Andy Hibel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast, mailbag edition. I'm Andy Hibble, the Chief operating Officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Kelly Cherwin: And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the Director of Editorial Strategy.

Andy Hibel: And today, we're going to cover how to handle a bad interview question, and we're presuming here, there's another podcast that's out there about how to capitalize on a good interview question.

Andy Hibel: This kind of reminds me of one of my favorite early '80s albums from The Tubes called the Completion Backward Principle, which back in the day, uh, I'd buy the record and wanna play the first side and then the second side. And actually there's a little message at the beginning of that album that encouraged you to play both sides in one seating.

And I think I'd encourage anybody who's listening to this one, if you listen to the first one, this one will probably make a heck of a lot more sense to you. There's questions out there that you're gonna get that you can capitalize on in an interview, but this one's gonna concentrate on the questions you're gonna get, where you're gonna say to yourself more than anything else, "Wtf, what do I do with this question?

Yes, Andy. I think, and I'm trying to play off the, the WTH here and unfortunately I think we--

Andy Hibel: That's, no, it was, it was an F.

Kelly Cherwin: Oh, WTF, sorry. Okay. So, um, I think we have all been through some interviews that we probably have unfortunately received some of these questions that in our head we want to say that. But it's our responsibility to kind of stay cool, calm, collected, and figure out how we can best respond to these. So yeah, let's get into our conversation about some of these questions and where to go.

Andy Hibel: That sounds great. Why don't you throw one of those questions at me?

Kelly Cherwin: Well, I have a couple that kind of fall into a same category. So let's just get these out of the way and then we'll go on to some other ones. So if I asked you a [00:02:00] question regarding what your children do after school? Or are you married? How old are you? What do you say to these type of questions?

Andy Hibel: So we're gonna try to, to the best of our ability, categorize questions. This is the type of question, when you hear it, that is illegal. Like, hey, tell me about your last date. How was he or she or they? No, these are not questions somebody should be answering. And I think there are a lot of mixed emotions and a lot of emotion that goes into answering them. I would suggest in these areas when you have that question, if you're going to continue after this interview with the process, these are the sorts of questions where you really have to ask why would you want to continue with the process?

Maybe there's a good reason. Maybe this is an important job, and your family needs you to do the work. I don't want to discount it, but these are the sorts of red flags that are just screaming at you when somebody asks one of these questions. So [00:03:00] let's just call it that. I think that in this instance, I would never encourage you to feel like you have to answer the question. You do not.

If you feel like the easiest way to handle this in a diplomatic and non-confrontational way is to answer it and you feel comfortable disclosing that information, maybe you consider that, but if you don't want to answer the question, don't answer the question, and if it's so bad and so uncomfortable that you don't feel comfortable answering the question, I think you literally say, "I don't feel comfortable answering the question."

And if pressed and they're like, "oh, I'm really sorry. I didn't realize you were so uncomfortable" or "I'm sorry. What was wrong with that question?" I think just doubling down. "Uh, I'm not comfortable answering this question. Can we move to a new line of questioning?" If it really is that bad, don't answer it. You're not required to answer it.

There's no obligation on you because of that. How does that affect your candidacy? Probably not well, but I'm not sure that should matter to you [00:04:00] if it's something that you don't want to continue with that made you feel that uncomfortable.

Kelly Cherwin: I agree with everything you said. You took the words in my mouth with the red flag.

If that's the type of questions that they're asking, they probably should know better. Then maybe that is a red flight, you know, is this the type of institution that I wanna work for? If they -- I don't know if it's not valuing you, but know enough to not ask that and put you in an uncomfortable situation.

So I love your response of, I don't feel comfortable and doubling down too. I like that too.

Andy Hibel: I also think when we look at some of these interview questions that we're labeling as bad, there's a category of them and, well, if you were a color, what color were you? If you're a Peanuts character, what Peanuts character would you be? Etc., Etc., Etc.

There's these, I would say, a little bit irreverent questions that may be getting to something, maybe wanting to get people's personalities to come out a little bit. Probably my instance would caution from the employer mechanics. If you've listened to the last podcast, if you're an employer and you're asking that question, what's [00:05:00] your purpose?

