Another addition to the killer interview questions collection: On a scale of 1 to 10, how lucky are you?.
Luck picture from Shutterstock
Are Traassdahl, CEO of advertising firm Tasad, tells the New York Times that he favours the question because there’s no single predictable answer: “It’s a very open-ended question, and you get a lot of interesting answers out of that.”
One tactic is to use the question to introduce a key point about yourself that may not have come up in the interview so far. The most obvious answer is probably “I got where I am through hard work, not luck”, so we’d avoid that one.
How would you answer the question?
That Monkey On Your Shoulder Isn’t Mine [New York Times]
Comments
12 responses to “Killer Interview Question: How Lucky Are You?”
Get some b@lls. Tell the interviewer flip a coin and if its heads hire me. If its tails, Ill leave.
As the interviewer, you should throw away half the CVs because you don’t want unlucky people. :p
Great, a question I could use as the basis for a law suit on the grounds of religious discrimination: I don’t believe in “luck”! Then again, if the company uses ‘luck’ as a managment technique, let me sell my shares.
This is clearly the domain of amateur recruiters.
Luck isn’t a religious concept.
Can be – look at predestination vs determinism. If your particular religion believes in complete predestination, the concept of luck is against your religion
“Luck is not a factor” – Lindsey Brigman in Abyss – and of Course James Cameron’s address to NASA over a decade later.
Haha, not lucky at all, can you answer with negative numbers?
Point a magnum 44 (the most powerful handgun known to man…) at the interviewer.
Do you feel lucky? We’ll… Do ya? …. Punk?
Guaranteed to get the job I reckon!
“Well, let’s see. Let’s assume we’re talking about luck relative to other humans; otherwise it is impossible to benchmark.
There are about 7 billion people on the Earth right now. In terms of access to healthcare, welfare, and so on I’m probably in the top billion, so let’s start with around 8.5. If I have average luck for that group, then that would make my luck around 9.3. I was born into a family which valued education, so let’s make it 9.5. I made it through my childhood, through education, and up to interviewing for a job which is probably in the top 30% for income. I guess that makes it about 9.6.
I don’t have any serious illnesses, so maybe 9.65. I don’t have a family history of male pattern baldness so let’s bump that to 9.7.
I’d say that on a scale of from 1 to 10, where 1 is the unluckiest human alive, and 10 is the luckiest human alive, I’m around a 9.7.”
The man who said “I’d rather be lucky than good” saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It’s scary to think so much is out of one’s control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn’t, and you lose.
There’s nothing worse than interviewers who try to be clever like this. Do they want someone who can do the job, or someone who has the patience for stupid interviewers?
Interviewing for a job in a first world country ?
Anything less than an ‘8’ would be disgraceful.
L.U.C.K = L abouring U nder C orrect K nowledge…
10/10 I’m the luckiest person alive. Next question?