"Tell me about yourself"

An interview usually starts with the question - "Tell me about yourself". The first candidate literally vomitted whatever was written in the resume (which we already had in our hands). So I had to modify the question to "Tell me about yourself which is not mentioned in this resume". This confused almost all the candidates - who were really well prepared to answer the first question and not the modified one - and they came up with some really weird answers. Some of them are documented here for your reading pleasure.

1. "I am a hard worker"
I am yet to meet a single person who said that he/she is not a hard worker. One guy, whose English was as broken as a politician's promise, even said that he "works hardly". I had to suppress a smile which could have evolved into a laughter. Another lady came up with an instance where she was sick during the final semester and still she "worked hard" to be among the top three. Her effort had to be appreciated but the answer to my next question was not smart. The next question was "which is important - health or career?". She promptly replied "career". Maybe she was saying the truth or maybe she wanted to impress me. As a sensible human being, health comes first, not career.

2. "Any problem, I Google"
A very enterprising young guy said that if faced with a problem the first thing he will do is Google. Google should be very happy with such sincere end-users. I am not sure how he will survive if there is no Internet connectivity. Imagine he is driving his two-wheeler in a deserted road when the sun has disappeared and going to a place he is not familiar with. He has to get directions but unfortunately he cannot Google. Suddenly, he sees a lone guy walking along the side of the road. What will he ask the guy? The options are
(a) How do I go to Talakare?
(b) Where can I access Google?
I am sure he will choose option b and get lost from the face of this Earth (or Google Earth in this case)

3. "My main feature is my smile"
As soon as you read this, you could imagine a cute smiley. But this was far from reality. The guy never smiled during the course of the whole interview. He was a nervous wreck and most of the time was busy mixing up words with comical end results. For example, when asked about his hobbies he answered "I like to go for long bikes in my drive". Being a nervous wreck myself when I attend interviews, I was a little sympathetic but his introductory statement set high standards and finally it resulted in a nervous and confused smiley.

4. "The programming language I am comfortable with is English"
This guy was extremely confident and completely incompetent. Usually, you don't read a statement like the one before but unfortunately this was true. The question was about programming languages and the answer was about speaking languages. What can you do other than roll in the floor laughing. But I guess he literally meant that because he couldn't answer any of the technical questions. His English was not that good either.

Taking interviews is a frustrating process. You have to spend time and in the end of it, if you have to tick a checkbox saying "Do not hire" you do not feel a sense of accomplishment but instead you feel a sense of disappointment. But the answers like the ones above make the experience entertaining (needless to say none of the folks who gave the above answers were selected)