Wackiest job interview questions.

[techs]

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/05/the-most-ridiculous-job-interview-questions/

From Fortune magazine:

"Given the numbers 1 to 1,000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number, if you are given the hint 'higher' or 'lower' for each guess you make?" -- Facebook

"Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are." -- Capital One (COF)

"Explain quantum electrodynamics in two minutes, starting now." -- Intel (INTC)

"How many balloons would fit in this room?" -- PricewaterhouseCoopers

"If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" -- Goldman Sachs (GS)

"You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?" -- Epic Systems

"What is the philosophy of martial arts?" -- Aflac (AFL)

"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." -- Boston Consulting

"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?" -- AT&T (T)

"How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?" -- IBM (IBM)

"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" -- Amazon (AMZN)

"How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings." --Deloitte Consulting

"You have five bottles of pills. One bottle has 9 gram pills, the others have 10 gram pills. You have a scale that can be used only once. How can you find out which bottle contains the 9 gram pills?" --eBay (EBAY)

"What is your fastball?" -- Ernst & Young

"How would you market ping pong balls if ping pong itself became obsolete? List many ways, then pick one and go into detail." -- Microsoft (MSFT)

"How many smartphones are there in New York City?" -- Google (GOOG)

"You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." -- Schlumberger (SLB)

"Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $125,000 a year?" -- New York Life

"You have three boxes. One contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes. Opening just one box, and without looking inside, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?" -- Apple (AAPL)

"How many ball bearings, each one inch in diameter, can fit inside a 747 aircraft?" -- SAIC (SAI)

 

[blinblue]

Lots of estimating questions in there (ballons in a room, weight without scale, bricks, smartphones, ball bearings).
Some of those are pretty easy and I figured out within a few seconds of reading. For the 1 to 1000 the answer is 10, as if you pick your guess correctly, each time they answer higher/lower you remove half of the answer choices. And 2^10=1024

I find "You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." to a be a pretty stupid question. This is a statistical question, just call a large random sample of the people in your area and survey them on if they got a bicycle in the last year or not. One person who knows some stats to do the stats work, 19 people to make phone calls

 

[speg]

For the 1 to 1000 the answer is 10, as if you pick your guess correctly, each time they answer higher/lower you remove half of the answer choices. And 2^10=1024

The minimum is 1.

 

[JS80]

All of those are "how do you think" questions. The correct answer to most of those is to talk out loud your line of reasoning to get to your answer.

 

[blinblue]

The minimum is 1.

Well its only 1 if you guess the number your first guess (in which case their response is "neither higher nor lower") or if the number is 1 or 1000 (and you guess 2 or 999 respectively and the response is either "lower" or "higher" respectively)

But for every other number if you don't hit it right the first time you'd need 2 guesses.

I guess that's strictly what the question is asking, but its a rather useless question if that's what they are looking for. The optimal strategy would be to guess 500, then pick the middle of the higher (750) or lower (250) depending on their response. And you are guaranteed to get an number within 10 guesses that way

All of those are "how do you think" questions. The correct answer to most of those is to talk out loud your line of reasoning to get to your answer.

Pretty much this

Except the answer to "Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are." is 'Potato'

 

[Lean L]

Lots of estimating questions in there (ballons in a room, weight without scale, bricks, smartphones, ball bearings).
Some of those are pretty easy and I figured out within a few seconds of reading. For the 1 to 1000 the answer is 10, as if you pick your guess correctly, each time they answer higher/lower you remove half of the answer choices. And 2^10=1024

I find "You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." to a be a pretty stupid question. This is a statistical question, just call a large random sample of the people in your area and survey them on if they got a bicycle in the last year or not. One person who knows some stats to do the stats work, 19 people to make phone calls

That's actually not right. I think what they're looking for is something along the lines of random surveys and a confidence interval. Just like how they do election predictions. Bigger sample size isn't what they want here.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Well its only 1 if you guess the number your first guess (in which case their response is "neither higher nor lower") or if the number is 1 or 1000 (and you guess 2 or 999 respectively and the response is either "lower" or "higher" respectively)

But for every other number if you don't hit it right the first time you'd need 2 guesses.

