The interview is a classic point of stress for most job seekers, and with good cause. Many firms like asking indirect questions that make it hard to judge what information they're really fishing looking for. Of course, interviewers don't want anyone to know the motivation behind their method of questioning, or else potential job candidates could easily game the system. For this reason, most firms ask slightly different questions and have their own method of interviewing. Today, we explore twelve common indirect questions that employers often ask and the motivation behind them.

“How long have you been looking for a new job?”

A big sign that something is amiss with a potential hire in a normal economic climate is how long he or she has been searching for a job. What potential employers really need to determine is whether there is something wrong with the candidate that other potential employers have picked up on already. Of course, asking the candidate such a thing will not yield an honest answer, so instead, employers ask how long the candidate has been looking for a job. They can interpret the candidate’s response and try to gauge how likely it is that other interviewers have picked up on some glaring disqualifier that they have not yet discovered.