Interviewer : (last five minutes) So do you have any questions for me? Candidate : Can you tell me about what brought you to [Firm] and what’s kept you there? Interviewer : That was a waste of a question.
Interviewer : Scenario. It’s January 1. You can invest in the stocks that make up the S&P 500. How do you guarantee that you will outperform the index by December 31? Candidate : (extended silence, no idea) Interviewer : Think about it statistically. And remember the S&P is market-cap weighted. Candidate : … I have no idea… Interviewer : Really? Think about it. Candidate : (more painful silence) … Sorry, no clue. Interviewer : Don’t buy the stocks that go down! Candidate : Ah.
No joke, one interviewer asked me something that nearly resembled this:
Tell me about a time you were on a team, a project was due, a teammate got sick while another was just lazy. At the same time you just realized your wife’s mother is in the hospital and your girlfriend on the side is pregnant. How would you balance these multiple concurrent demands while still maintaining a constant twitter feed for your thriving fans?
The only issue that you can control at that time is the project that’s due. So, you have to focus your energy on getting the lazy coworker to help you finish in time.
After that, you probably call your wife and comfort your wife and reassure her that she’s the love of your life. That way, you buy yourself some time to deal with the girlfriend.
Then, you figure out how to make your girlfriend problem go away forever.
If you’re a nice guy, you then send a card, flowers, candy, or something else to the sick coworker to earn some points that can be cashed in later on.