Originally Posted by
chrisreedrules
I would never recommend memorizing responses to HR questions. I was just caught a bit by surprise by some of these when I had my first interview and I thought if I could post them here it might help someone else in my shoes in the near or far future. To me, if you can be at the very least mentally prepared to answer some of these questions by thinking about them before hand it makes the whole process go smoother.
Memorizing responses will sound fake.
But unfortunately this kind of psycho-babble HR BS is not very reliable...especially if the people applying it don't know what they're doing. It may do a decent job of weeding out undesirables, but it is also likely to weed out plenty of good candidates as well.
For this reason it may be in your best interest to try to understand the process and, while not spewing canned answers, at least have an idea of the overall "theme" which you are trying to portray and consider how all of the stock interview questions can contribute to that.
Trying to guess what they want to hear can trip you up. It's easier to determine how to communicate your message, one sound bite at a time, keeping the big picture in mind.
Unless you're an ax murder your "theme" should be pretty close to who you really are unless you're a very skilled actor.