With the deepening recession many firms are trying to find new ways of selecting the right candidates. Here's a suggestion that has come to our attention.

1. Put 400 bricks in a closed room.
2. Put your new employees in the room and close the door. 
3. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours. 
4. Then analyze the situation: 

• If they're counting the bricks, put them in the Accounting Department. 
• If they're recounting them, put them in Auditing. 
• If they've messed up the whole place with the bricks, put them in Engineering. 
• If they're arranging the bricks in some strange order, put them in Planning. 
• If they're throwing the bricks at each other, put them in Operations. 
• If they're sleeping, put them in Security. 
• If they have broken the bricks into pieces, put them in Information Technology. 
• If they're sitting idle, put them in Human Resources. 
• If they say they have tried different combinations, they are looking for more, yet not a brick has been moved, put them in Sales. 
• If they've already left for the day, put them in Marketing. 
• If they're staring out of the window, put them in Strategic Planning. 
• If they're talking to each other, and not a single brick has been moved, congratulate them and put them in Top Management ...

• Finally, if they've surrounded themselves with bricks in such a way that they can neither be seen nor heard from, put them in Government.