by cnbc.com --Tom Popomaronis, Contributor -- When it comes to job interviews, we all want to give answers that make us stand out from the rest of the candidates. That means knowing how to answer each question, including the tricky ones designed to stump you. But what if you don't know the answer to a question? That's a problem Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced in 2004, when he first interviewed at the company for the VP of product management position. In a 2017 chat with students at his alma mater, Indian Institute of technology, Pichai shared details about his interview experience at one of the world's largest tech companies. In the first few rounds, Pichai said the interviewers asked him what he thought of Gmail.

There was just one problem: Google had just announced the email service that very same day, on April 1st. "I thought it was an April Fool's Day joke," Pichai said. He responded by saying he couldn't answer the question because he hadn't been able to use the product. "It was only in the fourth interview when someone asked, 'Have you seen Gmail?' I said no. So he actually showed it to me. And then the fifth interviewer asked, 'What do you think of Gmail?' And I was able to start answering it then," Pichai said at the talk. Most candidates would have attempted to make something up before trying to move on to the next question. Pichai did the exact opposite and ended up impressing his interviewers (after all, he got the job).

Here's why his response was so brilliant:

1. He displayed "intellectual humility" More often than not, telling an interviewer you don't know the answer to something will dock off a few points, but it's better than coming up with something that may be completely false. "Successful, bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don't learn how to learn from that failure." -Laszlo Bock, Former senior VP of people operations at Google Science agrees, too. Research has shown that people with "intellectual humility" – or, as they say, the willingness to admit what you don't know – are better learners. Laszlo Bock, Google's former senior VP of people operations, calls it one of the top qualities he looks for in a candidate.

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By Peter Rubinstein -bbc.com - Olivia Bland, a 22-year-old from Manchester looking for a job in communications, knows how a job interview is supposed to go. A handshake, a few questions about strengths and weaknesses, some CV inspecting and a pleasant send-off. “They’re usually casual,” Bland says, “and definitely not two hours long.” But earlier this week, an interview she had with tech firm Web Applications UK left her in tears. In a viral tweet, she alleged that chief executive Craig Dean degraded and humiliated her about everything from her music taste to her parents’ marriage. Bland was offered the job but declined, likening Dean’s behaviour to that of an abusive ex. “He went on from attacking my writing to attacking me, including the way I sat and how I held my arms,” she says. Her tweet was shared tens of thousands of times, and prompted Dean to post an apology saying it had not been his intent to see anyone hurt. Web Applications UK has publicly denied Bland’s claims, but did not respond to BBC Capital for comment.

Stress test

The type of experience described by Bland is known as a ‘stress interview’ – a technique to test how applicants deal with pressure by taking them out of the comfort zone of expected questions and answers. One example is a trend that was prevalent in the tech industry earlier this decade – where an interviewer would ask a candidate bizarre questions such as “why are manhole covers round?” or instruct them to design something on the spot. The goal isn’t to get an exact answer – instead it’s to see how a candidate reacts and to test their thought process. “There are certainly different kinds of stress associated with many positions - achieving results, meeting deadlines, dealing with difficult clients, for example,” says Neal Hartman, senior lecturer in managerial communication at MIT. “The stress interview can create conditions to see how an applicant would handle those challenges.” Stress interviews can also be used to simulate certain situations, such as testing customer service agents who need to be prepared to deal with abusive phone calls, says Kim Ruyle, president of Inventive Talent Consulting. In such situations, the candidate would need to be told in advance. In any case, there’s a stark difference between asking a tough question and belittling a candidate, Ruyle says, adding that verbal abuse in any workplace setting is inappropriate and should never be part of the interview.

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