If you're trying to get more personality out of it, try to find other ways to engage with somebody more directly to say, "Hey, listen, I wanna learn a little bit more about you. What's important to you?" Give them a big open-ended question with saying, this is why I really want to know. I think there's a little bit of pressure sometimes as an employer to feel like you need to have that cool question.

Don't be cool. Be effective in your communication. I think it's important and would show a professionalism that I think sits well with most candidates, but what would you recommend to a candidate when they get that sort of question and they can be pretty irreverent? What would you suggest an candidate does with that irreverent "if you were a Peanuts character, what Peanuts character would you be?"

Kelly Cherwin: Well, I think it does boil down to the intent of what the employer is trying to get at. So if they are trying to ask questions like, oh, the personality of what character and how that relates. But if it's to get to more of the intent of how cool can this person be in responding to a curve [00:06:00] ball, then it's difficult to answer that.

Kelly Cherwin: So, back to what I was saying earlier is trying to stay cool, calm and collected, that does throw you off -- because if they're asking a quote unquote cool question, you wanna have a cool answer. But for me, in my head, I'd be like, "how do I answer this question that they want to hear it" and that's my advice.

I would say, don't answer based on what you think they want to hear, answer it based on who you are. So I'll be honest, I don't even know all the Peanuts characters [I have a peanut allergy -- that's my answer] ...so, I wouldn't even know how to respond. So I might just say that like "I'm not well versed in the Peanuts characters, so I'm not sure how I'd actually respond to that.

Andy Hibel: And just so you know, reminding folks out there, these are actual questions that people sent to us. They've been asked like, what is your favorite color? Or what color are you? If you're an animal, what would you be? These are questions that people are asked. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

Holy smokes. Like, what do you do with it? And I'm actually gonna go [00:07:00] back to the other side of the album here and talk about the first podcast that we did on the opportunity. This is one of those questions that can you create it to be a place where you can come back to what your story is and come back to thematically where you want to convey yourself as a candidate and find that opportunity.

My daughter's studying photography. I guess the color question might be pretty interesting in a photography sort of situation and say, I really actually relate to blacks because in photography I can use this, this way, and etc., etc.. That's a tremendous way, given the context of that question, to handle a color question. Try to find something similar where you're at to kind of pull it into your realm and then give out that answer of, oh, this might be a question that's an opportunity for me to stick to my story and stay on message.

Kelly Cherwin: I do like that. And I guess my other thing, you know, following up on some of the creative questions, give a creative response.

[00:08:00] I actually was, this is not on our list of questions, but I was asked this question many years ago. "Tell me something you believe in," and my head was spinning cause I was like, oh, this could go so many different ways. Are they looking to set me up down a path that I can't get out of? Like, I knew I wasn't gonna talk anything about politics.

I knew I wasn't gonna talk anything controversial, like in my head I was like, okay, say something very neutral. So I said, "I believe the colors navy blue and black don't go well together." And it was a panel interview and it was a male that asked me that question, and a couple females were on the panel as well.

And they all started laughing, like they busted out laughing because the interviewer's face was kind of like, "oh, I didn't expect that," but I was like, "I didn't expect that question." So I answered back creatively. But my point is, back to the comment about intent. I was trying to figure out what is he trying to get out of me?

And I am not gonna go down a rabbit hole of digging myself into something that I don't wanna talk about. That's why I [00:09:00] purposely. Black and navy blue don't match.

Andy Hibel: And it's succinct. Move to the next question. Exactly.

Kelly Cherwin: I should have said next.

Mike Walker: Yeah. So getting back to the previous podcast, would that be a bunt?

Kelly Cherwin: I don't know what that is, but yeah.

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Kelly Cherwin: So, Andy, we know that there's different type of interviews, there's behavioral interviews, there's interviews called Stress Interviews, and it's for companies to kind of throw different types of [00:10:00] baseballs, I guess, using the analogy and create a stressful environment, see how candidates might react to that, so what are your thoughts on that?

