weakness question

Although the five or ten year one makes my stomach turn. Especially now a days with our generation we barely know what we'll be doing in one year! Let alone FIVE!

Those are all normal, its the abnormal ones i am afraid of. A sampling of questions i have been asked:

*if you were a part of a salad, what part would you be? (does parts of a salad = personality traits?) I said croutons. Not sure what that makes me. I got that job.

*What disney character are you most like? (answer peter pan and youre immature, cinderella and you think you are overworked, pinnochio and you better not even think of getting the job) I said "all of the seven dwarves, it just depends on how i wake up" I didnt get that job

*if you noticed while counting down your drawer at the end of the night that the drawer was over by 20 dollars would you a)tell the manager or b) pocket the money. (i said A, and whoever said b should be shot)

I put the five year question. I wouldn't hate it if I was applying for my dream job. But I hate to lie if I know the job I'm applying for is going to be a stepping stone.

wow caterpillargirl, what jobs were those for?? PS - good call with the dwarves answer!

beram, the salad one was for managing new york and Company.

The disney character one? receptionist at doctors office

counting the drawer one , obviously retail zombie.

The weakness question is pretty bad and whenever I get asked the 5-year question I get nervous because they might be looking for a long-term employee! It's tough.

I hate the weakness question. How do you say "Pushing the refresh button on PopSugar when I should be billing clients"?

Weakness. I never know how to answer it.

I hate the "what's your weakness question" because you have to come up with a "positive weakness." Something like, I'm too much of a perfectionist, or I try too hard. It's disgusting!

yeah, I hate the weakness question the most, although I also hate the 5year plan. It just sounds so cliche to answer them, like you know what you should say but then it just seems so cheesy that they would never believe it. But I have been in group interviews where they asked this question and the people who answered it the "right" way were definitely selected for the next interview.
One question they asked in that group interview that really threw me was "which person here, other than yourself, do you think would be good in this job, and why?" agghhh that sucked!

defintley the 5 yr question, i always lie, b/c i dont know! i also dont like the "why do you want to work here?" "because i need a job!"

I hate the weakness one.

My boyfriend interviewed at Google and one of the questions was "There is a dead cat in a room with five dogs. Which one killed the cat?" Crazy eh?

On the interview for my current job, I was asked to tell my interviewer a joke. I had to take a pause, since I didn't know any that were even remotely appropriate. I ended up telling him one that sounded like it was straight out of the "Al Alberts" show... Uber-corny!

I was asked hypotheticals about ethical issues (I'm a proseuctor) ... they weren't horrible questions, but they weren't "easy" questions, either. The five years question was easy, because I DO see myself at this job in five years ... I don't like the "what brought you to law school" question because I don't have a great answer for it!

Name a situation. I usually get over "situations" at work pretty quickly, so it's really hard to rack my brain for an answer to that one.

Definitely the weakness question. I mean how do you answer that in a positive way?

** You DON'T answer the weakness question in a positive way! That's the secret:)

And you NEVER say you're too hard of a worker or a perfectionist b/c it's sounds very cliche. You state a problem and you follow up with how you try to rectify it.

Like "i tend to take on too much sometimes but I overcome this by organizing better and letting someone know when I things become an overload so that I can put my efforts best in to what I can handle rather than half-doing many things.

We all have weaknesses, the interviewer just wants to know if you can be honest and mature and recognize what you don't do well and know that you take steps to correct it. They don't expect you to be perfect:)

i don't even know what i'm doing tomorrow, let alone in 5 years! Ugh! Hate that question!

I think all of those are equally difficult questions. But the one about what/where I will be in five years is probably the most difficult to answer!

I hate when they ask "Why do you want to work here?" especially if it's some dinky retail or restaurant job. You can't exactly say "Ummm, because I need money and you guys happened to be hiring" so you have to bs something about how you admire what the company stands for etc.

to be honest, i hate when they ask you if you have any questions - cause i like to take what i've been told, absorb it, think about it and then just have an open dialogue. not necessarily me asking questions.

i also don't care much for the strengths/weaknesses questions. i feel like there are only a few safe answers to each and they are all ones that have been said over and over again.

i do think that it's funny to get the random question thrown at you. at my first agency job, i was asked:
1) if you were a tree what would you be

and i was recently talking to a group and they said:
2) what's your favorite TV show - which i then had to ask 'current or past' ....

but those - i'm not sure if they would even know how to rate your response. if you say a show like gossip girl cause the fashion etc...is that any better than saying 'flip that house' or 'meirkat manner'? i'm not so sure.

I hate: "Why do you want this position?"

It's such a dumb question.. err duh because I have bills to pay.

i voted for the name that situation, but i change it to what do you see yourself doing in 5 years. I was asked that at a job interview when i was 19 except it was where do you see your self in 2 years, and i said that i would like to be in school, ect. When she called me later about if i got it or not she said "oh you would of gotten it, but your going to school and we need someone long term" /facepalm

I've always hated the five year question.

When I was younger, I was quite a bit on the depressed side, and didn't see myself making it past 18. So at this point it's almost like I'm lost, because I never made those "five year" plans.

At least I could answer questions like the ones ilanac got, because I could figure out easily what sort of tree I'd like to be, and I don't watch TV...

The five year question for me. It's weird you don't won't to be too ambitious with your goals they you seem like a threat but you don't want to look like an underachiever.

Berlin, you're so right on the weakness answer to the question. I believe it rest in honest, then giving a solution on how your working on the problem not fluff.

i don't hate the five year question at all
i really hate the weakness question though
i always say i hold myself and others to a really high standard

i said the weakness one too- but i also hate the situations one. i can never remember any good ones- even when i try to preare for them!

I heard a good answer to the weakness question is "I wish I spoke more languages" - I know I sure do!

I hate the 5 year question - thankfully I didn't get that one on my interview last friday.

I hate the weakness question. My weakness? I have terrible attention to detail. Not proud, but its true. Do you think I'm seriously going to admit that to a interviewer? No way!

I hate the 5 year question. At my current job I got that question and I honestly answered that I didn't know and it was hard to say but that this job sounded challenging and I wanted to give a shot for as long as I could. My now boss actually said that was a good answer.

I HATE the weakness question!!!!!! I got asked that first thing at my last interview, and of course I picked a terrible weakness to talk about because it made me look like a psycho, and then my confidence was shot for the rest of the interview. It was TERRIBLE terrible.

I also hate weird ones though. I got asked once if I were a candy, what would I be and why, and even weirder, what would I be if I were a kitchen appliance! Really? A kitchen appliance?? I was like, umm, a knife because of my incisive wit, but then I had a serious answer.

I hate the name a situation ones.

Last time I did an interview, those questions just kept coming and coming.

I was worn-out by the end, and my answers started to really get repetitive.

Let's try all of the above!! How about a little originality.

Situation questions never seem to be original. What would I do if I witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace? Regardless of what I might actually do in that situation, I'm always going to tell you I'll report it!

ehadams - what is that google question?! how do you answer something like that?

I got the google question but not at google - I said "Nobody, the cat committed suicide when it was made clear that she was going to be stuck in there forever with a couple of real dogs.." - - and then made a gigantic inner eye-roll towards myself. But I got the job!

I hate the weakness question! It's a loaded question and I don't think it's fair. Why can't we just skip the mind games and talk about what really matters? I'm a straight forward person and I can't the bullsh*t.

I hate the "where do you see yourself in 5 years" question. How the hell do I know? "Five years ago I didn't think I'd be unemployed, searching for a job and settling for your company so I can stop eating rice for dinner so really it's a crap shoot" is what I want to say.