Advice for Employers and Recruiters
Bizarre Interview Questions From Gen Y Candidates
Many employers pay a lot of attention to training their recruiters and hiring managers on what questions to ask and not ask during job interviews but far fewer seem to pay enough attention and some virtually no attention to how to answer unusual and sometimes even seemingly bizarre questions asked by the candidates.
Diane Spiegel, CEO of corporate training and development firm The End Result, published an article today at ERE in which she discussed seven questions that a typical Gen X or Baby Boomer recruiter or hiring manager wouldn’t expect to be asked by a candidate. I agree with Diane that if the recruiter or hiring manager is interviewing Gen Y’ers (Millennials), the questions may come up and so the answers to them should be thought out in advance.
The seven questions are:
- If I don’t like my boss, how can I get that changed?
- How many hours per day will I be expected to work?
- Do you allow the use of Facebook?
- If I don’t like my pay, who do I talk to about fixing that?
- If we do reading for our job, can we do it at the gym during work hours?
- Who will be my mentor and coach while I’m learning the new job?
- What does the company do to make work fun?
According to Diane, it is important for recruiters and hiring managers to understand that their Gen Y candidates do not deliberately disrespect the relationship between employer and employee. Gen Y simply doesn’t think about work the same way as do older generations. She advocates stepping “outside the traditional frame of reference in order to find the employees who could be future leaders. Understanding what [Gen Y] think and why their experiences have led to their questions and answers will provide a great deal of insight — and minimize frustration. Refusing to interview candidates whose resumes include their favorite yoga or music will quickly narrow down the pool of candidates.”
Good advice, and another good article from the folks at ERE.