Brain teaser questions are a common feature of the modern job interview, with Google famously asking candidates how many golf balls would fit into a car.  Advocates of such questions believe they test the mental reasoning of the candidates, and reveal far more than more traditional interview questions.

Critics argue however that they lack any real validation or reliability and should have no real place in the interview process.  A recent study from Michigan State University suggests there may even be a darker reason why such questions are popular.

Abusing our power

The researchers gave over 700 participants a range of different interview questions to examine, before asking them whether they would consider using any of them in a real life interview situation.  Alongside this task, the volunteers were asked to fill in a questionnaire that was designed to assess their personality type.

When the two sets of data were analyzed, it emerged that the kind of brainteaser interview questions commonly used by Facebook et al were most often selected by people who rated highly for narcissism and sadism, whilst scoring poorly for social competence.  They were also much more likely to use intuition when deciding whether to hire someone or not.

“Use of brainteasers in the hiring process provides little information about the suitability of the job applicant but considerable information about the callousness of the interviewer,” the researchers reveal.

Maybe that’s food for thought should you ever find yourself in an interview where such questions are used.