Having been a job seeker for so long, you are bound to face an interviewer who’s not well informed—one who doesn’t know what to ask and what not to ask. It’s a familiar situation; chances are if you haven’t been asked inappropriate or weird questions, you will eventually face one. So how do you face these questions?
As it is, answering interview questions is already tricky, so why do they need to make it even more difficult? The fact is, some interviewers are not well informed; more often than not, the reason they’re asking an inappropriate question is that they don’t know it’s priate. They’re probably just (ineptly) trying to make small talk before getting to the real interview questions.
So how do you handle this situation? It’s a little tricky because if you point out that it’s actually illegal to ask the question, you might lose your chance of ever establishing rapport with the interviewer, which is vital to a successful interview.
Sure, it’s certainly your right to not be asked these types of questions, but it’s also unavoidable when the majority of interviewers don’t know this. You need to make sure that you think through what your answer would be.
There are two ways you can go about handling this situation: First, make an issue out of it and tell the interviewer that he or she has no right to ask you this question. However, you also have to prepare for the upshot of burning a bridge that could have been your entrée to a new job.
Alternatively, you could decide that it’s not worth it to waste an opportunity to get a job, so you choose not to make a big deal out it and instead decide to answer the question in a way that redirects the interviewer back to your skills and experiences and how you would perform better than the other applicants.
Whenever you get asked something that you’re not comfortable with answering or feel to be inappropriate, reassure the interviewer that this will not affect your ability to do the work properly.
Interview questions are always challenging, and if you don’t prepare well for them, you’ll be caught off guard and might give bad answers. Preparation can give you the upper hand in any job interview situation. Take the time to practice and prepare to put you in better position and increase your chances of having a successful interview.
