Jobless Corner

3. Getting Hoaxed….

Welcome back to our series of interview traps. Today we shall look at being hoaxed. If inducing sheer rage to test the candidate isn’t an option, then confusion, bewilderment and embarrassment may suffice.

Upon entry to one of his interviews, the Apprentice’s Lee was asked to do a dinosaur impression. After initially demurring, he commenced flapping and squawking.

His interviewer, property developer Paul Kemsley, told him that he shouldn’t have agreed to the demonstration. This forced the explanation from Lee: “I wouldn’t do a reverse pterodactyl in front of Sir Alan.”

Away from the arena of the job market, tales abound of bizarre techniques in Oxbridge interviews. Can one truly concentrate when the interviewer is conducting the questioning sitting cross-legged underneath the table?

But there can be entirely non-surreal tactics and questions that can flummox the unprepared. “When did you last truly fail?” is a tricky one. As is “imagine that tomorrow the UK changed from driving on the left to driving on the right and you are the change co-ordinator, what would you do?”

“Don’t let yourself be put on the spot,” says Dr Rob Yeung, psychologist and author of Should I Tell the Truth. “Ask for a moment to think about it or if you’ve not understood ask for it to be repeated or rephrased. It’s perfectly acceptable to take 15 or 20 seconds.”