Some prominent companies in the United States rely on atypical — even borderline bizarre — interview questions to determine a candidate’s problem solving skills. Consider these examples:

• “How many people are using Facebook in San Francisco at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday?” — Google Inc.
• “If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?” — Hewlett-Packard Co.

Others take a more global approach:

• “How would you cure world hunger?” — Amazon.com Inc.
• “How many different ways can you get water from a lake at the foot of a mountain, up to the top of the mountain?” — Walt Disney Co.

Even if candidates aren’t able to solve the problem right away, employers can learn a lot through their responses: How quickly can they think on their feet? How do they approach difficult situations? Can they remain positive in the face of a challenge? To determine candidates’ cultural fit within an organization, they need to reveal to employers who they really are beyond just their resume and qualifications.

Steve Jobs, the late Apple Inc. CEO, has said, “Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.”

In addition to confirming that a candidate has the skills necessary to succeed in the position, managers must determine whether a candidate has a similar set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes the organization, or if the candidate is a cultural fit.

Finding a Cultural Fit
As job seekers become better educated on the interview process — and on what questions they should be prepared to answer — employers are finding that standard questions are met with rehearsed responses.

Instead, they need to ask questions that elicit passionate and unscripted answers from job seekers that can help determine how a candidate fits in with the shared belief system of the entire organization.