Career Connection
About this Blog:
Insight and advice to help you carve your way in the cut-throat business world.
Unconventional IT Job Interview Questions
If you could be a super-hero, which one would you be? IT professionals share ridiculous job interview questions.
Recently, I set out to report a story on unconventional job interview questions. My theory was that it's tougher for hiring managers to decide who to hire now, when the market is flooded with so many qualified candidates, so hiring managers need to ask more wacky, personal or curveball-type questions during job interviews to help them determine who's best.
I asked IT hiring managers, CIO job seekers and a recruiter to share the unconventional job interview questions they ask or have been asked. They cited a few, which I share below, but on the whole I found that IT hiring managers ask pretty standard questions. The hiring managers and CIO job seekers I interviewed for my story said that they didn't think that the labor market was prompting hiring managers to ask unconventional job interview questions. They did express amazement that some of the standard interview questions still cause IT job seekers to trip up. (Consequently, I had to reposition my story as IT Job Seekers: Can You Answer an Interviewer's 12 Gotcha Questions?)
The "unusual" interview questions that didn't make it into my story:
1. If you could be a super hero, which one would you be?
Simon Stapleton, chief innovation officer at an insurance company based in the U.K., says he was once asked this question, and it caught him off guard. He says he had no idea why the hiring manager asked it, other than to get to know his personality. Stapleton says he told the hiring manager he'd want to be Superman so that he could be anywhere in an instant. His answer must have been satisfactory because he was offered the job.
2. If you were a cereal box on a long grocery store aisle, why would I put you in my shopping cart when there are so many other boxes?
George Tomko, a former CIO who's now an IT consultant, says he had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes when he was asked this one. He understood the hiring manager wanted to know what made him unique; he just wished the hiring manager could have been more direct and less cutesy.
3. If you were an IP address, what would it be?
Stapleton doesn't remember how he answered this question—only that he said he would not be the loop back address (the IP address of one's own computer.) He thinks he was asked this question to demonstrate that he understood how IP addresses worked.
4. If you didn't have any financial obligations, what would you be doing with your time?
Brian Nettles, the director of enterprise systems at CB Richard Ellis, uses this question to learn about a prospective employee's personal interests. If the candidate says he wouldn't be working in IT, that's a red flag for Nettles. It tells him the individual doesn't have much passion for his job.
5. How does a computer mouse work?
Stapleton says he had to explain the mechanics of a mouse when he interviewed for an IT management position. He believes the hiring manager wanted to make sure he could explain technical concepts in laymen's terms. He say he answered the question simply: "The movement of the mouse creates electronic signals, which get sent to the computer, which understands which direction to move in."
If you're an IT hiring manager, please share your unconventional interview questions. Are you
Print
I asked IT hiring managers, CIO job seekers and a recruiter to share the unconventional job interview questions they ask or have been asked. They cited a few, which I share below, but on the whole I found that IT hiring managers ask pretty standard questions. The hiring managers and CIO job seekers I interviewed for my story said that they didn't think that the labor market was prompting hiring managers to ask unconventional job interview questions. They did express amazement that some of the standard interview questions still cause IT job seekers to trip up. (Consequently, I had to reposition my story as IT Job Seekers: Can You Answer an Interviewer's 12 Gotcha Questions?)
The "unusual" interview questions that didn't make it into my story:
1. If you could be a super hero, which one would you be?
Simon Stapleton, chief innovation officer at an insurance company based in the U.K., says he was once asked this question, and it caught him off guard. He says he had no idea why the hiring manager asked it, other than to get to know his personality. Stapleton says he told the hiring manager he'd want to be Superman so that he could be anywhere in an instant. His answer must have been satisfactory because he was offered the job.
2. If you were a cereal box on a long grocery store aisle, why would I put you in my shopping cart when there are so many other boxes?
George Tomko, a former CIO who's now an IT consultant, says he had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes when he was asked this one. He understood the hiring manager wanted to know what made him unique; he just wished the hiring manager could have been more direct and less cutesy.
3. If you were an IP address, what would it be?
Stapleton doesn't remember how he answered this question—only that he said he would not be the loop back address (the IP address of one's own computer.) He thinks he was asked this question to demonstrate that he understood how IP addresses worked.
4. If you didn't have any financial obligations, what would you be doing with your time?
Brian Nettles, the director of enterprise systems at CB Richard Ellis, uses this question to learn about a prospective employee's personal interests. If the candidate says he wouldn't be working in IT, that's a red flag for Nettles. It tells him the individual doesn't have much passion for his job.
5. How does a computer mouse work?
Stapleton says he had to explain the mechanics of a mouse when he interviewed for an IT management position. He believes the hiring manager wanted to make sure he could explain technical concepts in laymen's terms. He say he answered the question simply: "The movement of the mouse creates electronic signals, which get sent to the computer, which understands which direction to move in."
If you're an IT hiring manager, please share your unconventional interview questions. Are you
Previous Post: How Long Have You Been Looking for a Job?Next Post: 6 Job Interview Questions to Identify Change Agents and Innovators
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
