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Crazy Answers To Interview Questions (That Got People Jobs)

Pam Kruger — 2013-05-01T08:11:00+00:00

"Always act enthusiastic during the interview." "Never badmouth a previous employer." These are the standard tips that career coaches give, but many people violate all kinds of common-sense rules in answering interview questions -- and get hired anyway. A recent thread on Quora, the question-and-answer website popular with Silicon Valley execs, provides plenty of examples. The question that kicked off the thread was, "What is the craziest thing you've said at a job interview -- and got the job anyway?" It prompted a long list of funny anecdotes -- all of which suggests that sometimes acting off-the-wall pays off.

Say You Don't Want The Job
Gil Yehuda, a Yahoo employee, said that during a job interview he once asked the chief technology officer for the most important responsibility of the five duties listed in the job description. The answer he gave was contradicted by several other execs he spoke to. So when the recruiter later offered him the job, he turned her down, saying, "I can't take a job if the company doesn't know what they are looking for. You need to figure out what you want before you make an offer." She pushed him to take the job and explained to him why his reluctance was enticing. "I was the first candidate to realize they did not have a consensus view of what they were trying to hire," Yehuda wrote. He got the job.

Will NBA Player Jason Collins' Coming Out Have A Ripple Effect?

Pam Kruger — 2013-04-29T11:29:00+00:00

You may have heard that NBA center Jason Collins made history today. It wasn't for his ball-playing. He came out as gay, making him the first major professional athlete to come out during his career.

In a story for Sports Illustrated, on their site today, Collins wrote, "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay." In the article, Collins, a 12-year NBA veteran, most recently for the Washington Wizards, explains that he decided to go public after the Boston bombings. "Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully?"

Supportive tweets from colleagues poured in.Wizards Baron Davis on the Knicks tweeted, "I am so proud of my bro @jasoncollins for being real." Even Kobe Bryant -- who a few years back was fined after a homophobic outburst -- tweeted out praise. "Don't suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others," he wrote. Washington Wizards team president said the team was "extremely proud" of Collins' decision to "live his life proudly and openly."

Whether Collins' decision to come out will affect his ability to get another NBA job isn't clear (he's currently a free agent). But in 29 states, it's still legal to be fired for being gay because there aren't laws that specifically prevent discrimination against gay workers. Still, there have been huge strides made in gay rights in the past few years. Recently, gay men and women won the right to serve openly in the military, and gay troops sipped champagne with their commander-in-chief at the Pentagon's first gay pride reception. And last year when Anderson Cooper announced he was gay, it barely made a stir in the broadcast world.

But almost half of college-educated professionals say they remain in the closet at work. Last year, AOL Jobs noted five industries that were still inhospitable to gay workers. Professional sports, especially football, was top on the list, but with Collins' announcement, do you think that will change soon?

See the slideshow below.

You can read the rest of Collins' Sports Illustrated article here.

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Mark Zuckerberg Slashes His Salary To $1 But ...

Pam Kruger — 2013-04-28T08:30:00+00:00

It's perhaps the ultimate status symbol in Silicon Valley: You're so rich, so successful, you voluntarily slash your salary to nothing. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook billionaire, just joined that club. SEC filings show that in 2013, he will earn just $1, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Starting in January 2013, Zuckerberg, 28, cut his salary to $1 and agreed not to take an annual performance bonus, either, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reports. Of course, Zuckerberg -- estimated to be worth $13 billion -- will not exactly miss the salary. As The Telegraph reports, Zuckerberg earned almost $2.3 billion last year by cashing in stock options at precisely the right time -- shortly before Facebook's stock price took a nosedive after its much-maligned public offering.

The SEC filing also revealed that Zuckerberg's total compensation rose last year by 16 percent because of his use of company jets.

As Quartz notes, Zuckerberg joins a long list of insanely rich Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who take $1 salaries because they're sitting on piles of stock. On the list: Apple founder Steve Jobs, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Zynga's Mark Pincus. Yahoo's Jerry Yang was making $1 in salary before he was forced out.

17-Year-Old Sells Mobile News App To Yahoo For $30 Million, Report Says

Pam Kruger — 2013-03-25T16:08:00+00:00

Two years ago, a 15-year-old Brit named Nick D'Aloisio built a mobile news app which he called Summly. Sorting news by topics, the iPhone app then aggregates (and sums up) in bits ideal for the cell phone. Is that app worth $30 million? Yahoo thought so, according to All Things D.

On Monday, Yahoo announced that it bought Summly. While Yahoo didn't disclose the price, All Things Digital's Kara Swisher reports that Yahoo paid $30 million. D'Aloisio is just 17 years old.

