Recruit Smarter: How Unusual Interview Questions Help You Find the Best Candidate

Standard interview questions get rehearsed answers. Most candidates spend hours preparing for "where do you see yourself in five years?" which means by the time they're sitting across from you, the answer is polished, not honest.

That's exactly why more hiring teams are turning to unusual interview questions. Not for entertainment, but as a deliberate signal on how someone actually thinks.

Understand why unusual questions reveal what standard ones can't

Nowadays, interview preparation is essential. Candidates who haven't researched the company will show it quickly. But many large companies and smaller enterprises are catching onto the idea of asking unexpected questions, and it's not just for fun.

Google, Apple, and Facebook are well-known for their unusual interview approaches. There's a clear method behind it.

Know what interviewers are actually evaluating

Many of these unusual questions are asked for a good reason. And while it may seem unsettling in the moment, staying calm matters.

What candidates need to understand is that interviewers are not looking for a textbook correct answer. In fact, many of these questions don't have one.

What they're trying to determine is how quickly a candidate can think on their feet and how they approach a tough situation. According to SHRM's behavioral competencies framework, structured behavioral assessment is one of the most reliable ways to evaluate fit beyond what a resume shows.

Along with that, elements of personality tend to surface. A candidate's answer also reveals their level of creativity, composure, and critical thinking.

Some may call these questions a "trick" and that's not entirely wrong. Interviewers have heard every standard answer to every standard question. The priority behind unusual questions is to catch a genuine, unguarded moment.

Related Article: How to align stakeholders in a supply chain talent search

See why you can't predict a candidate's answer in advance

In the mind of the interviewer, the more unusual the question, the better. Why? Because there's no way for a candidate to prepare in advance.

The objective is to observe a true, honest response and to see how a candidate composes their thoughts under real pressure. This is especially important for supply chain and procurement roles, where complexity and ambiguity are daily realities. When you need to reduce supply chain time-to-fill without cutting corners on quality, these questions help surface how someone really operates.

It's important, however, that the interviewer has a rough idea of what a good answer looks like. If not an exact answer, then a logical thought process that fits the role.

Use these examples to build your question bank

The first three questions below have all been asked by Facebook, Google, and Apple, respectively:

• 25 racehorses, no stopwatch. 5 tracks. Figure out the top three fastest horses in the fewest number of races.

• Why are manhole covers round?

• If you delivered pizza to earn a living, why would you need to carry a pair of scissors, in what type of situation would they benefit you?

A few more to consider:

• If you were a salad, what kind of dressing would you want?

• How do I rate as an interviewer?

• In the news story of your life, what would the headline say?

• How many square feet of pizza are eaten in the U.S. each year?

• Can you instruct someone how to make an origami 'cootie catcher' with just words?

• Why is a tennis ball fuzzy?

• What is your least favorite thing about humanity?

• Are you more of a hunter or a gatherer?

If a candidate is caught completely off-guard, remind them to stay calm, take a breath, and take time before answering. That's part of what you're observing.

Related Article: Supply chain search strategy for finding top talent

Put better questions to work in your hiring process

Unusual interview questions are one tool in a broader hiring strategy. If you're looking for supply chain or procurement talent and want a process built around finding people who can actually perform under pressure, a supply chain staffing agency with deep domain expertise can help you build the right approach from the start.

Related Article: Benefits of working with a specialized supply chain recruiter

Frequently asked questions

What questions are asked in a supply chain interview?

Most supply chain interviews cover a mix of technical and behavioral questions. On the technical side, expect questions about inventory management, supplier relationships, demand planning, cost reduction, and process improvement. Behavioral questions typically focus on how candidates have handled disruptions, cross-functional conflict, or high-pressure situations. Increasingly, hiring teams are adding unusual or abstract questions to test how candidates think in real time, not just how well they prepared. 

What should I look for when evaluating a candidate's answer to an unusual question?

Don't evaluate the answer itself. Evaluate the process. Specifically, look for:

• Composure: did they stay calm or visibly panic?

• Structure: did they attempt to organize their thinking, even briefly?

• Creativity: did they approach the problem from an unexpected angle?

• Self-awareness: did they acknowledge what they didn't know while still pushing forward?

There's no right answer to "why is a tennis ball fuzzy?" The point is to see how someone behaves when they have nothing to fall back on.

How many unusual questions should I include in a supply chain interview?

One or two is enough. The goal is a signal, not a stress test. If unusual questions dominate the interview, candidates leave with a poor experience and you end up with less useful data overall. Treat them as a complement to your structured behavioral questions, not a replacement. A good rule of thumb: use one unusual question per interview stage where creative or analytical thinking is being assessed.

Are unusual interview questions legal and compliant?

Generally yes, with one important caveat: the question cannot elicit information about a protected class. Avoid anything that could reveal a candidate's age, religion, national origin, family status, disability, or other protected characteristics, even indirectly. "What would you do if you were a salad?" is fine. "What religious holidays do you observe?" is not. When in doubt, run your question list by HR or legal before using it consistently across interviews.

How do unusual questions help assess supply chain candidates specifically?

Supply chain roles require people who can stay composed and make sound decisions when things go sideways. Unusual questions put candidates in a low-stakes version of that environment. You get a read on how someone reacts to ambiguity, whether they ask clarifying questions before diving in, and whether their thinking holds up without a script. Those traits are hard to fake and hard to screen for on a resume alone. If you're building out a broader supply chain search strategy, this type of question can be a useful filter early in the process.

What's the difference between unusual interview questions and behavioral interview questions?

Behavioral questions are past-based. They ask candidates to recall a specific situation and walk through what they did: "Tell me about a time you managed a supplier conflict." The assumption is that past behavior predicts future behavior.

Unusual questions are present-based. They put a candidate in a novel situation with no prior experience to draw from and observe how they think in real time. Both have value, and the strongest interviews use both. Behavioral questions validate experience. Unusual questions reveal instinct.