Over the past couple of weeks there has been a plethora of articles commenting on interview questions, with comments ranging from “What’s the point of these wacky questions” to observers who say that if corporate giants such as Google, who are notorious for asking questions such as “you are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?” frequently base their interviews and hiring on the answers to such riddles, then there must be something in it?

So is there something in it?
Can any of you out there shed any light on the value of questions such as:

1. “What colour best represents your personality”
2. “If you were an animal, what type of animal would you be and why?”

Does this type of questioning identify potential talent?

What type of response would classify as genius, and what type of response would classify as ridiculous?

Can these questions really provide any insight into an individual’s creativity, can they help interviewers identify how the interviewee potentially responds to unexpected scenarios, are candidates likely to panic, express confusion or go with the flow?

Your views and experiences would be greatly appreciated and if you could share with us the most unusual interview question that you have either been asked or that you have asked, that would be great.

Look forward to hearing from you

Smartness and scorching weather simply don’t go together; hot weather is casual, hot weather is bikini tops and frayed hems and lolling about with a frappucino in flip flops. Recently I’ve begun to wonder whether this scruffy attitude is a uniquely British trait. Because our summers are so brief, and come July we flee en masse to the Costa Brava, there’s a dearth of decent formal summer wear available on the high street, unless you work on a beach, or are willing to pay £150 for a Reiss shift which will look like it’s been worn by a chimney sweep after one trip on the tube. After all, if workers in Madrid and Rome can look chic at 30 degrees, why can’t we?

A friend of mine who works for the Foreign Office has been having problems too. Last Tuesday (during the heat wave) her legs weren’t ready to be bared, so she struck upon the idea of wearing hold-ups under her knee-length skirt. They were high enough to pass off as tights, she reasoned, but far cooler in the heat. Unfortunately, she hadn’t noticed a small rip in the back of the skirt, which caused it to ride up over the course of the morning. By her afternoon meeting at the embassy there was an inch gap of leg between hem and hold-ups. She had left for work looking like a professional, and returned home looking like a professional call-girl.

So are there any solutions to the problem? If your office has an all-suit policy I’m afraid I can’t suggest much, aside from taking off your jacket and thanking the air-con.

If you’re in a more casual office, try a formal hareem pant. They’re cool, they’re practical, they work with both heels and flatties and they’ll give you a sartorial edge over your colleagues. That is, of course, provided you buy the right ones. Get it wrong and you’ll look like a fat Jasmine.

Here’s my choice from Topshop.

By Lucy Pavia, Follow Lucy’s blog at www.girluninterrupted.co.uk/

Firstly, this isn’t about fashion. It’s not about stunning your potential employer with the latest AW10 handbag, an on-trend Bouclé jacket or shoulder pads that defy gravity. In 99% of cases they really won’t care. It’s more about finding a balance between dull conservatism and looking like you’ve been styled by a blind charity shop worker.

A brand consultant I spoke to talked about focusing on your ‘triangle of influence’ or the area between your forehead and shoulders. Remember, you might be wearing a fabulous skirt or shoes, but once you’ve sat down it is your outfit from the waist upwards that will be most visible. In other words, think like a newsreader.

Gender-permitting, ban the following from your triangle of influence:

Unbrushed hair
Excessive make-up
Clevage
Comedy ties
Exposed bra straps
Tatty or turned-up collars
Christmas tree / parrot earrings
Undone top buttons
Stains
Sweat patches
Hair gel
Chewing gum
Piercings beyond the ear lobe

Men: don’t skimp when you buy a suit, a top employer told me there’s nothing more off-putting than an ill-fitting one. This doesn’t mean you have to extend your overdraft five times over and head to Saville Row – M&S came most highly recommended. Invest in a decent pair of shoes too.

Women: you have more freedom, so don’t spend money on a suit if you can’t afford a nice one. If your bank account won’t stretch to a Vivienne Westwood or a Reiss (ie if you’re like most people) go for separates instead; a blouse and pencil skirt combination or dress teamed with a blazer. Go for those brilliant brands that look more expensive than they are, like Zara.

Interviews are horribly pressurised situations where you’re required to make the maximum impression in the minimum amount of time. If the employer is seeing a number of candidates that day, it’s always a good idea to have an extra weapon in your arsenal, even if you’re confident you’re perfect for the job. Remember that, to a certain extent, all people – even the fairest – will judge by appearances, it’s simply human nature. Your experience might speak volumes, but a tatty hem, too-short skirt or comedy tie will speak for you before you’ve opened your mouth.

