels so as to be able to liaise with service users as well as service providers etc. Organisational skills etc.

They rang and invited me for interview.

It was online but it turned out that what they were actually looking for was a senior social worker with a degree in social work and senior management experience.

I’m guessing they didn’t put that on the job spec because there’s no way anyone with the qualifications they were looking for would have applied. and as the interview progressed turned out they wanted full-time commitment on a part time salary.

I withdrew my application.

hauntedvagina re. your point about recruitment agencies wanting to know your childcare arrangements, does your agency ask this of men as well as women? Many times my DH has been put forward for jobs involving shift working when he specifies he can't work shifts as I already do, so we would struggle for childcare if/when our shifts clash. It's an absolute deal breaker for him and there have been several occasions this year alone when he's had to tell the interviewer that the agency has wasted their time and his when he finds out that it's not a day time hours job.
So much for equality in the modern world.

@WinterBerry7

‘If you were an instrument in an orchestra, what would you be?’

I didn’t get the job so obviously gave the wrong answer 😂

Timpani. Loud, only participates sporadically, fun to bang.

I guess I wouldn’t get the job either, but a ridiculous question deserves a ridiculous answer...

I’ve been relatively lucky in interviews and haven’t come across anything too awful. I did get asked, in an interview for my first local government admin job at 18, if I liked football - which I thought was a bit random. Another job I was asked who my hero was, I gave some daft faux-intellectual answer which they lapped up.