Most job interviews are more or less similar. Hiring managers ask you to tell them about your background. They ask what attracted you to the position. They try to gauge whether you’d be a good fit for the team.
But there are some interviews where hiring managers ask questions that are a bit unexpected, to say the least. Here are 15 of the craziest interview questions that you can start adding into your recruitment strategies.
1. How would you hide a dead body?
Adam Newman was also asked how he would build a spice rack for a blind person and what his favorite episode of South Park is — all during the same interview.
2. What would you do if you were the lone survivor of a plane crash?
One interviewee at Airbnb probably scratched their chin at that one.
3. Twenty-five racehorses, no stopwatches, five tracks. Figure out the three fastest horses in the fewest number of races.
OK, so it’s not really a question per se, but Facebook sure knows how to find the best and brightest.
4. Choose a city and estimate how many piano tuners operate there.
This comes from Google. Easiest answer? Pripyat (site of the Chernobyl disaster), zero.
5. What do you think of lava lamps? And ‘Dilbert’?
Boeing sure uses interesting tactics to find its engineers.
6. If you could be any vegetable in the world, what would you be?
Keith Boesky says a major law firm asked him that question when he applied for a summer gig.
7. Describe the color yellow to someone who’s blind.
Spirit Airlines sure knows how to make prospective employees think on their feet.
8. Why are manholes round?
When seeking an electrical engineer, St. Jude Medical asked quite the head-scratcher.
9. How many square feet of pizza are eaten in the United States each year?
Goldman Sachs certainly assumed candidates were able to figure out how many square feet are in a typical pizza in the first place.
10. How would you sell a fridge to an Eskimo?
Harrod’s is a world-famous department store, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they try to hire folks who know how to sell things.
11. If you were to get rid of one state in the U.S., which would it be and why?
The fine folks over at Forrester Research asked this question to a research associate candidate.
12. What do you think you will hate most about this job?
Medtronic was looking for a diabetes therapy associate and decided to gauge how truthful prospective candidates were.
13. If you were a pizza delivery man, how would you benefit from scissors?
This is a question that Apple asked prospective candidates.
14. A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say, and why is he here?
An office engineer candidate for a job at the Clark Construction Group likely didn’t prepare for this question.
15. What do you do if you are approached by an employee who is complaining about a colleague who has horrible body odor?
Looking to hire an operations leader, MasterCard left no stones unturned when trying to think of one of the weirder, yet definitely possible, scenarios that person might encounter on the job.
Job candidates have practiced for hours to answer traditional questions like, "What would you say your greatest weakness is?" So asking them an out-of-the-box question throws them off guard, and you'll be able to see how quickly they're able to think on their feet.
What’s the craziest question you were ever asked in a job interview?
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