By Lucy Pavia, Follow Lucy’s blog at www.girluninterrupted.co.uk/

Lucy Pavia – author of girluniterrupted shares her list of dos & don’ts when looking for your first job

As a class of 2008 graduate, arriving into the working world felt a bit like turning up uninvited to a party; the reception was frosty and no-one offered me a drink. Undeterred (and very stupid) I chose to follow a career in magazine journalism, and after two years, many tears, an incident with a pug and 467 Starbucks runs, here is what I’ve learned:

1)  Keep your CV short. My father has been working for 45 years and his still fits onto one page. No-one cares that in the summer of 2005 your responsibilities at Café Nero included ‘cleaning the coffee machine and wiping tables’; this fascinating insight will be explained in the job title. The Managing Editor of a top fashion glossy once told me that a one page CV is a great display of self-confidence. That said, the same woman also told me she was impressed that I hadn’t felt any pressure to dress fashionably for my interview…

2)  There is absolutely no excuse for being late for an interview, bar sudden death or a complete and unexpected shutdown of all available transport anywhere. Turn up an hour early, find a nearby cafe, read your CV over, and interview yourself. Other occupants of the cafe thinking you’re mad is preferable to a potential boss thinking you’re unreliable.

3)  Carry an umbrella on the way to an interview. I once met a Features Editor of a newspaper looking like a human dishcloth. I was sitting by a warm radiator and my clothes began to steam…

4)  Be nice to everyone, particularly the nasty sourpuss bent on making you feel rubbish. Like a playground bully, she’ll stop when she sees it’s not working.

5)  Don’t bitch. Or even worse, don’t send bitchy emails. I once heard a horror story of a guy in an office who wrote to a friend about a fellow female colleague saying ‘X never seems to wear a bra.. Have you noticed?’ He accidentally hit reply to the entire 300 staff in the building, including poor old X. He lost all professional credibility in the click of a mouse.

6)  If you get chatting to a high-flyer at a party, email them the following day saying how good it was to meet them. They could become a valuable mentor.

7)   When covering a celebrity party, don’t point at the nearest D-lister and ask the PR loudly: ‘who’s that then?’

8)   On a similar theme, don’t drink too much if you’re covering a party.

9)   Don’t power trip the work experience person. In years to come you could find them sitting across from you in an interview and they won’t have forgotten that 1000 paperclip challenge you set them at 5.30 on a Friday afternoon.

10)   Accept sometimes that life isn’t fair and many job opportunities simply boil down to luck and circumstance. Case in point: a friend of mine worked with a man who habitually picked up half the pile of CVs and threw them in the bin with the words ‘I don’t like working with unlucky people’.

Follow Lucy’s blog at www.girluninterrupted.co.uk/

The beauty of what I do is that on any given day I get to turn my attention to many different industry sectors. I could be writing for a social care organisation, a government department, a high street retailer or one of the country’s leading breweries, I just don’t know what’s round the corner writing wise some days. Yes, I am used to donning different hats and facing up to a whole range of challenges, but this sounded like a very different kind of proposition altogether – A 1000 word script that had to contain elements of humour yet be professional AND informative – and all captured on camera for a niche audience who really look up to this ‘dude’.

I bit the bullet and decided to take the brief. It resulted in a trip up to sunny North London. Then, during the course of the meeting, the client, the owner of www.oggs.com, a gaming review site, just happened to mention in passing that he had negotiated a few golden tickets to enter some online contest and that he might invite me to be in the team.

I thought no more about it until a few days later when, script (click on link below to see youtube video) and press releases duly cracked and submitted, I got an email confirming that I had indeed been invited to join ‘Team Oggs’ – a seven strong team brought together to try and win a million euros in the Grand Final of Microgaming’s Million Euro Slots Tournament at the end of last month.

Hey, even Ridley Scott had to start somewhere!

I accepted the invitation but quickly came across a stumbling block. . The online gaming industry may be very technically advanced, but their software doesn’t like Apple Macs – and I use….an Apple Mac!

Fortunately that particular dilemma was solved when an agency where I take desk space a couple of days a week kindly offered to let me chance my arm at winning the million from the comfort of their offices in London in a tournament where1500 finalists from around the world played a selection of some of the best online slots games in the business in the hope they would walk away with the big prize.

