Should you play this game? Check out the interview question that Steve Ballmer loved to ask when he was a Microsoft. Naturally, the relevance of the question depends on the job in question, as you’ll see in the video . . .

No matter how bad you think your interview went, it can’t be as bad as this one.

Hopefully a little humor will help you ease any stress you feel about the interview process.

So you’ve got an interview scheduled? How do you prepare?

One thing you should definitely do is review this list of the 50 most common interview questions and start working through answers.

What are your strengths?

What are your weaknesses?

Why are you interested in working for [insert company name here]?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?

Why do you want to leave your current company?

It’s a long list and none of them will surprise you. Also, you’re bound to get some off-the-wall questions as well so there’s no way to have a ready answer for everything. But working on this list will give you time to think through subjects you’d like to bring up in an interview, and many of these prepared answers will help you come up with things to say in response to the unexpected questions.

The interview process at Google has become legendary, and many people are curious about what it takes to get a job there. William Poundstone explains the secret to getting through the interview process there. Here’s an example of one question:

What is the single hardest question they ask you when interviewing at Google?

“What number comes next in this sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66…?”

This question is hard because you either see the “trick” or you don’t. Nothing you learned in school is likely to help. Try spelling out the numbers—you’ll see that they are in order of the number of letters in the word. “Sixty-six” has eight letters, so the next number must have nine. One possible answer is “ninety-six.”

Poundstone goes on to explain what Google is looking for in interview answers and the type of people, extremely bright extroverts, that Google wants. Your thought process is just as important as your answer. Read the whole article and see if you might fit in.

With a very competitive job market, prospective employers are getting much more demanding in their interviews. Basically, they don’t want to just talk to you. They want to see what you can do. So job applicants end up doing work for free as they work through projects developed by the prospective employer to test actual skills.

In today’s competitive job market, employers are increasingly asking candidates to show — not just tell — what they can do. Top candidates are asked to solve problems on the spot, give feedback on products, and research new markets. “Companies ask for whatever they want, and people do it,” says Cynthia Shapiro, an L.A.-based career strategist. One of Shapiro’s clients created 10 greeting cards in 24 hours to win a graphic design job, while another client did market research and made a formal presentation to top executives — only to hear that the company was no longer filling the position.

These case study-style interviews, also known as situational, scenario, or behavioral interviews, have been common among i-banking and consulting firms but are now permeating all sectors. Career experts say the techniques are relevant to even the upper echelons of executives — those used to being wooed with box seats. SHL, the world’s largest employment assessment provider, saw a 65% jump last year in employers using such techniques to vet candidates.

This is new in many industries, even if it’s been commonplace in the tech world for years. Software jobs in particular involve hacking sessions as part of the interview process. That said, it’s a new trend that you have to be prepared for.