Page 266 - Marky Stein - Get a Great Job When You Don't Have a Job-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Fearless Interviewing

least, it would probably be the job I had in high
school as a parking lot attendant. I liked meeting
people when they passed by, but I can’t really say it
was my favorite job.
ANSWER B: I have really liked all of my jobs equally. I guess you
could say all of them are my favorite jobs.
ANSWER C: I think my favorite job was bookkeeping because I
got to work mostly on my own. My least favorite job
was the one I had as a senior bookkeeper when my
manager was always checking over my work and
telling me what to do next.

Like many questions with the hidden agenda, the question
above would probably be asked to uncover a “negative.” Choice
B is not really directly answering the question and sounds a little
wishy-washy. Answer C poses the most negative issues because it
indicates that this employee had trouble working with his or her
manager and probably doesn’t like working on a team. Choice A
is the preferred answer because it states two positive skills that
the person has (creativity and liking to learn new things) and the
negative (the job in the parking lot) is fairly innocuous.
One of the most difficult and most frequently asked ques-
tions is the following:

QUESTION: Why did you leave your last job?
The real fear behind this question is that you may have been fired
or that you are just changing jobs on a whim, only for the money,
or that you are a “job hopper.”
Let’s look at three alternatives for fielding that one:

ANSWER A: I became aware that there were some excellent new
opportunities in the field of biotechnology. I really
wanted to expand my professional growth by finding
out more about them. This company, judging by
your Web site, seems like it would have some inter-
esting opportunities.
ANSWER B: I felt pretty bored at my last job, so I just wanted
something more stimulating.

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