‘Smart’ job interview question the second richest man in the world uses to find brightest candidates

The second richest man in the world reportedly uses one particular question to find himself the smartest new hires.

Job interviews are a fact of life, and they can be nerve-wracking no matter the position you're going for.

Some bosses pull secret stunts in a bid to catch people out - as if you need more to worry about.

From the now-famous coffee cup test to the lesser-known 'salt and pepper' test, they supposedly measure someone's character in ways questions simply can't.

Larry Ellison, who recently overtook Jeff Bezos as the second richest man in the world, co-founded computer technology company Oracle in 1977.

Larry Ellison wanted to hire the smartest employees (Kimberly White/Getty Images)

The business specializes in developing database software and technology, cloud-engineered systems, and enterprise software products. Today, it's the 18th-most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of £408.75 billion.

In fact, Oracle’s stock surge of 20 percent in September - mainly down to the company’s involvement in AI - saw Ellison's net worth boosted to $231 billion, according to Forbes' real-time billionaires list.

Bezos, meanwhile, now has a net worth of $225 billion, placing him as the third richest man in the world.

Now, chief technology officer of Oracle Ellison has been responsible for hiring plenty of new faces over the last 47 years.

Oracle was founded in 1977 and now has a market cap of more than $400bn (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

And the 80-year-old revealed the question he uses to help inform the decision.

In Mike Wilson's book, The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison, former Oracle engineer Roger Bamford explained how Ellison coached recruiters to interview candidates.

Bamford recalled being told to ask potential hires a simple yes or no question: "Are you the smartest person you know?"

If the candidate answered 'yes,' they'd get hired.

And if they answered 'no,' they'd get a follow-up question: 'Who is?'

Then, the company would try to hire that other person instead.

It does beg the question: does that mean Ellison values grandeur over honesty? Because, realistically, am I the smartest person I know?

Definitely no, but I don't see that as a bad thing; if you think you know everything, you're never going to learn, right?

Surely, an employee who is open-minded and curious is better than a know-it-all? But then again, I'm not one of the richest men in the world, so what do I know?

But there must be method to his madness here; Ellison has been dubbed a 'superboss' by Dartmouth's Sydney Finkelstein, alongside trailblazers including Ralph Lauren, George Lucas, and Julian Robertson.

And between 1994 until 2004, nine of the 11 executives who worked closely with Ellison at Oracle went on to become CEOs, chairs, or COOs of other companies.