@Ricdees i was once asked "What would you say if i told you that this interview is not going well?"

I'm not one to get easily thrown off, but at that moment i literally went blank.

In the end, i got the job, so you're right, it's not so much about right answers, but how you react.

I think dinausors are the creation of fertile imagination.

So far so good.

I have attended 4 job interviews, failed 1 (immediately after campus) and got 3, but i promise you, in engineering, no such silly dino.. questions have been thrown at me.

So far so good!

But what i find funny with this interviewers is when they ask me, 'tell us who you are, sir?' It seems i have never answered this question right, ALL the time the interviewers look at me funnily after my response.

Or, are their looks, the curve-ball you are talking about?

When I think hard about interviews, I find that they achieve very little. But since we are all used to them, we attend them and conduct them in equal measure.

What would happen if you simply ask shortlisted candidates to produce their original documents for verification and then make your decision exclusively on the basis of documented evidence?

Are you likely to get the same quality of employee?

I totally disagree!!! I have been in interview panels and I will tell you one thing for sure. Interviews help eliminate candidates who are otherwise qualified on paper but when you meet them...

I have been in scenarios where the interview ends in under five minutes. The way the candidate expresses himself, the way he reasons etc. just tells you this is the wrong person! Most panelist decide not to ask any more questions because they have already given up on the candidate.

We once had a candidate who started bad mouthing her employer from the word go. On asking her why she wanted to leave her current job, she had all this bad stuff to say about her bosses and the company and she even told us that there are rumours that the company is going down and she doesn't want to go down with the ship. She told us that one of her bosses had actually got another job and she doesn't see why she should wait! Needless to say, that was the end of the interview.

There are guys who are very "good" and will give you all the "right" answers but no system is perfect. And in any case, that is why there is a probation period. But you must weed out the extremes.