“Which was the last book you have read…?”

Let me begin with an anecdote experienced during my interview.
“Which was the last book you have read?” a yorker from a baritone voice. Though I am not an avid reader and bibliophile but in my CV I casually stated my hobby as ‘reading books’.
An utter silence in the interview cabin. I was dumbstruck and trapped and seemed no way out.
Fortunately, something flashed in my mind and I replied, “The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho” and I breathed a sigh of relief. “What life lesson did you learn from the book?” a consecutive yorker from the same baritone sound. I was clueless. “Do you know any quote or something?” this time I was cleaned bowled.

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I was in deep and absolute state of perplexity. I had never anticipated such question. I call such questions as ‘filter question’, because adequate answer of this, does not mean that he/she got hired and insufficient answer does not mean that he/she got disqualified. Such ‘filter question’ just adds additional level of filtering to choose the best human resource in place. Such questions may not be asked in every interview. It conveys that the recruiter is interested to know more about you as person. So, why let oneself sacrifice on such trivial thing?
Reading a book is the safest hobby to tell the panelist. It manifests the intellectualism and class of maturity in a person. I believe that reading a book is like one-on-one conservation between you and author.
There are ample number of books readily available with variety of genre.The pick of book reflects your persona to the panelist.
I am enlisting some Do’s and Dont’s while responding this question,
Do’s :

• Be honest with whatever you say or written in your CV.
• Read at least one book (regional or international best sellers)
• If possible, read the book which is relevant to the your field. it would be easy to correlate.
• Read the excerpt or summary  of book from Internet. It really helps!
• Use pencil while reading to highlight important thoughts by author.
• Focus on ‘take home message’ from the book
• Remember any quote from book that left impact on you.

Dont’s :

• Don’t bluff the interviewer
• Don’t even say that you haven’t actually read it.
• Don’t give fake answer.If interviewer has already read the book then only God will save you
• Now, you must be curious and thinking that , how did I escape from that ‘filter question’ trap?
• I had given a quote from that book and coincidentally the same quote was in the 2007 Blockbuster movie of Om Shanti Om.

Quote from the book The Alchemist,
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping u to achieve it.”
Dialogue from the movie On Shanti Om,
अगर किसी चीज को दिल से चाहो तो पूरी कायेनात उसे तुमसे मिलाने की कोशिश में लग जाती है |
Needless to say, I was hired.
Happy reading!!