The 1 weird job interview question companies are asking now

It might sound silly, but this question can reveal a lot about a person.

Eric Ryan, co-founder of Method and Olly, says he always gives the same homework assignment to every potential employee, including CEOs.

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In a recent chat with Inc. senior writer Burt Helm, the entrepreneur shares the No. 1 question Method asks future hires: "How are you going to keep Method weird?"

The reasoning behind the peculiar question is actually very logical. "The way I thought about it is the biggest risk to the company was always the next 10 hires," says Ryan, who employs roughly 400 people at Method.

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If there is one thing that separates Method from its competition, it's its ability to be weird and do things differently. Method's approach to a cease-and-desist from Clorox, for example, was pretty bold. (Hear all about it in the video below.) "If we are not different, we are dead," says Ryan.

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So to keep the culture heading in the right direction, the Method co-founder seeks to hire individuals who are passionate about being different. "Weird people are the most different people out there. Weird people change the world," he adds.

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Ryan also explains that the assignment works as an "ego check," recounting how a perfectly suited CEO candidate didn't get the job because she refused to do it. "You want to hire people you really believe in but also people that you can trust, which is part of what the homework assignment [gives] you."

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