No. It is good advice. It's very good advice if you want to find a place where you fit well. Unless you're starving and just need a job, any job, right now.
Allow me to explain: After some ups and downs in my career I resolved to be true to myself. In my case that means calling bullshit on ridiculous things. You know what happened? I found out really quickly where I would have been miserable, and I was totally surprised by some incredible groups that wanted someone just like me, they just didn't know it.
Actual responses from me in interviews that found me a great fit:
A: I don't know that sounds like a contrived question. I'd be asking why you have that problem in the first place.
Q: "people who do what you do are often vague and noncommittal"
A: that's because most people who do what I do haven't bothered to read the foundational texts, thus they rely upon tropes and ceremony. This field is full of muppets.
Q: what's your greatest weakness
A: sometimes I'm just a little too awesome smirk that says "are we really playing this game?"
Q: are you <blah blah> certified?
A: no I've purposefully avoided <blah blah> certification.I think it's heavy handed bullshit and I don't want to be associated with it or asked to do it
No joke these were real responses that got me great jobs and client engagements. They also quickly helped me discover people I wouldn't enjoy working with.
Your answers sound as if you have a strong feeling of superiority, avoid sharing something about you so as not to become vulnerable, and judge things heavily which you haven't experienced firsthand. I could be entirely wrong, but that's what your comment conveys to me. Does this only apply to interviews for you, because you despise them?
I can't say I've done what he did. But I do have felt the need to reply something like that to interviewers sometimes. Maybe now I'll do it, though I wouldn't burn bridges like he does, regardless of whether I'd feel comfortable working for them or not. You just don't know what the future holds..
I guess if you see my responses as burning bridges then you of course wouldn't want to do that. I don't see it as burning bridges at all. I don't take a nasty tone, but a more playful one. The point is to set the boundaries for what our relationship might be like. I have had companies come back to me months later after they figure out that they'd like a relationship on those terms because whatever they were doing in the past wasn't serving them.
No, I love interviews. I can be very extroverted. I'm charming and funny and a little brash at times.
I think it's critically important to explore, at the outset, what the boundaries of your relationship will be with any employer or business partner.
So for me, that means I lay down boundaries that I'm not interested in playing along with ridiculous ceremonies just because that's the way things have always been done. I think the way most interviews are conducted are ridiculous. Thus I push back and see what happens. You surely have your boundaries too. I feel your should respect them.
No. It is good advice. It's very good advice if you want to find a place where you fit well. Unless you're starving and just need a job, any job, right now.
Allow me to explain: After some ups and downs in my career I resolved to be true to myself. In my case that means calling bullshit on ridiculous things. You know what happened? I found out really quickly where I would have been miserable, and I was totally surprised by some incredible groups that wanted someone just like me, they just didn't know it.
Actual responses from me in interviews that found me a great fit:
Q: <contrived hypothetical completely unanswerable>
A: I don't know that sounds like a contrived question. I'd be asking why you have that problem in the first place.
Q: "people who do what you do are often vague and noncommittal"
A: that's because most people who do what I do haven't bothered to read the foundational texts, thus they rely upon tropes and ceremony. This field is full of muppets.
Q: what's your greatest weakness
A: sometimes I'm just a little too awesome smirk that says "are we really playing this game?"
Q: are you <blah blah> certified?
A: no I've purposefully avoided <blah blah> certification.I think it's heavy handed bullshit and I don't want to be associated with it or asked to do it
No joke these were real responses that got me great jobs and client engagements. They also quickly helped me discover people I wouldn't enjoy working with.