BEND, Ore. (CNN/Money) - Name 10 ways to find a needle in a haystack. What did "The Great Gatsby'" narrator do for a living? How would you move Mount Fuji?

These aren't the kind of questions you'd expect to field during a job interview. Then again, that's the point.

While the majority of employers couldn't care less about literary trivia or geological conundrums, many are ditching traditional interview techniques in an effort to make sure prospective hires truly are a good fit.

"In the old days it was 'Here's my resume and here are the answers I've already rehearsed,'" said Rich Thompson, senior vice president of training and development for Ajilon Professional Staffing. "With Enron and all the corporate scandal, that has changed."

These days, it isn't just about who you know or what you know, it's about who you are. "You see companies spending more time describing the kind of personality they need," said Mark Haering, senior partner with Princeton Search Group. "They talk about energy and extraversion."

Personality tests, he said, are one way to measure traits that don't show up on resumes. Many of his firm's clients won't even meet a candidate unless they score well on a personality test that, according to Haering, is designed to trip up people who aren't answering honestly.

According to Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School a third of the school's students say employers have asked them to take personality tests. But, that's not the only strategy used to determine whether a candidate is up for the job. Unconventional interviews and social tests also give insight into a candidate.

"Harvard Medical School is famous for asking interviewees to open a window that is nailed shut," said Cappelli.

Interviewing techniques have changed, said Thompson. "A common technique we'll see is in the middle of the interview the interviewer will ask a crazy question to see how the candidate will act, and we're not talking 'What was the last great book you read.'"

Microsoft interviewers have long asked questions like "How would you test a salt shaker" or "How are M&Ms made?" according to William Poundstone's book "How Would You Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle."

A candidate at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton said he was asked to name 10 ways to find a needle in a haystack, while a candidate at Bloomberg News was told she should know what "The Great Gatsby" narrator Nick Carraway did for a living.

Here's a question asked of a candidate for Amazon: "If your best friend was going to be angry with you for something, what would it be?"

"The funny thing is, it's not about the answer, it's how you react," said Thompson. "All the interviewer is trying to do is derail you. If you throw a question like that and they shut down, that's probably not the person you want on your floor at deadline time."

Companies are also mixing up the format. They're organizing group interviews where candidates sit down with several other people competing for the job. "What they're doing is watching to see who is listening to other people," he said.

When interviewing for a city communications job, one candidate was asked to give a an impromptu presentation on her biography to an audience of about 40 city staffers and officials. "Each candidate was brought in the room separately not knowing what they were going to be asked to do," she said.

According to an agent who posted his experience on Vault.com's survey of employees, he was ask to bring his spouse to an interview with a large insurance company, which was "somewhat surprising, but actually made me feel much better about the company."

The Central Intelligence Agency makes no bones about its lengthy and detailed interview process that, according to the organization's site can take anywhere from two months to more than a year and includes sitting down with a polygraph.

In the late 1990s the goal of recruiting dinners and mixers was to sell candidates on the company. These days, such social functions are seen as yet another opportunity to scrutinize potential hires.

"You want to see the employee in many different situations to see how the interact," said Jennifer Hogge, a senior human resources partner with Waggener Edstrom public relations.

This isn't exactly a new concept. Legend has it that Henry Ford, Howard Hughes and J.C. Penney nixed job candidates who salted their food before tasting it -- a sign that they jump to conclusions.

According to Cappelli, fellowship candidates at the All Soul's College at Oxford were supposedly put through "the cherry eating contest," where after a day of interviews they were invited to dinner where the dessert always contained pitted cherries. "The idea was more about seeing how people reacted, whether they panicked, than a test of manners."

Do these social tests really reveal that much? There is pretty good research showing what things will predict whether someone is a good worker, said Cappelli. Knowing when to use your spoon or your hand to remove a cherry pit probably isn't one of them.

"Anyone can be on their best behavior for an hour," said Thompson. "Theory is, the more time you spend with someone the better the opportunity that you'll catch them saying something alarming."

To candidates, his advice for surviving marathon interviews and odd social experiments is to keep your guard up but, to the extent you can, still be yourself.

If that means salting your food prematurely, shake away. It may even score points. "In some circles salting and peppering your food is a sign that you went to one of the elite boarding schools where the food is always bland."