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?!

I was asked how my husband would feel if I earned more money than him! I considered my answer carefully, before replying with a serious poker face and an innocent tone: “blessed?”

I used to recruit. Some years ago there was a fashion for bonkers questions, the aim (presumably) being to get away from the usual guff and see how people reacted to a question they couldn't possibly prepare for. It was very obvious very quickly that this particular fashion was utterly useless in assessing candidates (unless the interviewer is the sort who likes to make people uncomfortable).

Interesting - and depressing - that it appears still to be used as a tool.

The one I hate the most - seemingly asked at a random points in the interview

"If we were to offer you the job, would you take it?"

I mean who on earth says "No, I've been deliberately wasting your time"

I’ve had the Biscuit question too - I gave a really wanky “interview-esque” answer; but after I got the job I realised it was mostly an excuse for the interviewers to kick off the age-old “is a Jaffa cake a biscuit?” argument

Possibly outing, but I once got repeatedly asked by the interviewer “but why would you want to work in this team - it’s so boring”

And yes, it was boring as fuck, but it got me out of an “exciting” yet unstable job where I worked all hours and had no social life and zero progression opportunity, into a bog standard 9-5 mon-fri job where I could plan my social life and have since had plenty of opportunities to progress out of the tedium into something a bit more interesting.

Going back 30 years or so. Would my husband mind if I wasn’t home in time to cook his dinner and did we plan to have children. For a position as a trainee solicitor

I was interviewed in Portsmouth when I was much younger and asked if I had a boyfriend. When I said yes they said he’s not in the Navy is he, we keep employing people who have to move when their partner gets drafted.

I had an interview yesterday where the recruiter basically talked for 20 of our 25 minutes and when I eventually was allowed to talk, she started looking up something on her computer. How she knows if I'm the right person for the job I have no idea.
Had another interview last week when I was asked: "What would your previous boss say is the most annoying thing about you?" I mean...what??

DD was asked if she had any dependants and the recruiter thought she was joking when she said yes 2 cats.

He then got out of line as asked how she'd got as far in her life without a husband. Ans, I've got this far because I divorced him years ago and got my life together.

She asked him if he's read her CV and Linkedin, yes he had. So what part of I ran a HR department didn't you read.

She said we are done here, no I still have Q's to ask. No you haven't and I'm taking this to the MD they don't need employees who put their business at risk.

There are some thoughtless people out there, some out and out idiots and some who think they are just far cleverer than the rest of us.

It was in the 80s and I went for a job in advertising sales for a trade magazine that did a lot of business abroad. I was invited to an interview in a wine bar and was asked what I would do if I was propositioned when abroad and the sale was conditional on a positive response. I left the interview immediately strangely wasn't offered the job.

We established in polite chit chat that we'd both studied at the same university.

Then he asked me whether I'd ever been in a particular bar, that was notorious for having a female DJ whose party trick was to pour different beers over each breast & challenge customers to bet on which was which after licking her nipples.

I had, as it happened, once, when a bunch of us decided it would be hilarious to bar crawl the seediest end of town. No, I had not partaken in the Beer Tits challenge.

There was also a well known statue in this city with a Victorian worthy in very tight trousers, which was regularly enhanced by having its Terry Wogan highlighted by drunken revellers in spray paint. No, I'd never done that, either.

He seemed quite disappointed, but I still got the job...

I live in north Hampshire, I keep getting calls asking me if I want a job in north London or Kent...teaching agencies are truly crap! I used to work in recruitment and my husband runs a recruitment company which I’ve also worked in. I could definitely do a better job than them even after 18 years as a teacher! I have thought about doing it actually....

I was asked to give an example of something which I did and happened to refer to my previous boss. They seemed satisfied with the answer, but then asked "Have you had a relationship with him?" I replied "We had a good professional relationship and worked effectively together" and a guy then asked "But did you have more than that?" I was . I said no, not at all. The interviewer replied "Oh, when you spoke about him it seemed more than that" in a disbelieving way. I did not accept the job when they offered via the agent a few days later!

