Interview Questions from Left Field

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Whirlpool, she notes, has used behavioral questions during interviews, as "past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. We're looking for candidates who can hit the ground running and add value to the company," she says, adding that creative questioning is a good indication of "how a candidate might react when they're thrown a curveball by a senior level associate."

Sarikas suggests job candidates confronted by one of these questions take a minute to breathe and contemplate the answer. "Do you get rattled easily? Do you remain calm? Do you have a sense of humor? That's what these companies are trying to get at in the interviews," Sarikas says. "Running off your mouth before engaging your brain is a bad idea. It's O.K. to acknowledge that you need a moment, and to use that moment to think about how you handle yourself."

Demonstrating Your Business Acumen

She adds that when faced with unusual questions that may seem unrelated to the job one is interviewing for, such as, 'If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?' it is important to have a reason for that choice and to then "tie it back to who you are and what you have to offer. Think about the message you're trying to impart," she says, "and use these questions to make you stand out and make sure that you're memorable in a good way."

Borden believes his response to the difficult question of choosing any superpower was instrumental in his being offered the job at Blue Cross. "I took my time in thinking about my answer," he says, "which I think was the purpose of the question, to see how I functioned under pressure." He eventually answered that his superpower would be the ability to see into the future, which he then related to his business acumen, saying that he could use that power to adjust what he did today in order to do business better and make more money in the future.

Tom Kozicki, president of the MBA Career Services Council, and career center director at the University of California-Irvine's Merage School of Business, says that "it's important to note that every interview is specific to the company interviewing and the person one is being interviewed by."

Kozicki suggests prepping before an interview by coming up with stories and examples that lend themselves to the specific position one is interviewing for. "No matter the question, whether they ask a straightforward one or a surprise and unexpected one," Kozicki says, "fundamentally, what the company's looking for remains the same. They want to know whether you have the ability to deal with ambiguity, to assess and be innovative, and to think creatively and on the spot."

Poundstone, meanwhile, says that when confronted with a difficult question, candidates should work through the problem out loud, piece by piece. "Companies always want you to walk through every part, to show you have an algorithm and can solve the problem solve step by step," he says. "You definitely don't want to just sit there silent."

Hennessey is a BusinessWeek reporting intern.