There was, however, a twist where my participation was concerned. (my life is never ordinary) Each player in ‘Team Oggs’ had to sign a contract in advance stating that if they won, they would take no more than 5% of the winnings, with the rest of the money going to charity. It was an unusual collaboration to say the least, but there really was nothing to lose and a lot to gain. So I signed up.

What’s more, the client was so pleased with the video and releases that he paid me double, yes that’s right, DOUBLE, what I originally quoted. Another first for me! And, it all only came about because I stepped out of my comfort zone.

Did I win? Er, I’m still here aren’t I? No, I didn’t, but hey, I didn’t even expect to be competing. The point is, stepping outside of your comfort zone needn’t always be a scary experience. It can reap rewards and lead to the unexpected. Getting paid double was good enough for me, although the 50,000 euro cut of the prize would have been nice. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

(incidentally the dude in the video, one J Todd, normally wears t shirt and jeans. Yes, I even got him to stand in the middle of a field wearing a suit!)

- Alasdair Murray, Freelance Copy Writer, alasdairdmurraycopywriter.co.uk

There are few things more daunting than attending a job interview. That’s why it’s good to prepare by considering some of the questions you might be asked. Just make sure you don’t end up giving any of these answers….

Interviewer: What is your greatest accomplishment?
Interviewee: Finishing Phantom Mutant Death Fighter 3 for PC – and in work time too! Have you played it?

Interviewer: Could you sell me this pen?
Interviewee (shouting): Get your pens, only 50p. Everything must go. Come on sweetheart, you know you want one!

Interviewer: If our roles were reversed, what question would you ask?
Interviewee: Where did you get that terrible blouse?

Interviewer: Who in the world, living or dead, would you most like to meet?
Interviewee: Oooooh that’s a difficult one. Er, I’d have to say ‘living’ I think.

Interviewer: Describe a complex problem you have had to deal with.
Interviewee: I had a STD once, but don’t worry, it cleared up ages ago.

Interviewer:Do you prefer delegation or hands on control?
Interviewee: Er, what are they? Boy bands or something?

Interviewer: What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Interviewee: Shouting up at the window ‘get a life’ to anyone who’s sad enough to be working late

Interviewer: Are you prepared to relocate?
Interviewee: Certainly. Where would you like me to sit?

Interviewer: What do you think you can contribute to the company?
Interviewee: Well it depends how much I have left at the end of each month

Interviewer: Can you act on your own initiative?
Interviewee: I was in the school play once, but to be honest I’m no Sir Michael Caine.

Interviewer: ‘What would you say is the biggest risk you ever took’?
Interviewee: Probably unprotected sex’.
Interviewer: I meant in the workplace.
Interviewee: Yes, funnily enough it was. You know what Christmas Parties can be like!

Interviewer: What are your career goals’?
Interviewee (proudly) 15 in 155 appearances for my local pub team!

Interviewer: What would you like to avoid in your next job?
Interviewee: It’s not so much a case of ‘what’, more ‘who’. Honestly, there were some right sad sacks at my last place!

Interviewer: How do you cope with change?
Interviewee: I put it in a piggy bank and buy myself something nice with it at Christmas

Interviewer: Are you willing to travel?
Interviewee: Duh? How else am I going to get here in the mornings?

Interviewer: Describe the best boss you ever had.
Interviewee: About five eight, a petite blonde, breasts like beach balls

Interviewer: Do you prefer working with a male or female boss?
Interviewee: Oh please. Give me a man every time. I mean women. Temperamental or what? Actually just make that ‘mental’…… Your good self excepted of course.

Interviewer: What unfinished business have you left behind that you wish you had concluded?
Interviewee: I had a bit of an altercation with one of my colleagues. But don’t worry, I know where he lives. He will get his.

Interviewer: Tell me about a time when you didn’t get on with your colleagues.
Interviewee: Time? How long have you got? I’ve got plenty of stories where that’s concerned.

Interviewer: What’s your relationship with your former employer?
Interviewee: Purely platonic. Mind you she looked like she knew every branch of the ugly tree intimately.

- Alasdair Murray, Freelance Copy Writer, alasdairdmurraycopywriter.co.uk

 http://blogs.sfweekly.com - Thanks to SF Weekly blog for this.