Articles From the Team

Unusual and revealing interview questions…

I work predominantly with top tier and mid tier commercial firms, who tend not to have any kind of ‘out there’ interview styles. We get a few technical tests and case studies but barely even a competency based question, never mind anything more challenging that you have no way of preparing for.

Law firms in the main tend to be pretty old school in their approach, preferring to go down the route of just having a chat about aims and aspirations, and what the role is about, and asking a few technical questions about the candidate’s experience, with the aim of working out whether they’d be any good in the role and whether they’d fit into the team. And in turn the candidate gets the opportunity to ask their own questions about the firm and the role.

Some employers though like to really explore the mindset of the person they’re interviewing, and try to get below the surface, dig around into the candidate’s moral make-up and see what emerges.

I came across an interesting interview question recently, which one guy completely and utterly nailed with his almost immediate response.

Question: ‘So it’s cold out and you’re driving along in your 2-seater car. You go past a bus stop where there are 3 people waiting for the bus –

1 An old lady who looks so poorly that she might die at any moment

2 An old friend of yours who once saved your life

3 The woman of your dreams

You can only give one person a lift? Who would you choose?’

The interviewee in question thought for a second or two and then came straight back with –

‘I’d give my car keys to my old friend so that he could take the old lady to hospital and then I’d wait for the bus with the woman of my dreams.’

Genius. It’s always handy to be able to demonstrate that you can think widely and laterally.

I think it’s fair to say that the guy got the job…

For more information contact Juliet Lawson at BCL Legal.