I guess that's strictly what the question is asking, but its a rather useless question if that's what they are looking for. The optimal strategy would be to guess 500, then pick the middle of the higher (750) or lower (250) depending on their response. And you are guaranteed to get an number within 10 guesses that way

The question isn't what is the minimum number of guesses to guarantee you get the right answer. It is what is the minimum number. As stated the answer is 1. Always answer the question asked

 

[PlasmaBomb]

That's actually not right. I think what they're looking for is something along the lines of random surveys and a confidence interval. Just like how they do election predictions. Bigger sample size isn't what they want here.

I personally would have gone with contact all the bicycle retailers in the area and contact online businesses that sell bicycles too...

 

[gorcorps]

All of those are "how do you think" questions. The correct answer to most of those is to talk out loud your line of reasoning to get to your answer.

This. There's very rarely a right answer with stuff like this. They want to gauge your reaction and see how you would approach the situation. Are you analytical? Do you just take a shot in the dark? Do you have experience filling 747s with ball bearings? Who knows... they want to see how you would approach solving a problem that you by yourself can't guarantee on the spot.

 

[Lean L]

I personally would have gone with contact all the bicycle retailers in the area and contact online businesses that sell bicycles too...

Yeah but how can you tell that it'd be random by doing that? Oh wait.... 'your area'... I guess that could work if you live in a really really small town. I think there needs to be a team assigned to figuring out what is a random sample and another small team to figure out the interval and compile it.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Seems like some are a reactionary observation. Only a few I could identify which could be used in business situations. Although majority of them do look like trick questions.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

"If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" -- Goldman Sachs (GS)

Government bail out, then give myself a multimillion dollar bonus.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Yeah but how can you tell that it'd be random by doing that? Oh wait.... 'your area'... I guess that could work if you live in a really really small town. I think there needs to be a team assigned to figuring out what is a random sample and another small team to figure out the interval and compile it.

There are only two bike shops in my area... now if you were to redefine it as the UK... you would probably need a survey.

 

[blinblue]

The question isn't what is the minimum number of guesses to guarantee you get the right answer. It is what is the minimum number. As stated the answer is 1. Always answer the question asked

Hmmm, even better, the answer is 0. You cheat and look at the number they picked and then your "guess" really isn't a guess since you already know the answer


On a side note, I wonder which one the originators of that question meant. Personally I dislike "trick" questions, especially ones involving wordplay. Not the XKCD comic I was looking for, but

 

[Cerb]

"Given the numbers 1 to 1,000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number, if you are given the hint 'higher' or 'lower' for each guess you make?"

Trick/weeder question. The answer is 1. If you're clueless, you might go deer-in-the-headlights, and your interview is over. A seasoned programmer that writes code more than solves problems would be likely to answer 10 (the maximum, if using an optimal guess progression, and absolute count if searching a binary tree).

"If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" -- Goldman Sachs (GS)

Crazy. Not in one piece

"You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?" -- Epic Systems

That's not too odd, unless you assume the use of plural guarantees that there must be more than one of each. The wording implies something a bit different than what it is, so it can require some thought, for those of us who don't spend our days working on brain teasers.

"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." -- Boston Consulting

This one is actually pretty good. I imagine someone from a consulting firm aught to be able to have the conversational skills to do something like that, without sounding awkward.

"How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?" -- IBM (IBM)

Good weeder question if there ever was one, and not wacky at all (hint: run naked).

"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" -- Amazon (AMZN)

Again, not wacky at all.
5623 is odd, tournaments generally reduce by 2.
The first easy number to work from is 4096.

For anyone working with software development, database management, or product distribution, this would be an excellent question, and could be solved several different ways, depending on what other information the interviewer allows (I would want to use geographical area or random chance to create a set of qualifying rounds, automatically advancing anyone without a competitor).