My DSD was interviewed for a PA role. Turned out it was for one member of a band that had been popular in the Eighties. She asked about the salary on offer, as it hadn't been mentioned. The interviewer gave a figure HALF the salary DSD was currently getting, ridiculously low for the role, which was very demanding.

DSD was well pissed off. She pointed out her current salary was given on her CV and asked why they'd called her into interview when they were wasting her time. The interviewer said many people would be delighted to work for that money given how famous the boss was.

DSD said that might be true for a much older applicant but that this guy was far from cool to a woman in her twenties. The interviewers looked totally gobsmacked. They genuinely thought she'd feel privileged to work for so little for a rockstar.

In my 50s, went for an interview as a marketing officer at a local private school. I had attended another local private school 30 years before. They asked me if I could honestly claim I could do marketing for a rival establishment in an unbiased way. I didn't pursue it.

A bit off topic, but many years ago I got a call from a recruitment agency about my old assistant. He said my reference was far too good and insisted there must be something I could criticise.

I gave it a little thought and said I could think of one thing. You could tell he was quite excited - thought the real truth would come out now.

I told him she drove me mad by insisting on coming to work when she was ill. Firstly I would have to send her home and then she might pass her cold or whatever to other staff members. I can still remember the disappointment in his voice when he asked "Are you sure that's the worst you can say?"

"How many people have you slept with?"

It was actually relevant.

In one interview I was asked what LPs I had in my collection (before CDs).

Another time I was asked to empty my handbag & explain its contents. I was young so did as I was asked. Thank goodness it was a small bag I had chosen for this interview so didn't have the usual 26 snotty tissues and a packet of lillets. I think they were just nosy. I didn't get the job.

Recent one asked me my star sign

Many moons ago my husband worked IT contracts ALL recruiters wanted to know about the job he'd just left so they could get their foot in the door with the old company.

@listsandbudgets

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've only had one interview (Technical Editor position at a US Publisher, remote) asking if I had kids, apparently they favoured people with children as it improved neural pathways in the brain . Got the job, intense but fabulous 18 months.

Also asked what car I drove, my 2.7 litre V6 car apparently painted me as reckless. I did say I took it to the track and did 135 mph+ but still...

'What school did your father go to?'

Posh secretarial agency, mid-90s. DF went to the local state grammar but I don't think that was an acceptable answer

I went for a teaching job in a language school in Paris. After about 30 minutes, the owner of the company told me I'd be better for the sales job. I explained that I'd never sold a thing in my life and that my degree and post grad were in languages. He refused to listen. He said my voice was perfect for sales. He offered me the job. I turned him down later that week. I never got to teach there.

In my mid-20s, early 90s, I worked in New York with a bunch of fellow young university graduates in the foreign exchange back office of a small regional bank. Once when one of my colleagues was interviewing a potential intern my boss asked the colleague when it was finished “is she ok? Will she say fuck?” He hadn’t expected the specific question to be asked (and as far as I’m aware it wasn’t) but he wanted a sense that whoever we hired would be robust and able to handle some very coarse language that would be heard both around our office as well as in interactions with the FX traders we dealt with on a daily basis.

I have to say, 30+ years later, while I try to moderate my language in the workplace, I do refer to that criterion when sizing up new and potential colleagues.

@AtoZed

“We supply a uniform. Do you mind wearing a blue top (like this - pointing at her own top) at work?”

Relevant question in my personal opinion because I wouldn’t want the job if the uniform top/blouse/shirt was black or any shade of pink. I can not abide those colours on me. 🙄🤣🤔

I got asked if I was stubborn. I said I wouldn’t describe myself as such, no, I feel I’m quite adaptive. He kept repeating that he thought it was stubborn, I looked stubborn, was I a stubborn woman, etc.

It felt a bit... icky.