Cisco CEO Meets Sheryl Sandberg: 'My Eyes Were Opened'

Pam Kruger — 2013-03-13T15:00:00+00:00

While Sheryl Sandberg's feminist tome has elicited criticism from some women, interestingly, at least some male business leaders have been supportive of her message. First, Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, exhorted people to read her book. And now, according to a report by All Things Digital, John Chambers, Cisco Systems CEO, has been so inspired by Sandberg's crusade to get more women into leadership positions that he's demanding his managers to come up with a plan to diversify the ranks.

The Backlash Against Sheryl Sandberg Is Already Starting

Pam Kruger — 2013-03-11T10:39:00+00:00

Although Sheryl Sandberg's manifesto, Lean In, was just published Monday, it already is generating a torrent of debate -- much of it among female professionals who complain they feel left out of Sandberg's vision of success in the corporate world.

"The very blunt truth is that men still run the world," Sandberg, Facebook's Harvard-educated chief operating officer, said in an interview with 60 Minutes. "I'm not blaming women...but there is a lot more we can do." Sandberg, 43, has ignited controversy in part because she argues that women are held back their inner doubts and that they need to "lean in" to their careers, rather than worrying about how they'll juggle work and children. "Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't."

So far, the backlash against Sandberg falls into three camps.

Being at the top still often means foregoing a 'life'
One of the most poignant critiques came from one of Wall Street's most successful women, Erin Callan, the former CFO of Lehman Brothers. In a candid essay for The New York Times published Sunday, Callan wrote about her regrets of keeping a "singular focus" on her career, saying it wrecked her marriage and led her to forego having children.

Survey: 1 In 3 Employees Are Stressed Out, Underpaid And Overworked

Pam Kruger — 2013-03-06T09:21:00+00:00

While the Dow breaks new records and corporate profits continue to soar, one large segment of the population is not celebrating: American workers. Not only are millions still struggling with unemployment, but according to a new survey by the American Psychological Association, a significant chunk of those employed are miserable -- feeling stressed out, underpaid and overworked.

Most Employers Don't Bother To Respond To Job Applications, Survey Finds

Pam Kruger — 2013-02-22T11:00:00+00:00

It's become the most frustrating aspect of the job search in recent years: silence. You submit your application online and then it goes into what has been called the resume "black hole." Despite using keywords and attaching a stellar cover letter, you receive no response from the employer -- not even a note of rejection.

'Where Did My Co-Worker Go?' Stealth Layoffs Become Widespread

Pam Kruger — 2013-02-13T08:53:00+00:00

Every week, there seems to be another major employer announcing mass layoffs. But equally prevalent, though less noticed, is the steady stream of employers who conduct "stealth layoffs" every couple of months -- methodically shedding smaller numbers of staff so quietly that often many employees in the firm aren't aware of the cuts.

Shrinking Salaries For College-Educated Workers

Pam Kruger — 2013-02-03T10:19:00+00:00

More bad news for college grads and parents about to plunk down thousands in tuition: Salaries for workers with bachelor's degrees began steadily declining even before the recession. An analysis by Jared Bernstein, an economist and blogger, shows that the Great Recession accelerated the decline in income -- but real weekly earnings for workers with BA degrees began a decade ago.

Take a look:

Bernstein points out that a college degree still gives workers a "solid leg up, both in terms of earnings and jobs;" the so-called college wage premium -- the boost in pay a college-educated worker gets -- is about 50 percent for men and 40 percent for women. But in recent years, the premium has not increased much for men -- or at all for women.

That trend could worsen, though as more workers with bachelors' degrees flood the market. Last week, research found that nearly one out of two Americans with college degrees are working at jobs they're overqualified for.

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, which conducted the analysis, said the number of people with college degrees is growing at a rate that far exceeds the creation of jobs demanding college degrees. Using 2010 Labor Department data, it found that the number of college grads was 41.7 million, while just 28.6 million jobs required a college degree.

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Nearly Half Of College-Educated Workers Are Overqualified For Their Jobs

Pam Kruger — 2013-01-28T14:19:00+00:00

The college degree used to be the ticket to a good middle class job. That is officially over, according to a new study by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

It found that nearly 1 out of 2 Americans with college degrees are working at jobs they're overqualified for. While less than 5 percent of retail sales clerks had college degrees in 1970, the study found that 25 percent did in 2010. And 15 percent of taxi drivers were college grads in 2010, versus just 1 percent in 1970.

How Do You Land A Job In A Dried-Up Market?

