Aleks Slijepcevic

Nothing ruins the prospects of landing your dream job than being asked the unanswerable. Even worse, these horribly-devised questions most likely have nothing to do with the job description or the company. To save yourself before you land in the hot seat, read the following top 10 questions college counselors didn’t tell you about.

10. Can you describe a scenario where you were forced to do something you didn’t like? Not only does this question put you on the spot as you rummage through your brain to come up with a good lie, it takes time away from answering important questions. More times than not, the interviewer doesn’t care, and it has every potential to backfire in their face if they ask a person who’s just a little too honest.

9. If you were a manager, how would you handle daily tasks? A great question for someone who’s interviewing to become a manager. For everyone else, a complete hit and miss.

8. What are your short and long-term goals? For most people, there is a huge overlap and the interviewer will probably hear the same goals twice. Worse, if the interview is for a cashier at Taco Bell, chances are the long-term goal is not what the interviewer wants to hear.

7. What is the most negative thing you’ve heard about our company? At this point, you could consider walking out as answering this question could lead down a not-so-good road.

6. Can you define honesty? This pretty much solidifies that the rest of the interview will progress horribly. Not only are you forced to slap together a half-intelligent definition, you can almost always expect a follow-up question asking to describe another scenario.

5. Why do you want to be (insert job title)? Healthcare, money in my pocket, something to do from 9 to 5…This question absolutely restricts you, and in order to please, you have to ditch the truth and invent an answer that falls in line with “career advancement and experience in dire economic times to better the future advancements of the company…blah blah blah.”

4. What would your past managers say about you? This is an absolute killer, especially if you had some bad managers who didn’t like you. Also, no one likes to assume what their managers thought of them, and if you lose yourself in this question, you might just come off as arrogant and a show-off.

3. Where do you see yourself in five years? This goes along with number 8, but you can certainly expect to hear this one. If you’re like 95% of the population, you don’t know where you’ll be in five days, let alone five years.

2. What is your favorite color? This seems to come up frequently, and it shouldn’t. It would also be staggeringly horrible if this was the deciding question.

1. What are your greatest weaknesses? Yes, the worst question ever asked in any job interview. First, it is an ugly feeling to have to scour your heart and soul for all the things that make you a weak employee, and secondly, it detracts from what makes you a good employee. Isn’t that what the interview is about, after all?