The only people who ever ask that are pompous assholes. And they especially love asking that of younger people.
The companies I loved working for so far have never ever asked that question. They ask questions that are relevant to the role.
I’m job hunting right now. I want to give whoever comes up with job advertisement text the finger.
Here’s text from one I saw recently: “Are you a visionary creative leader with a passion for social media and an eye for aesthetics?” Can you go fuck yourselves? I have a passion for doing my job properly and getting paid for it.
I once was fed up and just sendt my CV for a while. Didn’t get a single contact. They need that honey around their mouth.
That said, LinkedIn offers this easy apply thing where you just send them your CV and maybe answer a very quick question or two (i.e. “are you authorized to work in this country?”) and they don’t even give you the opportunity for a cover letter. I don’t know if it will get me a job, but it’s quite nice compared to all the other job sites.
View from the other side. We recently advertised for an Electronics Technician. Our primary posting was on the Gov of Canada jobbank. We linked to it from LinkedIn trying to drive people to the posting that had actual instructions.
What LinkedIn did instead was start accepting applications on our behalf entirely without prompting. Furthermore, we weren’t aware we were getting applications there until we got a message from LinkedIn telling us that we had reached our cap and would have to pay some premium to allow more applicants. The hell…
Also, other sites like indeed.com and such harvested it and were accepting applications, even though we don’t have accounts there and cannot receive the applications.
What do you think this looks like as a job seeker? You just get silence on these applications and think you’re doing everything right, but really the websites are just trying to hold your eyeballs there and don’t actually care if you get a job at all.
Unless the job says something like “we are only accepting applicants via LinkedIn”, assume that your resume is going to a black hole there.
Anyway, we just sent an offer to someone who applied using the instructions we gave on our initial posting on the job bank.
I never ask why since it’s damned obvious, I don’t work for a charity either. I ask why this company. Get much better insight into candidates.
“The position offers monetary compensation in exchange for the adequate performance of tasks. I require monetary compensation and will therefore perform said tasks adequately.”
This is a question for skilled workers with multiple offers when there are more candidates than positions, so it’s pretty stupid when managers at McDonald’s ask it during an interview. I suppose they can use the given answers to determine if someone is assigned to the cash register or the frier. Even McDonald’s requires a certain level of bullshit tolerance and people skills at the front of the house.
For low level jobs, I see the interview as more of a test of “can this candidate handle basic communication, avoid acting in a way that will alarm others, handle a bit of pressure, and generally behave in a way that I don’t see us regretting hiring this person for at least as long as it takes to have an interview?”
For those interviews, there aren’t so much right answers as there are wrong answers.
Going in to interviews with the subtle art of not giving a fuck mindset transforms their nature entirely. While I don’t enjoy being in a position where I need to go do interviews, the interviews themselves aren’t that bad, they can even be enjoyable if you tune your dgaf properly.
Though it’s important to understand that the not giving a fuck mindset isn’t a “I don’t care what you think” kind of energy, it’s “whatever happens here, I’ll be fine”. Reach for what you want and give it your honest best shot, but leave any desperation at home. Even if you might not be fine, cross that bridge later.
I have been asked this question at ever skill level of job I have applied for, since high school.
It’s interesting that when I finally made it to the level where that kind of question is appropriate, they stopped asking. They know why you want to work at a company with an amazing reputation for taking care of employees, and use their time to ask more important questions. I’ve asked it only twice now that I interview people, and it was when the candidate pool was narrowed down to two amazingly qualified and intelligent people, and I needed some sort of tie breaker. It’s not a great tie breaker, but I was out of ideas. That’s more of a deficiency with my interview prep than a reflection of the company though.
Yes, I’m interested in your time for money exchange program.
That’s great! We offer competitive rates for your time, for instance, our Platinum plan can offer you up to 34% of what your time is actually worth on the open market, but due to your weak resume with gaps in employment history and the fact that you don’t have a doctorate for this entry level position, I’m afraid that the most we can offer you is a Silver plan, at 18% of your market value.
That is of course before you factor in the mandatory taxes and assays affording to relevant state laws and… how does federally required minimum wage sound?
Look at Mr Moneybags over here with a positive bank balance…
What? Even if you work here an entire hour you won’t make that much.
It’s a given you want money. The question is why this job vs another? If you don’t stand out from the 100 other applicants then they’ll take whoever will accept the lowest pay or whoever has the most charm.
If you come off as desperate then they might try to lowball you
Sure, but depending on the field, there is no difference from one job to another. I can do data analysis on your engine, your electrical grid, your stupid app. It’s all numbers to me. Going through the motions of pretending I was called by destiny for your company is insulting to both of us. Same category as a damned cover letter. I had ChatGPT write whatever I thought would get me in the door and you honestly shouldn’t trust a single one ever.
