Difficult Interview Question – Describe the Worst Job You Have Had
Not long ago, we discussed how to describe the best job you have ever had. Today we will look at a much harder job interview question – describing the worst job you have ever had.
How to Answer
When answering the “Best Job” question, you are encouraged to choose a job that is relevant to the position you are applying for, contains tasks that will impress the employer, adds information that is related to the company and, if possible, is a job that is very recent (preferably your last job). With this question, you want to do the complete opposite:
- Make sure the job has nothing to do with the job you are applying for.
- Make sure the things you didn’t like about the job are not a part of the current job.
- Try to choose a job you held a long, long time ago.
All negative questions require that you remain positive. So you have two ways to answer this question. You can either discuss a job from the distant past that had very few negative points (and minimize how bad the job was), or you can discuss a job where something illegal occurred (that you did not participate in), because mentioning illegal activities perpetrated by your employer is not considered you being negative.
Bad Answer
“My last job with TechCorp was my least favorite. The managers yelled at me almost every day, even when nothing was wrong, and they kept making me do things like HTML quality checks that I didn’t know how to do. I’d dread coming into work every morning.”
Here you are complaining, you mention a task (HTML quality checks) that may play a part in the current job, and it was the last job you held, so you will look very negative in the eyes of the employer.
Good Answer
“If I had to pick the worst job I have ever had, it was probably back in high school, working for McDonalds. They often scheduled me to work immediately after class, which cut into the time I had to study, and they did not have the best safety practices. I was burned by fry grease on a regular basis.”
This is not really complaining, the job is way in the distant past, and it is highly unlikely that burning yourself with fry grease or being unable to study because you have to work after school has any bearing on the job you are applying for. That is how you should answer this type of interview question.
Take Away Interview Tips
- Remain positive.
- Discuss jobs, tasks, and employer culture that are irrelevant to the job you are interviewing with.
