Mastering Unusual Interview Questions: Tips and Examples

Why Ask Unusual Interview Questions?

Unusual interview questions to ask in an interview help recruiters to reveal candidates' critical thinking and better understand their character, ambitions, and potential. Unlike standard questions, challenging ones encourage individuals to reveal their problem-solving skills, flexibility, and creativity showing whether persons match your company's culture and strategic goals. Based on these insights the hiring team can make more informed and strategic decisions strengthening the recruitment strategy.

Benefits of Using Unusual Interview Questions

Reveal creative mindset: it pushes candidates to throw out the rule book and think unconventionally coming up with new ideas and solutions. This helps identify individuals who can bring fresh mindset and inspiration to the team.‍

Determine problem-solving skills: posing unusual questions for interview can highlight if candidates are competent in touching upon the issue and developing plans under pressure. These traits are beneficial in fast-moving industries.‍

Appraise adaptability: it's critical to be capable of working in dynamic work environments — unconventional questions test candidates' proficiency to adapt quickly to new unknown situations and handle challenges.‍

Detect cultural fit: unusual interview questions to ask a potential employee can ensure a perfect match between the candidate and the organization's principles. They unveil a candidate's identity, values, and temperament indicating how well they might integrate into the company culture. ‍

Reveal stress management: to observe candidates' actions and reactions under pressure interviewers may ask unusual questions for interview. This helps assess an individual's ability to stay cool-headed in tense situations, which is especially crucial for high-risk positions.‍

Accentuate distinct characteristics: to exclude scripted answers, stop asking standard questions. Unusual job interview questions discover spontaneous responses helping identify candidates with unique qualities and mindsets.‍

Inspire honesty: recruiters will take candidates by surprise with unconventional questions, so they can't give rehearsed answers. It provides a more precise evaluation of their sincere responses and thoughts.‍

Ameliorate candidate experience: the original interview process can help attract and leave a positive impression on top talent. Non-standard and creative questions make candidates feel valued and improve the hiring experience.

‍Drive extra insights: standard questions cover only basic concepts without comprehensive insight into a candidate's expertise, potential, and mindset. Unusual interview questions and answers provide an in-depth understanding of promoting the right hiring decisions.‍

Boost diversification: most unusual interview questions can help create an inclusive workplace, discover individuals from different angles, and identify candidates with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints.

If you use remote interviews, check our recent material with the essential tips.

Types of Unusual Interview Questions

Weirdest Job Interview Questions and Their Impact

Truly bizarre interview questions which usually have no right answer are often used in conversation with candidates. Below you can find the most common unusual questions for interview and their meaning:
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Impact: It facilitates gauging the candidate's ability to improvisate and originate revealing if its traits and values align with the company culture.

Impact: This puzzle examines the approach and methodology used to estimate, demonstrating candidates' logical reasoning and analytical thinking.

Impact: It shows the candidate's aspirations and priorities emphasizing if they can or can not benefit the team.

Impact: This tricky question tests strategic thinking, salesmanship, and marketing creativity, highlighting the ability to overcome obstacles.
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Impact: It reveals the self-positioning in the team: a leader, a team player, an independent, or one that needs mentoring.

Impact: This challenge asses the capacity to explain something complicated in simple words, expressing creativity and empathy.

Impact: Recruiters can understand how candidates see themselves, and how they evaluate their life and professional experience.

Impact: This scenario gauges problem-solving talent and a sense of humor, demonstrating an aptitude to make prompt decisions.
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Impact: It demonstrates the candidate's know-how skills, communication competence, teaching, and mentoring ability.

How to Integrate Unusual Questions into Your Interview Process

If your objective as a recruiter is to identify and select a candidate who apart from meeting the technical demands also contributes to your team's prosperity, this guide is for you:

Define the goal

Identify the candidate's qualities or skills that need to be assessed. A clear objective will help you to ask the right questions and gain worthy insights.

Mix with standard questions

To produce a well-rounded hiring interview, insert unusual questions next to traditional ones. So you can obtain general information and more personal characteristics. 

Adapt to your industry and role

Modify questions depending on the industry and the specific role. Abstract questions work better for creative domains while problem-solving ones are required for more technical roles.

Present context

To comfort and encourage candidates to give more genuine responses, explain briefly why you are asking these uncommon questions.

Support authenticity

If candidates feel secure enough to share their thoughts and show their personality, they give honest answers instead of banal ones.

Practice active listening

Reflective listening makes candidates feel heard, valued and respected promoting their self-confidence. This has a positive effect on the candidates' sincerity.

Integrate at different stages

The use of unusual questions at different steps of the hiring process will help in understanding various facets of the candidate's personality.

Examine answers holistically

Make an overall evaluation of the candidate's brainstorming process, creativity, and problem-solving approaches rather than investigate the specific responses.

Seek candidates feedback

Enhance the interview approach and guarantee the question's effectiveness and fairness, don't hesitate to ask candidates for feedback on specific questions. 

Constantly improve

Do not forget to tailor and modernize the interview process according to your needs so it stays relevant and effective.

Preparing Candidates for Unusual Interview Questions

Preparing candidates for unusual interview questions helps recruiters receive more genuine insights about the individuals during the hiring process.

1. Provide a pre-interview guide: outlines interview steps mentioning the possibility of including uncommon questions. It assures candidates' moral readiness. 
2. Explain the objective: make sure candidates realize these questions are asked not to cheat or confuse them, but to discover their inventiveness and aspirations.
3. Accentuate the assessed skills: explain to candidates which specific competence you will gauge. It may help them to respond more meaningfully and eloquently.
4. Offer flexibility in responses: support candidates in clarifying and justifying their ideas. Inform them that everything is fine and they can take time to consider. 
5. Follow-up with valuable feedback: inform candidates about the interview result mentioning how they coped with the unusual questions.

At Axterior we understand how crucial is to get ready for a conversation with the candidate. That's why we present our free 30-min interview script which will energize and shore up your hiring process. Start treasure troving to enrich your talent pool.

Conclusion

Most unusual interview questions to ask candidates have a few main purposes. Firstly, by asking them recruiters create a more animating and engaging interview experience. Secondly, they eliminate scripted responses and provide more genuine information. Thirdly, it helps find an adaptable and innovative candidate.