Job Interviewers, Please Do Not Ask Me These Questions!

Countless recruitment process, that's what I have experienced for the past year since I graduated from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, is exhausting, sometimes. The majority part of the recruitment process is interview, everyone will admit it. Meanwhile there is a set of questions that interviewers need to ask the candidate, but in perspective of candidate, there are some most-hated questions when if they have a choice, they rather not to answer it. For me, following are the list, but I am not really sure whether I have done it right in answering these questions.



1. Why Should I Hire You?
Only the employers will know the best answer to this question, because they have seen other candidates, meanwhile the candidates only know about themselves. Whenever I encountered this kind of question, I was very tempted to actually to ask the interviewers, why did you actually call me for this interview? Did anything  on my resume catch your attention for this job?

2. Where do you see yourself in five years time?
Seriously, it is not business plan when I need to plan five years projection about the business. If business is quite unpredictable, don't you think life is more unpredictable? Alright, perhaps as a candidate I can have future plan, but I do not have any ideas what's coming in my life, do I? My favorite and a must answer to this question is "I have a plan to pursue higher degree in five to seven years time i.e. MBA, but prior to it I need to acquire as much experiences as I could". Yet, the interviewer will give that not-satisfied-face, most of the time.

3. What is your greatest achievement?
As a person who do not really like to brag about what I have done, instead let others do whatever they want when they learn about it, it is not an easy question for me. The answers that I gave to this question were varied. But from my observation so far, interviewers would love to hear something that really showing what you are really good at, but survival skill in life is not in the list. In my opinion, employers should concern more about the potential, instead of the past achievements. So instead asking, what do you think about our business? Anything that can be improved?

4. What is your expected salary?
It is the least-hated among the hated questions. Well, I know it is really a standard question for any job interviews around the globe (at least from my experiences who were interviewed from most all the continents so far). Well, bench-marking to the market price is the standard thing everyone will do. But normally I will add it up together with the transportation cost, cab fare on daily basis for going to office and going back home. Although at the end, it is still negotiable price. Although it is a common practice, there are some employers who surprised with the quoted price. For this kind of employers, I always wanted to tell them "why don't you give me number on how much you can afford to pay me, instead?"

So, this list is mine. Any more questions, people?