Weird Interview Question

truetiger

truetiger

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Has anyone ever been asked a question like "tell us about a time you encountered an unsafe situation and made it safe" I was asked that twice in an interview and blanked on it. Any suggestions on what a good response to that would be?
 
Make something up?

The first thing that popped in my mind was coning off and cleaning up a spill at my grocery store job. It doesn't have to be an exciting answer. With all of these questions they're looking for the thought process behind it, not the answer itself. Did you use the proper resources? Did you notify who needed to be notified? Did you take the proper precautions to protect yourself and others around you? That's what they're loooking for.
 
Not the weirdest question I've ever seen :P At my last interview I was asked:

Q: "What is the last fiction book you read?"

A: "Ummm....A star wars novel..."

Q: "What was the title?"

A: "Ummmmm <title>"

They then proceeded to grill me on my Star Wars knowledge. Turns out one of the guyso n the interview panel was a HUGE star wars fan :>
 
I just thought it was weird they asked that twice, later on in the interview I got "tell me about another time....."
 
truetiger said:
I just thought it was weird they asked that twice, later on in the interview I got "tell me about another time....."
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They obviously didn't hear what they wanted to hear the first time.

Be prepared for any question. Answer in a way that may indicate you think like a medic and not a citizen.
 
truetiger said:
Has anyone ever been asked a question like "tell us about a time you encountered an unsafe situation and made it safe" I was asked that twice in an interview and blanked on it. Any suggestions on what a good response to that would be?
Click to expand...

I don't think this type of question is unusual. Other examples would be, "Tell me about a stressful situation you encountered, and how you resolved it," or "Tell me about a difficult decision you had to make." By having candidates set scenarios (instead of interviewers) AND discuss solutions, sometimes interviewers gets clearer impressions of values, reasoning, character, etc.

It's hard to prepare for these questions. We've all had qualifying experiences, though, so just take a moment and think of something that's not frivolous ("I had to decide whether to stick to my diet.") or scary ("It was stressful when I went before the parole board.")
 
someone just had an interview with AMR! LOL. I was just asked that last week when I applied with AMR. I also blanked and came up with a horrible response. I hated thier form questions!
 
I also bombed an AMR interview last year with some of there crazy questions.

They ask you to look back on your entire life, find a story they want to hear and ramble it off as quickly as possible about a life threating, dangerous, or stressful situation. The longer I took to think the more they wrote on paper (bad sign)
 
truetiger said:
Has anyone ever been asked a question like "tell us about a time you encountered an unsafe situation and made it safe" I was asked that twice in an interview and blanked on it. Any suggestions on what a good response to that would be?
Click to expand...

Haven't been asked that in an interview, but certainly had it come up in real life.

One example was a BLS standby that I did at a triathlon in Santa Cruz. After the swim leg, the athletes had to run up a long wooden stairway to get up to the parking lot transition area. I got there early and was checking out the course (in the dark), and noticed that a number of the nails on the wooden stairs were proud. I went and found a hammer, and spent about 20 minutets checking the stairs and smacking down any proud nails.

I would have been bandaging a lot of feet later in the day, if I hadn't checked those stairs before the event.
 
schulz said:
I also bombed an AMR interview last year with some of there crazy questions.

They ask you to look back on your entire life, find a story they want to hear and ramble it off as quickly as possible about a life threating, dangerous, or stressful situation. The longer I took to think the more they wrote on paper (bad sign)
Click to expand...

It was the SAME WAY for Care Ambulance down here in Southern Cali

i tripped over my answers and blanked on most of them...

i wanted to get up and say this interview is over
 
I've been on both sides of a lot of interviews, and my suggestion, before you go in, is have a friend or two give you a mock interview. If you can get someone in management to do it, more the better.

Some people are just better at responding to multisensory input. If you typically use your eyes, ears, and hands to evaluate a situation and then decide, it can take a moment to take that situation, and translate it into purely verbal output. A really good supervisor will understand that. Still, you can make it easier on yourself by having a few answers already "translated".
 
I just got hired on by AMR, and wasn't asked those type of questions. I enjoyed it.


As someone said, if you haven't been in such a situation and can't relate- dig DEEPER. Make something up. Like someone said, they're looking at the thought process behind it. It can also be said that they're looking at how you think on the fly.
 
Or you could speak quite matter of factually and simply say "To be honest, I have never been nor put in that situation."

I see no reason to lie or make something up. I think honesty is often underrated.
 
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I wouldn't recommend lying, either. On the other hand, digging deeper and coming up with a hypothetical answer, and presenting it as such, might not be a bad idea.
 
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