Imagine going to an interview all dressed up in your suit and tie, expecting a traditional chat with the hiring manager. Instead, you discover that you’ll be playing shoot ‘em up with a Nerf machine gun. That’s exactly what happened to Brian Nicholas when he interviewed with Colorado Springs-based TellSoft Technologies for an account manager position.

Nicholas arrived wearing a suit and tie, ready for a traditional interview. Cofounder Shaun McNerney, wearing the company’s casual attire of jeans and a T-shirt, met Nicholas, shook his hand, and escorted him outside. There, McNerney handed him a Nerf machine gun, pointed to a target that he had placed on a tree, and told the candidate, "Let's see what you're made of."

Coming from 16 years in a traditional corporate environment, Nicholas had never experienced anything like this before. "I was surprised, but I definitely felt at ease," he recalls. "The company's founder came into the conference room carrying a Nerf machine gun. I had never experienced anything like that before."

Although Nicholas jokes that he wasn't the best target shooter, his ability to enjoy the experience with a sense of humor helped him land the job. (Of course, he was also qualified.) Nicholas accepted the company’s offer and works there today.

These days, if you want to fit in at a dotcom, it’s not enough to just show up looking the part and saying the right things. You have to be ready for just about anything.

Keith Niccum, TellSoft's HR manager, recalls another unconventional interview experience. "We were recruiting for Web designers and had brought this person in who was referred by our CFO. He came in, wearing a suit and tie and interviewed with about five people."

After that, things got, uh, playful.

Niccum told the candidate that he had been having "disciplinary problems" with the CFO, handed him a can of silly string and said, "You know what to do with this?" A few minutes later, the CFO and candidate met; when the CFO jokingly said "nice tie," the interviewee pulled out the can of silly string and sprayed it all over him. He passed the test," says Niccum, who explains that while they don’t subject all candidates to that test, it does give them a sense of what the corporate culture at TellSoft is like. "Part of the culture here is a free approach to work that allows people to be who they are in an environment that encourages creative thinking," Niccum says. Think Discovery Zone for adults.

Sales candidates who want to work at TellSoft must tap into their creative selling talents right away because part of the interview involves role-playing. They are called before the interview and told to dress however they want and that they will be asked to sell TellSoft’s product to the hiring manager. They can make up a story, do a presentation, whatever it takes. "Sometimes, people come in with a site they have designed that is voice activated with our product. One guy came in with a videotape that he played without sound. Then he made a presentation about how important sound is and replayed the video adding sound. That made quite an impression on the interviewers.

As the competition for dotcom and Internet jobs continues to increase, the ways that companies screen employees has become more complex. While interviews are still part of the game plan, now, companies and HR departments are using other methods to find the best, most qualified candidates.

Robert J. Stark, COO at HiringTools.com in San Francisco, is a master of interviewing, since, as he put it, "It's our business." At this B2B ASP, hiring managers often throw in some questions that lighten the mood of the interview. It’s also a good way for Stark and his team to see how the candidate reacts to whimsy. Here’s one such question and answer:

Q: "Suppose you're a hiring manager at a dotcom in San Francisco and your company needed to hire two people per week for the next 12 weeks. You conduct four interviews per hire. For each interview, you need to check three
references. For each reference check you need to make two phone calls.
During each call, you describe your ‘elevator pitch,’ which is about 450
words. How many words do you utter per reference check per hire?

A: "None because you probably only have three candidates for the 24 job
openings and you're too busy buttering up the candidates to do reference checks."

"We're not interested in a perfect answer as much as the candidate's reaction to the question and the answer," Stark explains. "Our culture is very loose and fun, and the reality of a dotcom is that there's rarely enough time for the 100 percent solution. Innovative short cuts that quickly get to an 80/20 solution are often best. I always like to see fun responses to absurd questions," he says.

Next time you head to an interview expecting a polite little chat, remember: We warned you.