If you can find that special someone that really does have a thing for your company, neat. Otherwise, maybe don’t use this question because you’re probably just going to learn how well the applicant can brown nose. There are plenty of interview questions to choose from that might yield useful data.
“Otherwise, maybe don’t use this question because you’re probably just going to learn how well the applicant can brown nose. There are plenty of interview questions to choose from that might yield useful data.”
The comic is about this specific question, so all else being equal, if I have to choose between someone that responds like you did and someone with any hint of friendliness, then I know who I would rather work with…
Yeah, if someone is being a cunt and saying that, sure. Most people have the good sense to be friendly during an interview and if they can’t manage that, I have no defense for them.
But you don’t even need this question to judge friendliness. The question is completely worthless and is very “dance monkey dance”. I asks the applicant to degrade themselves by lying to your face about some higher meaning for no useful information to the interviewer. As I said, there are way better questions to ask.
I dont find this question degrading because its so common and rote. It has a prescribed answer, like all the rest of the “top ten interview questions.”
They will get the same blank answer they expect to the blank question they asked and we can both smile and nod and pretend this interview isn’t just a basic skills test cloaked in a vibes check like all the rest.
Interviews are play acting from all parties involved. Its all pretend, done generally by people that arent really practiced at it, so there is no reason to take it personally.
I can accept the song and dance interpretation of things, but contest that it isn’t degrading and ultimately either useless or arguably detrimental. To go as extreme as possible: slavery was once common and rote and that did not make it anything less than a dehumanizing crime against humanity. Being common does not make it OK. There are better options and holding on to things because that’s how it’s always been is a fallacy.
To follow up, and reveal my own biases, the song and dance is hard for many people who are neurodivergent (and presumably some subset of neurotypicals, but I can’t really speak from experience there). I’m a bad liar. It’s one thing to selectively pick facts and let people make assumptions (which I’m meh at at best, and need prep for and don’t enjoy doing) and another to openly make shit up on the fly (or have your bullshit prepared in advance). And for people such as myself that are bad at and uncomfortable with directly lying, despite my qualifications, now I’m screwed because society values dishonesty for some deeply stupid reason. And just riding the wave at this point: is incentivizing brown nosing and lying really what we want? Because that seems like a bad incentive.
Comparing the mundane small talk and boring back and forth of an interview to the shattering evil of slavery is well past extreme. These two things should not be compared in any context.
Youre not alone in being nuerodivergent. It was realizing that the interview process is an act, with orchestrated motions, that makes it approachable. Its not about lying or being lied to. Its a series of motions that repeat basicslly everywhere. You can learn and practice these motions, because they are so repetitive, and become very good at them.
Literally read off and practice answers to common interview questions. Any “top 10” or “top 100” guide. Have an answer to each of them, and practice them. You’ll be stunned how often they come up, and how much easier interviews get. You still wont get every job, but you’ll come through as a much better candidate in most cases.
You left the conditions for “acceptable behavior” as “common and rote”. The point of the extremity was to demonstrate that this is a bad definition. Your revulsion to the comparison would indicate you understand this on some level, though that assertion is flimsier.
Well yeah, of course you can look up the questions and plan out answers. Hell, many of the questions are useful to ask. And get good results. I would further recommend that to prospective interviewees in spite of the heartburn the idea gives me. I’ll play the damned game but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rub me the wrong way. Familiarity does not necessarily breed comfort. Sometimes all you get is resignation to an unpleasant task. But that wasn’t my point.
The point was this particular, common question is insulting and demeaning to everyone involved for no value to the interviewer and that the only plausible justification for it boils down to “its tradition” (which is a stupid reason to keep it) and further incentivizes character features that I hazard are socially detrimental (brown nosing and lying are not typically positive traits).
Employer: “I assume you’re stretching for the peak of your Mazlovian Hierarchy, so why don’t you tell us about that?”
Me: scraping breadcrumbs off the carpet and shoving them into my mouth, half paying attention “I’m sorry, Mazlovian what now?”
Isn’t oxygen at the peak?
What’s with this title?
What’s with this title?
You’ve never had a job interview?
The title means that businesses know exactly how to pay their vendors and all the bills they must pay but when it comes time to pay for the service of an employee’s labor they suddenly think the employee should want to do the job for free, or for little money, or for personal enjoyment. They treat the job as gift that they will bestow upon a deserving person and they don’t see your labor as any other good/service which they must pay for when running a business.
Do you work in HR? How did you not get that?
Do you work in HR? How did you not get that?
Bahaahahaaa. Thank you, needed that chuckle.
That’s quite a bit of gymnastics, but I concede, it’s a good one in the end.
I heard you get them cash here for my time.