Pam Kruger — 2013-01-25T16:03:00+00:00

What do you do when your work suddenly dries up? Like millions of Americans, Gail Belsky found herself in this dilemma as her industry suddenly collapsed. "A lot of the people I used to know suddenly aren't [working] anymore," says Belsky, a writer, editor and author.

The New, Best Job In The World?

Pam Kruger — 2013-01-23T13:10:00+00:00

Every once in a while, a job comes along that sounds too good to be true -- but is 100 percent real. Take this job opening posted by U.K. resort firm, First Choice: It is seeking a "slide tester" to approve water slides in SplashWorld water parks.

The six-month gig involves traveling to SplashWorld parks throughout Europe, and a couple in Egypt, Thailand and Turkey. Your days will be spent trying out water slides, sampling food and blogging.

Employers Tell The Weirdest Interview Mistakes They've Seen

Pam Kruger — 2013-01-10T15:48:00+00:00

If you're job hunting, presumably you know not to stuff into your pocket the candy sitting on the interviewer's desk. And you know that the proper way to greet the president of the company is with a handshake, rather than a hug.

Former Teacher Of The Year, Mark Bringhurst, Fired For Streaking

Pam Kruger — 2012-12-17T11:41:00+00:00

BERLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- A former "Teacher of the Year" in a New Jersey school district was fired after being arrested for allegedly streaking through an apartment complex. Mark C. Bringhurst, a tenured fifth grade teacher in Vineland, N.J., was the first educator to lose his job under the state's speedier new tenure law, championed by Gov. Chris Christie.

Bringhurst, 41, of Berlin Township, N.J., was so respected that his colleagues had named him "Teacher of the Year" for 2011-12, but the former member of a Philadelphia comedy improv troupe (pictured above) apparently had a playful side. One warm March evening, he ran naked through a busy apartment complex on a dare, according to the arbitrator's ruling. It took four months from the time the Vineland Board of Education voted to dismiss Bringhurst for the incident until an arbitrator made his decision last week.

Guns-To-Work Laws Proliferate, Despite Mass Shootings And Employer Opposition

Pam Kruger — 2012-12-16T12:22:00+00:00

As the country reels over the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there has been much soul-searching over the upswing in mass murders on American soil -- and how to stop the deadly trend. In recent months, employers have quietly joined in the debate, fighting National Rifle Association-supported bills that would make it legal for employees to bring guns to work, reports Bloomberg News.

According to Bloomberg News, state legislatures in Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Pennsylvania are considering bills that would permit workers to keep their guns in their cars in employee parking lots. The law's backers, which include the NRA, argue that employees need to be able to keep guns in their cars to protect them during their commutes to and from work. "I think it's necessary so people will have peace of mind when they're traveling to and from work," Alabama state Senator Roger Bedford told the Associated Press before the Sandy school shootings.

UPDATED December 19, 2012, 1:00 pm: President Obama declared his intent on Wednesday to submit gun control proposals to Congress in January. But the Sandy school massacre hasn't necessarily changed the political climate in some state legislatures. In fact, one state lawmaker from Tennessee has already announced that he intends to push for a bill that would allow teachers in classrooms to carry guns, according to Nashville's WKRN-TV. The Knoxville Republican said, "Gun free zones are just target-rich environments."

Employers, like FedEx, Volkswagen and some state Chambers of Commerce, oppose the guns-in-the-trunk bills. "We believe a property owner's right to provide a safe work environment trumps an individual's right to possess a firearm on the owner's property," a FedEx spokesperson told Bloomberg.

But such arguments have not always been compelling to state lawmakers. Seventeen states have passed similar workplace firearms measures since 2003, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (via Bloomberg). When Tennessee legislator, Debra Maggart, a Republican and NRA supporter, dared to oppose a guns-to-work bill because it included day care centers and colleges, the NRA spent "tens of thousands" on attack ads and she lost re-election, notes The Wall Street Journal. "They singled me out to bully our caucus into voting for a poorly written piece of legislation," she says.

Some of the recent guns-to-work laws passed are quite tough on employers that impede employees' ability to come to work with a gun, The Washington Post notes. Indiana allows job applicants and employees to sue employers for damages if asked about gun ownership. North Dakota's 2011 law allows workers to sue employers for damages if they ask if they have a gun in a car parked on the premises. Georgia's law prohibits employers from making employment conditional on not bringing guns to work.

Workplace violence is responsible for one out of 5 on-the-job deaths, according to national statistics. Sometimes, though, murders have been committed by disgruntled ex-employees. In September, five employees at a Minneapolis signage company were killed in the office by an ex-employee brandishing a gun. A month earlier, a former fashion designer killed a former colleague on his way to work at the Empire State building in New York (aftermath pictured above).

