In many instances, a job interview can be like a fencing match with Nerf swords. The interviewer tosses up a softball question, then the candidate comes back with a rehearsed answer. This babble-a-babble continues until both people get so numb that they begin slamming their heads against the desk.

If they slam their heads in unison, the applicant gets a job offer. If not, hasta la vista, baby.

OK, maybe it is a little more sophisticated than that, but the process is still both boring and relatively useless. Some interviewers will offer up behavioral questions — such as, “Give me an example of how you dealt with a difficult customer” — but more often than not, those show how well the applicant prepared for the interview rather that how talented the worker is.

As I’ve said before, companies rely too much on interviews rather than references, work samples and assigned tasks. The interviews give a good measure of chemistry and poise, but can blow those attributes way out of proportion.

Still, good candidates do need to prepare themselves for anything, and one of the less-common twists that employers such as Microsoft use is to offer brain-teasing questions.

As author John Kador explains in “How to Ace the Brainteaser Interview” (McGraw-Hill), “Interviewers look to brainteasers to do one thing: to start a safe conversation that reveals how smart candidates are.”

Kador writes that high-tech companies in particular might rely more on those questions because they realize that specific skills in their industry can get out of date quickly, so it’s more important to hire quick-witted people.

Kador’s book offers more than 150 questions and answers. Here are two questions I particularly liked (the answers are at the end of the column):

Suppose you have a bunch of black and white socks in three drawers, labeled “white,” “black” and “mixed,” but you also know that all three labels are placed on the wrong drawers. How can you pick one sock from one drawer, then change the labels so they will be correct?

It’s a Friday afternoon, and you’re a prisoner in solitary confinement serving a life sentence, and you’re desperate for a cigarette. How can you cajole one out of the guard?

The first question does have one right answer, but Kador explains that many of the interview questions are designed to measure creativity, logic or communication skills. There is no one right way to get the cigarette from the prison guard, of course, but Kador did a contest on his Web site (www.jkador.com) and got several creative answers.

A different sort of question along these lines might be: How much does the Washington Monument weigh? Unless you’re having a very specialized interview or playing “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,” you wouldn’t be expected to know the answer, but the interviewer would be interested in how you make your guess. Are you using the kind of logic that would help you in the job?

Another question is: “Imagine I am blind. Describe blue to me.”

This would show communication skills and imagination, along with empathy. Kador explains that you would have to offer some sort of analogy that appeals to other senses to explain the sort of mood that blue evokes.

Despite my concerns about job interviews, these questions are at least more intriguing because you’re likely to see the candidates in action rather than getting rehearsed answers. None of these questions would or should be the sole basis of hiring someone, of course, but might help a boss decide among several stellar candidates.

As Kador explains, tough decisions among top candidates have become more common for tech companies since the dot-com bust.

If you get such a question, take a deep breath and think about it. Don’t start babbling instantly because you’re intimidated by the silence.

The winner would suggest that you grab a sock from the “mixed” drawer. If it’s black, that means it’s the black sock drawer, so the drawer mislabeled as “white” must have a mixture, and the one labeled as “black” must have only white socks.