Another addition to the killer interview questions collection: what makes you angry?.
Image: Ken Banks
It’s a tough one to answer, because it’s an incredibly delicate balancing point. On no account should you turn bright green and tear everything but your purple pants off before hurling a table into a wall.
Equally, though, what the question is really challenging you to come up with are passion points, and that’s delicate territory depending on the job you’re interviewing for.
Espousing how you loathe the environmental destruction wrought by big oil isn’t likely to swing well in an interview with BP, and neither is coming across as a soulless automaton who never gets fully engaged with any topic, because you’re not going to get engaged in your prospective work, either.
One approach could be short answers that leave the detail to the interviewer’s imagination; stating that concepts such as injustice make you angry leaves the impetus with them to either ask for elaboration or move onto a less explosive question.
How would you answer the question?
15 Great Interview Questions That Measure Emotional Intelligence [Business Insider]
Comments
7 responses to “Killer Interview Question: What Makes You Angry?”
“When people don’t do their jobs. I have an expectation that everyone else do their jobs as well as they can, just like I do.”
This really is something that irks me.
“everyone else”
Petty antisocial behaviour … spitting in public, dropping litter, not saying thanks when shown courtesy, and so on. Basically anything that implies a complete selfish disregard for common decency.
Stupid interview questions
I’d avoid saying that other people make me angry as I’d not want to get the balance wrong and appear intolerant.
Lateness, though, lateness gets right on my goat.
It takes a lot to actually make me angry, most of the things mentioned above frustrate me and I’ll cringe at it briefly but they do not anger me as such.
One of the few things that makes me truly angry is someone asking for help with something and then refusing to take my advice or follow the steps I’m giving them to resolve the issue. I have no patience for people like that and have on occasion told them to f*** off and come back when they actually want help. (IT Phone support if you must know, and I don’t do it anymore)
You attached a picture of the Hulk to the article….so I guess the correct answer is “I’m always angry”?
What makes me angry? You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.