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N.Y. Farmers Hire Robots Because They Can't Use Illegal Immigrants Anymore

Pam Kruger — 2012-12-14T09:31:00+00:00

In recent years, it's become politically popular for states to take a tough stance against employers that hire "illegal immigrants" -- also referred to as undocumented workers. But is that actually helping American workers? In at least one case, the answer is definitely no.

A group of dairy farmers in upstate New York has found a creative end run around the government's penalties for hiring undocumented workers by employing robot farmers.

Holiday Gifts NOT To Give Your Co-Workers

Pam Kruger — 2012-12-13T08:20:00+00:00

While some employers are using the end of the year to lay off workers, it's not bad news in all offices. A new survey of 2,494 managers and human resources workers finds that more are planning to offer bonuses, throw holiday parties and even give out gifts.

The Least Trusted Profession In The Country Is ...

Pam Kruger — 2012-12-03T16:30:00+00:00

Members of Congress and car salespeople wouldn't seem to have a lot in common. Politicians spend their days debating big national issues, like how to resolve the "fiscal cliff," while car salespeople spent their time trying to get customers to buy, say, the 2012 Honda Civic.

But when it comes to perceived honesty and ethical standards, Americans give these two professions relatively equivalent grades -- abysmal ones, according to a new poll by the Gallup Organization.

Survey respondents were asked to rate 22 professions on a five-point honesty and ethics scale, ranging from "very high" to "very low." Members of Congress were at the bottom, with a whopping 54 percent of respondents saying that Congress has "low" or "very low" standards for ethics. Forty-nine percent of the respondents said car salespeople have a "low" or "very low" ethical standards.

More: Using Ethics To Tackle Thorny Issues At Work

For the 36 years Gallup has been conducting this survey, members of Congress have received failing grades. The high point was post-9/11, when just 25 percent of Americans rated their honesty and ethical standards as "high" or "very high." (Senators, by the way, received only slightly better ratings, with 45 percent of respondents rating their ethical standards as low or very low.)

Car salespeople's perceived ethical standards have "never climbed out of the single-digit range in the history of the list," according to Gallup.

So Who Is Trusted?

Nurses received the highest rating in the Gallup poll, with 85 percent of respondents saying that nurses have high or very high ethical standards. That put them above clergy (No. 8 on the Gallup list) and several other medical practitioners, including:

pharmacists (No. 2).
doctors (No. 3).
dentists (No. 5).
psychiatrists (No. 9).

How would you rank these professions? And most importantly, where would you place your profession on this list?

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Seasonal Hiring 2012: More Jobs Paying $16 Per Hour

Pam Kruger — 2012-10-25T11:49:00+00:00

Survey after survey is showing that seasonal hiring is on the upswing, the highest its been in years. Now there is even more good news for job hunters: more employers say they are planning to turn seasonal hires to full-time, permanent employees.

CareerBuilder, an AOL Jobs sponsor, surveyed 2,494 hiring managers and found that 39 percent plan to convert seasonal temp positions into permanent jobs. That compares to just 30 percent in 2011.

AOL Jobs

Crazy Answers To Interview Questions (That Got People Jobs)

Will NBA Player Jason Collins' Coming Out Have A Ripple Effect?

Mark Zuckerberg Slashes His Salary To $1 But ...

17-Year-Old Sells Mobile News App To Yahoo For $30 Million, Report Says

Cisco CEO Meets Sheryl Sandberg: 'My Eyes Were Opened'

The Backlash Against Sheryl Sandberg Is Already Starting

Survey: 1 In 3 Employees Are Stressed Out, Underpaid And Overworked

Most Employers Don't Bother To Respond To Job Applications, Survey Finds

'Where Did My Co-Worker Go?' Stealth Layoffs Become Widespread

Shrinking Salaries For College-Educated Workers

Don't Miss: Companies Hiring Now

Nearly Half Of College-Educated Workers Are Overqualified For Their Jobs

How Do You Land A Job In A Dried-Up Market?

The New, Best Job In The World?

Employers Tell The Weirdest Interview Mistakes They've Seen

Former Teacher Of The Year, Mark Bringhurst, Fired For Streaking

Guns-To-Work Laws Proliferate, Despite Mass Shootings And Employer Opposition

Don't Miss: Companies Hiring Now

N.Y. Farmers Hire Robots Because They Can't Use Illegal Immigrants Anymore

Holiday Gifts NOT To Give Your Co-Workers

The Least Trusted Profession In The Country Is ...

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Don't Miss: Companies Hiring Now

Seasonal Hiring 2012: More Jobs Paying $16 Per Hour