Interview Resource - Keller ISD Schools

INTERVIEW RESOURCE | 13
you volunteer at hospitals, spend quality time with your mother, play in a Frisbee league?
Anything is fair game. Remember you want to appear interesting and open-minded. By no
means do you want to admit that you sometimes lie around and just watch television, unless you
do so with a wry smile and admit you’re trying to kick the habit.
Of course, not all questions fall into the Basic
Eight. Some judges may challenge you with a
surprise that calls on you to think quickly.
Questions of this nature may include references to
odd enigmas, to recent news events or to the
totally-out-of-the-blue.
Odd enigmas—“Why are manhole covers
round?”, “If you were a tree, what kind of
tree would you be?”, and the classic, “Why
do we park on driveways and drive on
parkways?”
But he was a good traitor.
In a practice interview, my coach once asked
me to identify my role model. I’d played a lot of
Civil War games as a kid, so said, confidently,
‘‘Robert E. Lee.’’ The judges were surprised.
One, probably noting that I wasn’t wearing a
flag pin, asked why I had chosen Lee. I
answered, realizing I’d dug myself into a hole,
‘‘Because he was willing to betray his personal
beliefs about slavery and the Union to help his
friends and his home state of Virginia.’’ I’m sure
there were answers I could have come up with
to save the situation; that was not one of them.
Political and social issues—“Do you believe evolution should be taught in schools?” and “How
do you feel about the war in Iraq?” In my experience, these types of questions are less common.
Judges don’t want their prejudices about controversial issues to color the process of scoring your
interview, and they don’t want to spend seven minutes arguing with you. Still, it’s good to keep
up with culture and the news: it’ll strengthen your interview if you can allude to current events
in your answers.
The totally-out-of-the-blue—“What is the one question you least expect us to ask you in this
interview?” or “What would you like to ask us, the judges?”
For questions like this, we recommend taking a moment to collect your thoughts before answering.
Whatever you do, don’t begin a sentence, stammer, change your mind, and start over. If you do need to
restart, smile and acknowledge it: “Well, let me try that again.” Don’t do this more than once, though.
Feel free to restate the question as if it were the impromptu event. Remember, you don’t need to be
eloquent—just clear, conversational and decisive.
Later in this resource, we provide a long list of both common and more eccentric interview questions.