“To ask the hard question is simple” W.H. Auden
Having dinner with my son he was relating a meeting he’d recently had with the person his boss reports to. During the course of the conversation this ranking executive asked him how he was getting along with a particular co-worker. My son was brought in to this particular location to fix a problem with a particular department. This co-worker was the previous owner of this department and subsequently a large cause of the problem he was there to fix.
The co-worker had been moved to the Human Resources position (insert your favorite HR comment here) and had subsequently set out to use this position to try to make my son’s life miserable and was succeeding quite nicely.
The particular question was “do you feel your past with this person would affect you two from working together again in the future?”
My son answered, “I would never let past differences with anyone affect how I professionally deal with them, however, I can’t speak for how it may affect their ability to work with me”.
Nice answer to a “trap door” question.
Trap door questions are those that are almost impossible to answer correctly if you answer them honestly (Do you still beat your wife?), yet shuffling around the answer too much comes off sounding false.
Occasionally trap door questions are innocent and are hard to answer because they are ill-framed. But usually they are very purposeful and asked exactly as trap questions. The reasons to ask trap questions is to either test the person to see how they respond or to, in fact, trap them into an answer you can use against them.
I asked my son which motive he though was behind this one and he said he honestly didn’t know but would guess he was being tested more than trapped. Either way he gave a good, clean answer.
This is hard to do and I’m pretty proud of him.
Trap questions are very difficult. They’re not like interview questions where you’re somewhat braced for about any type of question. They usually come out of nowhere and are followed by the questioner leaning forward, getting out their magnifying glass and turning on the 1000 watt lamp.
This makes them very difficult to prepare for.
Of course, you could always have your own version of Inspector Clouseau’s house boy Cato who springs out from behind cubicle walls unexpectedly and asks you random trap door type questions so you can stay in practice.
Having dinner with my son he was relating a meeting he’d recently had with the person his boss reports to. During the course of the conversation this ranking executive asked him how he was getting along with a particular co-worker. My son was brought in to this particular location to fix a problem with a particular department. This co-worker was the previous owner of this department and subsequently a large cause of the problem he was there to fix.
The co-worker had been moved to the Human Resources position (insert your favorite HR comment here) and had subsequently set out to use this position to try to make my son’s life miserable and was succeeding quite nicely.
The particular question was “do you feel your past with this person would affect you two from working together again in the future?”
My son answered, “I would never let past differences with anyone affect how I professionally deal with them, however, I can’t speak for how it may affect their ability to work with me”.
Nice answer to a “trap door” question.
Trap door questions are those that are almost impossible to answer correctly if you answer them honestly (Do you still beat your wife?), yet shuffling around the answer too much comes off sounding false.
Occasionally trap door questions are innocent and are hard to answer because they are ill-framed. But usually they are very purposeful and asked exactly as trap questions. The reasons to ask trap questions is to either test the person to see how they respond or to, in fact, trap them into an answer you can use against them.
I asked my son which motive he though was behind this one and he said he honestly didn’t know but would guess he was being tested more than trapped. Either way he gave a good, clean answer.
This is hard to do and I’m pretty proud of him.
Trap questions are very difficult. They’re not like interview questions where you’re somewhat braced for about any type of question. They usually come out of nowhere and are followed by the questioner leaning forward, getting out their magnifying glass and turning on the 1000 watt lamp.
This makes them very difficult to prepare for.
Of course, you could always have your own version of Inspector Clouseau’s house boy Cato who springs out from behind cubicle walls unexpectedly and asks you random trap door type questions so you can stay in practice.
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1 comment:
Like Kirk and the Kobiyashi Maru, the only way to win is to cheat.
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