{"id":8396,"date":"2018-09-12T10:25:51","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T10:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterindia.com\/career-advice\/how-to-ace-oddball-interview-questions-8396\/"},"modified":"2023-10-11T13:55:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T08:25:02","slug":"how-to-ace-oddball-interview-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/how-to-ace-oddball-interview-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"How to ace oddball interview questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When preparing for an interview, it\u2019s likely you already know to your answers to questions about your biggest successes and failures, questions that test your knowledge regarding the industry you\u2019re in, questions about the type of worker and person you are. But what you probably don\u2019t prepare for are questions like this: \u201cIf you were a type of cereal, what would you be and why?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewers are starting to include startling, unexpected questions like this one<\/a>, and are using them specifically to throw off the interviewee and see how they think on their feet. Even though you may not encounter these types of questions, it\u2019s still good to be prepared for what you might say if they are lobbed at you.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. The Quirky Question\n<\/strong>

    <\/strong>\u201cIf you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?\u201d \u201cWhat was the last thing you watched on TV and why did you choose it?\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/em>

    <\/em>For these types of questions, the specific superpower or viewing material isn\u2019t what\u2019s important \u2013 the reasoning behind the choice does. The interviewer wants to see how your mind works and to know more about your personality. So don\u2019t overthink your answer \u2013 just say the first thing that comes to mind and explain why. Remember that your explanation doesn\u2019t need to be deep, but that it does need to be honest. Lying in an interview is a big mistake.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

    <\/p><\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n

  2. The Off-Center Background Question\n<\/span><\/strong>

    <\/strong>\u201cWhat work or volunteer experience didn\u2019t you put on your CV?\u201d \u201cAt what age did you get your first paying job?\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/em>

    <\/em>Questions like these are meant to get a read on who you are and to help the interviewer find out more about your work ethic and working background. Since a CV is more of a snapshot of your experience that\u2019s relevant to the job you\u2019re interviewing for, it\u2019s likely that there are things you did not include \u2013 elaborating on those working situations or, if you\u2019re early in career, any volunteer work or leadership training you\u2019ve done, helps the interviewer get to know a little bit more about you.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Regarding the age question, you can point to how old you were when you took on your first part-time job during high school or university breaks. These types of answers will paint a more personal picture of who you are and give the interviewer a good idea of your work ethic.<\/span><\/p>\n

    <\/p><\/li>\n\n\n\n

  3. The Realistic Question\n<\/span><\/strong>

    <\/strong>\u201cWhat do you think about when you\u2019re alone?\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s your plan if you don\u2019t get this job?\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/em>

    <\/em>If an interviewer throws something like this at you, they\u2019re trying to discern what you care about. The things you think about in your free time tell a lot about who you are and how you see the world \u2013 and it\u2019s okay if your answer isn\u2019t \u201ccuring cancer\u201d or \u201csolving world hunger\u201d. They want to know what you care about, what occupies your thoughts, and who you are as a person. Asking questions about how you would react to disappointing news gives them an idea of how you handle the idea of disappointment, as well as your resilience, and, potentially, your sense of humor.<\/span><\/p>\n

    <\/p><\/li>\n\n\n\n

  4. The Confounding Question\n<\/span><\/strong>

    <\/strong>\u201cHow many ten-cent coins would fit into this room?\u201d \u201cEstimate how many windows there are in Manilla.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/em>

    <\/em>Being on the receiving end of these sorts of questions likely means you\u2019ll be furrowing your brow and wondering how in the world you\u2019re supposed to come up with an answer \u2013 but that\u2019s the point. Like The Quirky Question above, these types of questions are designed to test how you think about complex, seemingly impossible problems. Again, the answer isn\u2019t necessarily what matters \u2013 it\u2019s explaining how you got to the answer. If you\u2019re extremely analytical and think you can actually solve the question, go for it. But if your brain doesn\u2019t work that way, just try your best \u2013 you may even surprise yourself with what you come up with.<\/span><\/p><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Now that you have an understanding of what interviewers are looking for when they ask oddball questions, you\u2019ll know exactly how to prepare and will be able to ace answering these <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When preparing for an interview, it\u2019s likely you already know to your answers to questions about your biggest successes and failures, questions that test your knowledge regarding the industry you\u2019re in, questions about the type of worker and person you are. But what you probably don\u2019t prepare for are questions like this: \u201cIf you were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interview-questions"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21498,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions\/21498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.in\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}