Tasha Dhanraj questions the questioners

One of my relatives has been looking for a new job. In one phone interview she was asked to say how her friends would describe her. In this job market you have to answer every question correctly, but let’s face it, there’s no way to answer this without coming across like a massive tool.

Think about what you feel are your best personality traits. Say you think you’re generous, thoughtful, empathetic or really funny – would you really feel comfortable actually admitting that you think all those things about yourself to a person you don’t know? But it’s worse, because to answer the question honestly, you have to say how you actually think your friends would describe you. Mine would probably be ‘neurotic, unreasonably secure in her opinions and well meaning, but accidentally patronising on occasion.’ I’m sure any employer reading this is thinking, “Gee whiz, let’s hire this gem of humanity.”

The people that ask these questions are setting us all up for a fail. What are they even looking for anyway? The traits that make you a good friend aren’t the same things that make you a good employee. Letting your mates borrow your nail varnish and then not hassling them about it every day to get it back doesn’t mean you’ll make a good administrative assistant. Being able to say, “If he can’t see how amazing you are, then he doesn’t deserve you!” will almost certainly not give you any transferable skills for a job at Waitrose.

“What do you actually do when you work from home?”

Why does any company care about what your friends do or do not think of you? If they’re going to ask questions that are almost certainly going to be answered with lies, they might as well ask questions that are actually relevant like, “Have you ever taken more post-it notes from the stationery cupboard than you actually needed?” or, “If your boss was taking the whole afternoon off to go to the dentist, would you pack up and sneak off early?” or, “What do you actually do when you work from home?”

But then again, one of the key traits that employers look for in new recruits is honesty. Maybe this ridiculous question that keeps popping up was all started by one boss who is looking for that one special candidate who will finally say, “I am a horrible person. I’m selfish, I’m insecure and some nights I tell my friends that I’ve got to visit my family, when really I just want to watch Don’t Tell The Bride.”