"What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?"

Riddles have long been used as a measure of wit and intelligence. According to Greek mythology, the Sphinx sat at the entrance of the city Thebes. She would ask a riddle, with the hopes of devouring the person if they answered wrongly.

The latter being a matter of storytelling, Google have for years found no problem with using brainteasers to interview potential candidates.

How many golf balls can fit in a school bus? How much would you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

These are both questions that Google HR might ask you at your next interview if you ever made the cut. Or so was the case up till a couple of months ago.

At an interview for The New York Times, senior vice president of people operations at Google Laszlo Bock boldly claimed that these brainteasers are nothing more than a waste of time meaning to make the interviewer feel smart.

Google has taken preference to using the more standardized and well structured method of behavioural interviewing.

“Give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically difficult problem.”

Standardizing interview questions allow for a consistent practice in recognising which candidates stand out. Holding just under a hundred interviews a week, here at KONNEKT we have been making popular use of behavioural questions for the past 6 years.

The idea behind it is to gain insight into the person’s thinking process, with the premise that past experience will successfully reveal future behaviours. This is particularly relevant in helping to break through people’s tendency to be oversell and be vague in both interviews and resumes, where handling a “2 million Euro” account does not necessarily translate to success.

Leaving riddles to novel writers and storytellers, now that a recruiting giant like Google has jumped on the bandwagon, it’s only be a matter of time until behavioural interviews become a staple of all job interviews.


Also, the answer is Man.

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