India is such a big country where lakhs of graduates are produced every year. Attending interviews have becomes the biggest task in their lives with a great competition around them. Thus, graduates in the country are habituated to attending interviews for finding a good job. If you are one among them, then you might have come across some typical job interviews, and sometimes you even discover yourselves thrown off by the questions asked by the interviewer.
Generally, for a job interview, we all prepare for the basic questions and some of them think ahead and prepare for what the interviewer will ask us. In the present situation, the big companies evaluate candidates on their ability at solving puzzles. This shows you are logical, creative and good with numbers. The ability of creative thinking and bringing a unique perspective to solving problems can provide a huge advantage. And such abilities can only be developed with practice and efforts.
For me, solving puzzles is like a mental exercise. What it’s for you? After performing so well in all the rounds and qualified to the final round, you will be asked some tricky and puzzling questions where the interviewers test your problem-solving ability. And many times, your answer is actually irrelevant, it’s how you reached that answer that matters. Here, you have to be careful and smart.
So, to help you brush up on your problem-solving capabilities, we’ve compiled a few tricky and puzzling questions you could come across, as well as real-life examples. Check how good you are by answering these top interview puzzles.
1. What are the qualities that you most admire and that you least like about your parents?
This is the best question to predict how a person is likely to behave in the weeks, months and years after their hiring, according to the CEO of the Iron Mountain Company. In the end, people often take up the qualities of their parents that they like and work hard to do the opposite of what they do not like.
2. Do something with this clip.
A senior marketing executive wants to see how the candidates respond to such an unusual question and how creative they could be.
3. Are you the smartest person you know?
According to Oracle co-founder and former CEO Larry Ellison, he would only hire those who respond positively to the question, continuing with the course of the company to recruit bright people who challenge him to do a better job.
4. Tell me something that is true about almost no one is agreeing with you.
This is one of the questions asked by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. “It somehow proves the originality of the thought, and to some extent, proves the courage to speak in a difficult interview context and answer something about what the recruiter might also disagree with.”
5. How would you make money at an ice cream stand in Central Park?
Alphabet Technology incubator’s head of research and development, Yasmin Green said he asks each and every candidate this question to test their creative thinking skills.
6. What was the last costume you put on?
Warby Parker co-founder and co-CEO David Gilboa likes this question a lot and asks every candidate he interviews. The company not only need the greatest technical skills in you, but also one of your goals to inject as much fun as possible into the job. The responses of the candidates reveal who would not fit well with the company’s philosophy.
7. On a scale of 1 to 10, how lucky are you?
This is the question asked by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to every candidate he interviews. Even though he admits that there is no satisfactory response, both extremes could put him in alarm. If you consider that you have very little luck, you can tend to hold the rest of your faults accountable. On the other hand, it can mean that if you do not know why good things happen to you, you do not have much confidence in you.
8. What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?
All possible employees of the Capriotti Sandwich Shop chain must have answered this question before being offered a job. This question is to test how candidates react to jobs under pressure, said CEO Ashley Morris. Although there is no correct answer, to just check how they clear a conversation.
These are some of the tricky and puzzling questions in a job interview. The best way to respond will be showing mental agility and originality. It is clear that creativity is a strong point of the great minds.
