So If I said the Punisher because he has real serious issues with authority and likes to hip people that would be....bad?

Off to teach class, Later

Like I said before I've never been in an interview like this, it's fascinating stuff to me.

For other job seekers - do you run into these obscure questions a lot, or is it few and far between? 

To each his own.  If the candidate can't handle the stress or think it is kooky, then I can't have him\her representing my company in front of my clients.  My clients are going to be asking them questions 100 times more kooky\stressfull than that.  My company implements software that costs a lot of money.  Our clients can and will get extremely emotional at times.  I want to make sure they can handle the stress, think on their feet and answer any kooky questions that always come. 

I've been asked all kinds of questions during interviews to challenge me to think and not just give boilerplate answers that anybody can give from reading a book or Googling.  

Some of the questions I have gotten when interviewing are "Why are manhole covers round", "If you had a 3 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket and needed 4 gallons how do you do it." etc...

They are challenging me to see how I think critically, what my thought process is, make me uncomfortable and see how I react.  All of which I think are good things to get out of candidate.  Most didn't even care if I get the question right, that includes me if I'm the interviewer.  They\I just want to see my\their thought process.  

It also has a lot to do with the position I'm hiring for and was interviewing for myself.  Would I ask a PR person these type's of questions, probably not.  If you are interviewing to be a Project Manager for a software implementation company, then maybe so.

Something I've heard of, that would make much more sense to me, is the employer actually giving the employee a personality test (like Meyers Briggs or whatever). That way they can get a feel for their work style, personality, conflict resolution style, etc. without trying to trick them.

Good idea or bad idea?

We do that.  Entire company goes through Step I.  Management does both the Step II and Step III portion of it as well, our HR manager is certified in MBTI.  I was a skeptic at first and am not into the touchy feely stuff, but it was a cool experience and my opinion has changed.  I found a ton of value in it from a personal reflection standpoint and how to deal with other's in my company that have different personalities than I do.  

I had to think about the superhero thing, at first it was Superman, i.e. being able to fly.  But then I remembered when I was a kid it was all about Aquaman!  He can breathe underwater, swim at high speeds, and telepathically communicate with marine life. 

First out of the water at every Tri!

When I was living in Asia working for a bank, I used to be one of several interviewers of recent grads or prospective hires into the trading area. I used to ask questions like how many red cars are there in Singapore. Point being I wanted to see if the candidate upon being confronted with a situation that required a quick mental analysis would be able to arrive at a logical conclusion, as is often the case in financial market situations. For the record, that question is not relevant to this conversation, was an acceptable answer, as just as important was the ability to dismiss irrelevant information. A right or wrong number was not as important wrt how the question was answered, as the logic used in arriving at an answer with a high degree of confidence.

Sidenote- We found this ability to respond quickly and logically to an unanticipated/unrehearsed interview question to be lacking. This was later explained to us interviewers as a difference in educational backgrounds. Asian education systems are more geared to learn, memorize, repeat. Western educational systems are more geared towards free thinking and problem solving. As such we filtered our searches to weight somewhat more US university educated candidates as long as they met overall requirements.   

I was often suprised as has been mentioned here and in the parenting thread at the reaction by candidates when they werent selected. Sometimes, qualified just isn't good enough.  

I got a lot of these questions when I was applying straight out of college.

Now I get why do you want to leave and all kinds of super technical questions which make me way more nervous than the kooky questions!

i get obscure questions a lot - for precisely the reasons brad mentioned - you need to think on your feet a lot in real life so they want to see how you do it.  also - a lot of my work involves solving problems so they ask a weird question to have me walk them through a problem solving process.  the engineering manager can figure out if i'm smart enough to do the job - it's the weird questions that show if i will "fit in" with the culture of the company.  job specifics can be taught, culture is a different animal.

one example that stands out - you are in a boat in a lake holding a bowling ball.  if you throw the bowling ball out of the boat, does the level of the water in the lake go up, down, or remain the same. 

it's OK to get the answer WRONG - but you talk through how you arrive at the answer is what is important.

also - i feel like knowing names is just good manners.  i write them down in interviews.  you are "supposed to" follow up with a thank you note or call, how do you do that if you don't know their names?

i've had to do that too - it's a good idea if the people interpreting understand how to use it.  at ppk, i had to do a math skills assessment that i got a perfect score on, but because i finished it so quickly (sorry for the backdoor brag, but i'm trying to illustrate the point here) the later personality quiz said i rush to decisions.  luckily, the plant manager recognized that the basic math skills quiz was not really a good measure of my decision making ability, and my other personality quiz questions confirmed it.

meyers briggs is dangerous because....it's not meant to be used to classify people (oh - you didn't get a high enough E, you must be a terrible PR person!)  that's NOT how it works...

why do you need to pick a female superhero?  i'd pick batman, cause he's just a human with cool gadgets, rather than being a supernatural being.

I think the idea of the superhero is just to see what traits the person values. If you couldn't think of one but said one that can fly I think it would show you to be honest and able to think on your feet rather than getting flustered when you don't know the answer.

When I interviewed for my current position my boss just verified my qualifications and asked very few technical questions but was very concerned with my personality and if I could fit into the group. I work with all ex mechanics in a corporate environment. As a group I would say we are unprofessional and work very well together because we all get a long and understand each other. If someone can’t take a joke or fit in to the group they flat out don’t get hired here.

What kind of engineering do you do?