What is the most difficult question you have ever been asked on a professional interview?

Alison's Contribution:

As Ramesh has pointed out, most people are good at supplying answers to questions about how good they are. They aren't very good at supplying questions to those that ask
- how bad they are,
- how the react when things go wrong,
- how they describe their worst failings,
- what kinds of things would the lie about on their cv or to colleagues,
- how they would work with someone they didn't trust
- what would they do if they saw someone being assaulted
- how "green" are they

Maybe you think you may never be asked these kinds of questions. The point of the exercise is not to prepare for every question that could possibly asked, but how to respond to a question which throws you.

Regardless of the question, realise that they may actually be looking for something else.

My advice: practice something like the following. 1. Breathe, 2. Repeat back the question, 3. Say something like "That's a Difficult one/an easy one" for me - I'd XXX." or "That's a difficult one, let me have a think about it. My initial reaction is to XXX."

Practice these steps so they become second nature. (You could even record and shuffle them on an mp3 player with appropriate pauses to rehearse answers).

The purpose of this type of approach is to provide time for your brain to process the challenge and come up with the best possible answer to you at that time.

Hope this helps,

Alison
posted 9 days ago