'What am I thinking right now?' - and 19 more of the hardest interview questions

Mind reading, psychology and social justice - just three subjects you might not expect to crop up in an interview for a job in accountancy or computing.
Tell me about your childhood.Tell me about your childhood.
Tell me about your childhood.

However, they all feature in the 20 hardest interview questions, as reported in a survey by recruitment firm Glassdoor.com.

“What am I thinking right now?” was perhaps the question least suited to any post outside a circus sideshow, while estimating the number of goals in the Premier League might prove trickier for a real-life Statto than the TV pundit version.

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Glassdoor’s David Whitby, said: "Preparing for an interview thoroughly means being ready for anything, even a curve ball question not directly related to the job.

“Remember, it’s not necessarily about getting the right answer, more how you cope under pressure."

So, perhaps the top question on the list of 20 perhaps cuts to the chase better than anything else…

The 20 toughest job interview questions

1. “What on your CV is the closest thing to a lie?” – The Phoenix Partnership

2. “What am I thinking right now?” – TES Global

3. “How would your enemy describe you?” – Condé Nast

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4. “If you had a friend who was great for a job and an identical person who was just as good, but your friend earned you £2,000 less, who would you give the job to?” – Hays Recruitment

5. “What's the most selfish thing you've ever done?” – PageGroup

6. “You are stranded on the moon with a group of other astronauts and you need to travel 200 miles back to base, here is a list of 15 items salvaged from the wreckage of the spacecraft you were travelling in. List them in order of importance.” – Turnstone Sales

7. “If your best friend was here what advice would he give you?” – American Express

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8. “Describe your biggest weakness. Then describe another.” – Palantir Technologies

9. “How do you cope with repetition?” – Tesla Motors

10. “How would you describe cloud computing to a seven-year old?” – Microsoft

11. “There are three people, each with different salaries, and they want to find the average of them without telling any of the other two their salary. How do they do it?” – BAE Systems

12. “Who is your hero, and why?” – GE

13. “What’s your the biggest regret managing people so far?” – Regus

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14. “What would you ask the CEO if you met him one day?” – British Airways

15. “You have 50 red and 50 blue objects. Split these however you like between two containers to give the minimum/maximum probability of drawing one of the colours.” – Clearwater Analytics

16. “What does social justice mean to you?” – ThoughtWorks

17. “What is your coping mechanism when you have a bad day?” – Switch Consulting

18. “Are you a nice guy?” – Badoo

19. “Provide an estimate for the number of goals in the premier league.” VAX

20. “Tell me about your childhood.” – Next

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