"You have five bottles of pills. One bottle has 9 gram pills, the others have 10 gram pills. You have a scale that can be used only once. How can you find out which bottle contains the 9 gram pills?" --eBay (EBAY)

Again, not wacky. I'm not sure how you would figure out without two uses of the scale, but what comes to mind is 2v2 with 1on the side. If they are equal, the one left out is 9g. If they are unequal, you would need to use the scale a second time.

"How would you market ping pong balls if ping pong itself became obsolete? List many ways, then pick one and go into detail." -- Microsoft (MSFT)

Again, not wacky. Microsoft loves to make people think they need things. They have non-techie management types drooling over crap that will not fix a single problem, but will give MS money. Oracle loves to do the same crap. IoW, you could replace ping pong balls with sharepoint, and have a real example.

"You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." -- Schlumberger (SLB)

How is this wacky? This seems to me like an excellent question for someone dealing with management and/or data-gathering. Someone looking to get into such a position aught to be able to answer this very quickly.

"Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $125,000 a year?" -- New York Life

IoW, "do you think about the economy the same way we do?"

"You have three boxes. One contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes. Opening just one box, and without looking inside, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?" -- Apple (AAPL)

This one is not new, and I personally hate this problem, for two reasons:
1. Someone could have easily remembered this problem and the answer from school, putting someone with a sharp mind at a disadvantage v. someone who could just remember it.
2. The solution is predicated on an assumption that is not guaranteed by common language. In vulgar, "the boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes," implies that the boxes were mislabeled, and you have no confidence that the label is correct. Where, as a pure logic problem, the question is stating that the label was intentionally and knowingly put on the wrong box for each box, such you can have absolute confidence that the label is incorrect. In the common use, which would be more likely to be correct for an actual incident, you would need to check two boxes.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

This one is not new, and I personally hate this problem, for two reasons:
1. Someone could have easily remembered this problem and the answer from school, putting someone with a sharp mind at a disadvantage v. someone who could just remember it.
2. The solution is predicated on an assumption that is not guaranteed by common language. In vulgar, "the boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes," implies that the boxes were mislabeled, and you have no confidence that the label is correct. Where, as a pure logic problem, the question is stating that the label was intentionally and knowingly put on the wrong box for each box, such you can have absolute confidence that the label is incorrect. In the common use, which would be more likely to be correct for an actual incident, you would need to check two boxes.

Take a piece of fruit out of the container labelled "mixed" and work from there... simples

 

[manimal]

for the google question I would have answered a google-plex and whipped out my smartphone and said let me google that for you..

 

[nanette1985]

I used to ask wacky questions back when I had a decent-sized company and I was hiring people. Partly because I wanted to see how smart and/or experienced people were. (did they know the answers already, or did they figure it out quickly?)

Partly to see how their minds worked - I wanted to see the thought processes, not so much the answers.

Partly because often I had a business challenge of my own hanging over my head and if I asked a few people, I'd get some pretty good suggestions!

Partly because it's a great way to discover which programmers had a sense of humor, which is a necessity for working with me.

And partly just for fun, because it's a hoot watching someone scramble

Aren't you glad I'm not your boss??

 

[vi edit]

Aren't you glad I'm not your boss??

Depends...do you have nice boobs? Because that fixes a lot of problems.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

"Given the numbers 1 to 1,000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number, if you are given the hint 'higher' or 'lower' for each guess you make?" -- Facebook

1, as said earlier

"Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are." -- Capital One (COF)

define weird, then bash people

"Explain quantum electrodynamics in two minutes, starting now." -- Intel (INTC)

quantum electrodynamics? well, i'd like to thank you for your time. i appreciate the opportunity and look forward to hearing from you

"How many balloons would fit in this room?" -- PricewaterhouseCoopers

are the balloons inflated or deflated? what is the final size of a balloon and the available volume of the room? i'll assume 10,000 uninflated balloons per square foot, and an empty room measuring 20x15x9, so 27 million.

"If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" -- Goldman Sachs (GS)

is the blender empty? do i have something to work with other than the blender? maybe if it's full of liquid i could swim to the top. if it's empty i could climb the walls by bridging the diameter of the
jar. i refuse to be blended.

