With high unemployment levels and a paucity of jobs, employers often have to pick among a large number of talented applicants when trying to fill a position. Increasingly, in order to differentiate between numerous qualified candidates, these employers are putting added emphasis on the interview component and using that interview time to assess a person’s personality as well as their experiences.
Specifically, they are more and more often putting interviewees through unconventional questions or activities that seek to test how someone thinks, socializes, and acts on their feet. Here are the 12 most innovative, unconventional, and creative interview techniques:
1. Take all applicants out for a meal at a restaurant
An employer will often tell candidates to meet him at a restaurant instead of in a conference room. Sometimes this meal will quickly devolve into a standard interview; other times, however, this unconventional approach puts a considerable emphasis on courtesy and table manners.
2. Ask questions with no solutions
One of the oldest unconventional tricks in the book, employers often ask questions that have no concrete answer. Such a question may be: “If World War II had never happened, would the Vending Business be selling more or less licorice today?” The goal here is to test a candidate’s creativity and quick-thinking.
3. Ask to be entertained for 5 minutes
This approach is as simple as it sounds, at least as far as the interviewer is concerned. The candidate, on the other hands, needs to come up with an appropriate and engaging story right on the spot.
4. Use social media (ie Twitter)
to force short, quick, and concise answers out of applicants Some tech-savvy companies have turned in recent months to a Twitter-based interview: applicants are asked questions via Twitter and must then respond via the same medium. This approach forces concise responses and makes it easy for employers to compare answers from a range of candidates.
5. Give a case assignment
The case assignment approach has been used for years by finance and consulting firms, but it has now gained more widespread use across a variety of industries. This method involves giving candidates a real-world business problem — often including documents and related memos — and asking them to assess the information, resolve the issues, and arrive at a conclusion.
6. Go on an outing
Golf has long been a sport of choice in the business world, but it is usually played by people who are co-workers or peers — not by those who are looking to get hired. But since the way a person plays golf can say a good deal about his personality, some hiring managers have taken their interviews to the links in recent years.
7. Turn the interview around and have the applicant ask all the questions
A traditional interview establishes clear-cut roles for both parties involved. The employer asks the questions. The applicant answers them. But sometimes, a hiring manger will test a candidate’s flexibility by turning the interview around and asking the candidate to act as the employer. A person’s interests and confidence levels can surface quickly as a result.
8. Ask basic math questions to see how well an applicant can think under pressure
The incorporation of math can make for a stressful interview, even if you have a strong mathematical background. An employer who doesn’t want to hire easily-flustered employees may turn to numbers as a way to quickly and tellingly induce some extra stress in the interview.
9. Ask basic observational questions to see how well an applicant can notice detail
This method entails asking candidates basic observational questions that, one would think, they should be able to answer. For example, recruiters who interview at colleges often ask applicants to describe their school’s seal or logo. Many interviewers are surprised to see how difficult this question can be.
10. Take a psychiatric approach What was your childhood like? Describe your ambitions growing up?
How close is your family? While these questions may seem more appropriate for the therapist’s office than for the interview room, employers who want to get a complete perception of a candidate — and aren’t afraid to brush up against a line of acceptability — will sometimes turn to open-ended questions of such magnitude.
11. Ask for analysis
All candidates will likely enter an interview with some knowledge of the company and some talking points for why they want to work there. But some employers take this a step further by asking the candidate to analyze the company and its operations — replete with pros and cons. Such a test can reveal whether an applicant has done his research and is willing to be honest about perceived faults.
12. Concoct a test of empathy
Assessing whether a candidate is empathic can be a difficult undertaking, but some employers have found a way to make the process more clear-cut: they take an applicant out to lunch, for example, and instruct the waiter beforehand to spill water or mess up the order. The way the applicant responds can be very telling.
While a job applicant these days can still expect a heavy dose of standard interview questions, the more competitive a position the more likely an employer will look to switch things up, assess a person’s personality, and make use of an unconventional approach.
Have you experienced any of these things on interviews? What do you think about these newer approaches to finding the “right” employee?
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