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‘Gotcha’ interview questions?

October 2, 2008 on 12:00 pm | In job interview, politics | No Comments

Many years ago, when I was being interviewed for an editorial job at PR Newswire, my future boss asked me about how I got my news. She was interested to know what newspapers and magazines I read, what TV shows I watched.

The question was an ice-breaker of sorts, but I realized later it’s a great question for a job interview. How and whether you “consume” news says a lot about you. I’ve used the question ever since as an interviewer.

But when vice presidential hopeful Gov. Sarah Palin was recently asked the same question by Katie Couric for CBS News, she couldn’t name specific newspapers or magazines. (Why not at LEAST plug the local Alaska paper?) A similar blunder occurred when Palin was asked to name another Supreme Court decision (besides Roe v. Wade) she disagreed with.

The McCain-Palin campaign is now bemoaning these instances as unfair journalism. Really?? Watch the clips (available at cbsnews.com). Couric was quite gentle in her delivery, and asking for specifics is an example of her doing her job.

And since Americans largely doesn’t know Gov. Palin, it’s not a stretch for us to view this interview (one of the few she has granted since being named to the Republican ticket) as a job interview. Being vice president is a job — a very important job. A softball question about newspapers and a more substantive question about Supreme Court decisions are items that the American public, as the “hiring manager” in this case, are entitled to know about as they evaluate this extremely important decision.

Suffice it to say that so far Palin has given good examples of what NOT to do in a job interview. I hope for her sake she does better in the debate.

On a related note, read “Job-Hunt Lessons from the Campaign Trail,” for more corollaries.