"You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?" -- Epic Systems

2. the 3rd exclusive group means all = 0.

"What is the philosophy of martial arts?" -- Aflac (AFL)

the channeling and focusing of internal and external energy through the body to accomplish what the body cannot do alone. let me demonstrate - HIYAAAAHHH!

"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." -- Boston Consulting

paradigms have been redefined while synergies have been cultivated. the goal posts are moving, so you have to cast a bigger net with laser-like focus.

"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?" -- AT&T (T)

"chainsaw" al dunlap. he wasn't afraid to make money. (this is at&t we're talking about. i wouldn't work for them again in a million years)

"How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?" -- IBM (IBM)

i'd submerge the elephant in a known volume of water, and measure the displacement. water is 8 1/2 pounds per gallon, and an elephant is a bit less than that.

"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" -- Amazon (AMZN)

it all depends on the format. it could be as little as 1 or as many as 10's of 1,000's. is this an individual's tournament, or team based? if so, what is the size of the teams? what are the desired elimination parameters?

"How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings." --Deloitte Consulting

you'll have to define "brick" and then determine how frequent that definition is found in shanghai residential construction. as a modern metropolis, i'm guessing close to 0.

"You have five bottles of pills. One bottle has 9 gram pills, the others have 10 gram pills. You have a scale that can be used only once. How can you find out which bottle contains the 9 gram pills?" --eBay (EBAY)

assuming 30 pills to a bottle, the 9g bottle would weigh 30g less than the 10g bottles. i would weigh the bottles by hand, and confirm my results with the scale. if that failed, i'd buy more scales on ebay.

"What is your fastball?" -- Ernst & Young

how's my fastball? good enough, buddy.

"How would you market ping pong balls if ping pong itself became obsolete? List many ways, then pick one and go into detail." -- Microsoft (MSFT)

miniature flotation devices, captain kangaroo nostalgia, paint your own globes, golf balls for the elderly, and adult entertainment. who doesn't want to see winona rider's ping pong ball trick?

"How many smartphones are there in New York City?" -- Google (GOOG)

given 8 million people in nyc, i'd say 10 million. i'm guessing at least half of the people have 1, and for every person that doesn't, another has 2.

"You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." -- Schlumberger (SLB)

i'd delegate bike vendor identification to 5 of them, bike sales polling to 5, and lay off the rest.

"Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $125,000 a year?" -- New York Life

only a small percentage merits paying over $125k per year.

"You have three boxes. One contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes. Opening just one box, and without looking inside, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?" -- Apple (AAPL)

the most expensive box contains apples

"How many ball bearings, each one inch in diameter, can fit inside a 747 aircraft?" -- SAIC (SAI)[/QUOTE]

assuming this applies only to the cargo areas of the plane, take the total volume of the cargo area, multiply by 1728, then multiply by the packing density of a sphere. if the answer is wrong, appeal and drag the whole process out for years until you employ enough air force personnel to make the answer right.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Would have also helped determine how these would be applied if the positions being interviewed for were listed as well.

 

[ViviTheMage]

for the google question I would have answered a google-plex and whipped out my smartphone and said let me google that for you..

From what i've been told, they don't like that answer.

 

[Cerb]

Take a piece of fruit out of the container labelled "mixed" and work from there... simples

Clearly, you are in category #1.

"You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?" -- Epic Systems

2. the 3rd exclusive group means all = 0.

That was my initial reaction, as well, but consider this set of 3 flowers: 1 rose, 1 tulip, 1 daisy.
All but 2 are roses: true.
All but 2 are tulips: true.
All but two are daisies: true.

 

[nanette1985]

Depends...do you have nice boobs? Because that fixes a lot of problems.

Not had any complaints And a studly guy applicant gets a whole different set of wacky questions. Mmmm.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

That was my initial reaction, as well, but consider this set of 3 flowers: 1 rose, 1 tulip, 1 daisy.
All but 2 are roses: true.
All but 2 are tulips: true.
All but two are daisies: true.

congratulations, you got the job!