Brain teasers like the ones used for hiring by the Internet giant are spreading to other picky employers. Match your wits against puzzles that trip up even the cleverest applicants.
"If you could be any superhero, who would it be?" "What color best represents your personality?" "What animal are you?" These questions, posted by job candidates on Glassdoor.com, aren't from some wacky Silicon Valley start-up—they're asked of applicants at AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and Bank of America, respectively.
Goldman Sachs interviewers ask candidates the firm's stock price. Morgan Stanley asks interviewees to name a recent story they've read in the Financial Times—apparently, a lot can't. J.P. Morgan Chase asks the value of pi. (It's thought to be instructive to see how many digits the candidate can recite.)
Since being a math or tech whiz is irrelevant to running most businesses, some companies have redoubled their efforts to find the perfect match of candidate and corporate personality. Whole Foods interviewers have candidates describe their perfect "last meal." It's a quick way of gauging the applicant's knowledge of food and passion for it. Expedia does the same thing with travel, asking questions like "If you could go camping anywhere, where would you put your tent?"
Your new post is loading...