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Comment by kromem | Hacker News Reader

Wow. That "what's the worst thing that ever happened to you" question should make their legal team's skin crawl.

What if the answer was about being bullied for sexual orientation (and in the process disclosing information that could bias an interview) or about dealing with a medical condition?

That's such a stupid question for an interview.

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I'm sure they mean "What's a bad work situation you were in, and how did you deal with it"

I also thought this is what they meant. It sounds like someone was trying to ask something from a behavioral question bank and just didn't have the wording memorized well enough.

Being at work doesn't preclude bullying, harassment, assault, etc.

I wonder what the smart way to refuse to reply would be. Is there any way you could and not negatively impact your chances?

I think they want stories of overcoming adversity and how the leadership principles apply there. "Well let's see I was about to be stabbed and a good samaritan jumped in and helped me escape from the thugs. Let's see what's the don't get stabbed principle..."

What I've heard is that if you are asked an uncomfortable or illegal question in an interview, convert it to the closest legal or comfortable version in your head, and answer that. Like:

"What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?" -> Auto-convert to "What's the worst situation that you had to handle at work?" -> Forget the "I got in a bar fight on the weekend" story, tell the "I had to convince the stubborn holdout on my team to go along with the rest of the team's consensus on how to solve a problem" story.

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