alt Hacker NewsI was also part of this sort of interview once. They specifically asked personal questions - parents stuff, relationship, etc. Definitely not work related. It was indeed a very strange and exhausting experience. I could've definetly refused to answer some of the questions or drop out of the interview altogether, but not sure why I haven't.
So yeah, this type of interview exists so I highly doubt the interviewer interviewing OP was asking about work stuff...
Replies
> They specifically asked personal questions - parents stuff, relationship, etc.
In the US any employer who asks you about personal relationships during an interview is opening themselves up to an illegal discrimination lawsuit.
Legally, asking personal questions in an interview that are unrelated to the job is a huge minefield, ie, you could be opening the company to discrimination lawsuits. Huge red flag that the company isn't very professional.
I once had an interviewer ask me, several years back, about the religious affiliations of my college.
It's supposed to mean "at work," but that doesn't at all mean that you can assume the interviewer is going to understand that.
Rejecting the question is actually how you pass. Open with "I leave everything private at home when at work hence my answer for the work position is: [here the answer but scoped and formulated to your work life and NOT to your private life]".
If they’re specifically asking about personal things like that then those are very inappropriate interview questions.
Doesn’t that open them to discrimination lawsuits?
At that point, I think I would have just started making things up or telling stories from other people I knew. Some random interviewer has literally no right to be asking me personal questions so I have no problem improvising some fun answers for them.
my father was a turd miner in virginia and his father was a goat ball licker (c) Stephen Colbert
Besides the point about separating personal and work life, there's the aspect of having the self-respect to maintain your own privacy.
You wouldn't answer deep personal questions from a random stranger on the street. Some questions might've been too invasive to answer were even some family and friends to ask them. Yet, it seems they felt like they should answer some interviewer they just met.
It's ultimately the responsibility of the person answering to select what and how much of themselves to share, depending on the relationship.
If the interviewer were to ask, "tell me your most embarrassing moment you had while having sex with someone", you wouldn't answer that. If they asked "tell me about the hardest day of your life" and the real, real answer was somehow that time you had that embarrassing moment while having sex with someone, you still wouldn't answer that. You would answer with what you'd be comfortable sharing with the random interviewer, if anything, else you can just decline the question.
The "embarrassing sex" is an exaggerated example. You can set your limits differently, in order to not feel
> completely emotionally drained
as the OP put it. Setting your limits such that your personal life is outside of what your comfortable sharing with the random interviewer would be appropriate.
GP comment on separating personal and work life said to imagine they tacked "... at work" at the end. You can also imagine "... that you're comfortable with sharing" as a more general rule.