How Should You Answer Oddball Interview Questions?

As you probably know, some companies nowadays have gotten pretty creative with the questions and situations they throw at candidates in job interviews.

There are interviewers who ask candidates to figure out how many ping pong balls would fit in Yankee Stadium, what animal they would be, which historical figure they'd like to have to dinner, and how many uses they can come up with for a hair clip.

Glassdoor.com, a great website for job seekers that gives an inside look at jobs and lets people review and rate the places they've worked, also has forums for people to share about their experience interviewing at different companies.

Glassdoor culled the weirdest interview questions and stories people shared on the site to compile their Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions of 2011.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• If you're interviewing for a team member for my favorite grocery, Trader Joe's, you might be asked, "What do you think of garden gnomes?"
• Pinkberry, the frozen yogurt chain, does group auditions that can last for hours, which might include the question, "Room, desk or car – which do you clean first?"
• Then there was the interviewer from Acosta, the marketing company for in-store retail promotions, who is reported to have said to a candidate, "Just entertain me for five minutes; I'm not going to talk."

Why do companies do this?

Do strange interview questions really help make a good hiring decision?

I'm a lifelong recruiter, and I personally never ask off-the-wall questions, preferring a more casual and direct conversation, but I can understand why companies do it.

Asking a bizarre or unexpected question lets you see how someone thinks, and you'll quickly know how they behave in stressful or confusing circumstances, which is definitely something that factors into any hiring decision.

Oddball questions work because how you do anything is how you do everything.

Scroll down and read the comments in the Glassdoor.com article and you can see how different people react to these kinds of questions.

You'll see that each person's attitude shines right through in their response.

• Some people saw the unexpected question as a challenge, and dove right into figuring out their answers to the questions with great sincerity and eager-to-please enthusiasm.
• Others had a more flip or clever response, trying to make the situation humorous, or sidestepping the question or (sometimes rather humorlessly) deflecting it back to talking about their qualifications for the job.
• Some people criticized the interviewer for not asking the question they thought should be asked and tried to take control of the interview.
• Some were suspicious of the intentions of the question and its correlation to the job at hand.
• And a few wise folks thought these nontraditional questions are a great idea and saw exactly why they had been used.

How each person reacted to the situation said a great deal about them and how their mind works.

Each of us has natural ways that we approach problems and challenges, and we see many of them in how people responded to Glassdoor.com's list of oddball questions.

Sincerity, enthusiasm, sarcasm, sidestepping, redirecting, criticism, suspicion, curiosity, obedience, openness… these are all different ways of perceiving and handling information.

• Are you open to new ways of doing things?
• Are you comfortable with uncertainty? Willing to look foolish?
• Are you willing to let someone else take the lead, even if you don't understand why they're doing it that way?
• Do you think in a logical and linear way?
• Do you think things through before making a decision, or go with your gut?

It's not that there are right answers or wrong answers, but you certainly can learn a lot from asking oddball questions.

Go check out the Glassdoor.com list, and think how you'd respond to the questions, read the comments of others, and see what you can learn about yourself from your own responses.

More good reading about interviews:

• Ace Your Interview by Scripting the Perfect Stories
• Are You Ready for 10 Different Types of Interviews?
• 3 Revealing Questions to Ask in Your Next Interview