Why should you ask fun interview questions?

Asking funny and silly interview questions alongside more serious questions can reveal different attributes of a candidate. Unconventional interview questions allow you to see how candidates respond to unexpected situations, showcasing their creativity and flexibility.

If you have a more casual and laid-back workplace culture, funny interview questions can allow candidates to display their personality, letting you see if they will make a great addition to your team. When done right, they can also help calm a candidate’s nerves and help them relax, similar to icebreakers.

Funny interview questions can also help break the ice when interviewing virtually. It can be difficult to cultivate a sense of the candidate’s personality on a video call. You can use these 33 interview questions to break the ice and take notes of their response alongside the interview.

Related: Ways to Ask Cultural Interview Questions (with 19 Sample Questions)

Types of fun interview questions to ask

There’s no one right answer to these unique questions, especially since they’re usually based on each individual’s personality, skills and characteristics. Different questions can target a candidate’s sense of self and how they approach problems, or you can use these questions simply to get to know the candidate. For many of the following questions, the specific answer a job seeker gives is not as important as the thinking that goes behind it.

Icebreakers

Interviews often make candidates very nervous. Icebreaker questions can give some insight into their personality, but they primarily serve to help an interviewee relax and settle into the conversation. Once the proverbial ice has been broken, you are more likely to get an accurate picture of the person sitting before you. Some icebreakers include:

• What was the last vacation you took?
• What was the last gift you gave to someone?
• What’s been your favorite purchase so far this year?
• How would you spend a million dollars?
• What is your go-to emoji?
• Do you prefer communicating through text messages, phone calls or emails?
• What is your secret talent?

Self-assessments

Self-assessment interview questions allow candidates to give a brief description of their own personality using a metaphor or hypothetical situation. These questions give people an opportunity to be creative, show their perception of themselves and demonstrate their problem-solving process:

• If you could turn into an animal, what would it be? How do the characteristics of this animal relate to this job?
• What superpower would you choose for yourself? Give me an example of how it would apply to this job.
• If you wrote a book about your career so far, what would you title it? Why?
• What advice would you give to yourself at age 15?
• If you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be?
• If you weren’t in this line of work, what career would you want to pursue?
• If you had one day left to live, how would you spend it?
• What’s the very first job you had (that’s not on your resume) and what did you learn from the experience?
• How would you describe yourself in one word? Why?

Brain teasers

Askingbrain teasers lets you see how candidates process confusing or unconventional situations and adapt to problems as they occur. They allow prospective employees to explain their reasoning and display their problem-solving process through logical reasoning. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Consider brain teaser questions like these:

• How do you test a calculator?
• Tell me how you would sell hot cocoa in Florida.
• How would you split three slices of cake among eight people?
• How many basketballs could fit in this room?
• How do you know if your refrigerator light bulb is working?
• What weighs more: all of the ants in the world combined or all of the humans combined?
• How would you explain the internet to a caveman?
• Why aren’t manhole covers square?
• How would you find a needle in a haystack?
• What is the fastest way out of this building?
• How would you use the items in this room to survive on a deserted island?

Behavioral/situational

Behavioral and situational interview questions aren’t typically “funny” questions, but you can make them more fun by asking them in an out-of-the-box way. Questions about a candidate’s past behaviors at work and hypothetical situations can give you insight into how they approach different situations and what their priorities are. These types of questions can give you an idea of how the candidate would behave in your workplace:

• What’s been the biggest deal breaker in a job?
• How would you explain our product or service to a child? To a Martian?
• As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up??
• What’s the biggest 180 you’ve made at work? Have you gotten anyone to drastically change their position on something?
• If you got to work and had 10,000 unread emails, what would you do?
• What advice would you give to your former boss?

Frequently asked questions about fun interview questions

How many fun interview questions should I ask?

Unless you have a very relaxed work environment, these types of questions should be limited to only one or two. If most of your questions come off as silly, a candidate may not take the interview or the position seriously. Make sure you give yourself enough time to establish a clear understanding of the skills and experience the candidate is looking to bring into your team, as well as how they will fit in with your company culture.

Can asking fun questions have a negative effect on an interview?

In most situations, asking one or two of these off-the-wall questions will simply lighten the mood and help a candidate relax, while telling you a bit more about them. However, there is always the possibility that the job seeker will consider the questions to be too personal or inapplicable, or they could simply be knocked off their stride in answering. Watch the candidate as they answer, and if they seem to be closing off instead of opening up, consider tailoring the rest of your interview to their comfort level to facilitate apositive interview experience.

How do I stay objective?

When asking fun interview questions, it can be easy to form an impression of a candidate based on your opinions and not what the answers really show about the person. Consider asking only questions that are related to work experience or a person’s ability to do the job. For example, questions like “What Disney character are you most like?” or “Who would play you in a movie about your life?” can bias the hiring manager if they don’t like that particular character or actor or can exclude people who aren’t familiar with certain pop culture references. Instead, consider looking for predefined skills that you can score against a rubric, such as creativity or problem-solving.