Andy Hibel: I kind of come onto the first thing. "Do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you." If this is something in an interview that as an employer you wouldn't necessarily like if you were a candidate, I'd ask what you're trying to accomplish.

Andy Hibel: If what you're trying to accomplish, well, stress is a big part of this job. There's a lot of curve ball's thrown at you, etc., etc., and we need to see how people deal with that, I think there's other measures to do that. If it's a sales sort of situation where you're reaching out and I'm thinking here, whether it's development or admissions, and you're talking to prospective students or donors, maybe doing some mock interviews or mock donor visits with that person and try it in that sort of situation as opposed to trying to address it in a question.

Yeah, being somebody who works with a donor who says something outrageous, you have to respond to it as a development officer is a real part of the job, but I don't think that's unfair or unexpected in a mock donor [00:11:00] visit. I think in an interview question to try to say something that would shock somebody to see how they'd react to it as a quote unquote test -- I think as an employer, I think twice about your mechanics there. I'm not sure that that is the appropriate place to do it. I get it. People do it. I'm not sure that that's the proper forum for it. As a candidate, I know how I would feel. I'm not sure how others would feel, but if you're putting me through something like that and you felt like that was appropriate in the interview stage, boy, what's it gonna be like Where I have a place where there's an opportunity for learning?

I didn't necessarily do the right thing, and this person's going to be bringing this up with me later on down the line. Are they gonna approach it with the goal of learning and furthering the knowledge and furthering the team, or are they gonna do it in a way that's a little bit unkind and punitive that's gonna just not sit well with me?

There's ways to work as part of a team and -- I think the word I'm looking for here really is respect -- of each other, [00:12:00] and it feels a little bit as from a candidate perspective, that if you're willing to do that in an interview, that you're being, in a way, disrespectful. I think there's a big question in today's day and age where you look at employer-employee relationships and the imbalance in that relationship, and I'm not sure I'd want to be starting someplace where an employer -- who has power over me -- is willing to behave in that sort of fashion. So it would make me think twice.

Kelly Cherwin: Yeah, I agree. And I think from the job seeker's side, I think of the word unfair because personally I think a job interview, the situation is stressful no matter what coming in. You're under, you know, a little bit of the microscope.

It's stressful. So being judged based on one or two curve ball questions saying that's going to necessarily translate to how you work in the workplace is not fair in my situation. So back to your point of like the mechanics -- it comes back to both sides, the employer needs to kind of think of how they're phrasing and is that the best way to get the best personality traits and get [00:13:00] to know that candidate the best? Probably not. So, and kinda what you're saying earlier about the red flags too, if that's the type of stress they're putting you under, maybe that's not the type of place that you're gonna fit in well and thrive.

Andy Hibel: Totally agree.

Kelly Cherwin: So I'm not sure if this was fun talking about some bad questions, but hopefully it helped our listeners kind of think about how they're digesting and tackling some questions that might be uncomfortable in the future.

Kelly Cherwin: And unlike those questions that really help you further your candidacy and you can capitalize on, some of these questions, you might be able to stick to your story and make some progress on getting your message through, but others you just merely need to survive and move on to the next question. Not every question is going to be one where you're gonna be able to make forward progress.

You just don't wanna go back. I think as you're looking at these, we have a nice list to start with, but if you have more bad interview questions, please feel free to send them to us at podcast @ HigherEdJobs.com or tweet us at @HigherEdJobs. Or if you have any other thoughts, comments, or [00:14:00] reflections, corrections on what we've said as being absolutely wrong, hey, feel free to send those to us too.

We actually really like hearing back from our community. It makes us better at what we do and also lets us know what you think. So please, we appreciate any time you might take doing that, including the people who sent us these wonderful poor interview questions that we received. And once again, thank you for listening and we hope to have you back on our next podcast.

Kelly Cherwin: Andy, I just wanna end with one final question. What is your spiritual animal?

Andy Hibel: You need to tune into the next episode to find out.

Kelly Cherwin: Thank you everyone for listening.

Andy Hibel: Thanks.