Wackiest job interview questions.

[thraashman]

"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
How about I just ask you and we can quit all this guessing crap
"Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are." -- Capital One (COF)
1, I'm not weird at all, but the rest of you are freaking insane
"Explain quantum electrodynamics in two minutes, starting now." -- Intel (INTC)
... fuck you buddy
"How many balloons would fit in this room?" -- PricewaterhouseCoopers
99 red balloons? ... floating in the summer sky
"If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" -- Goldman Sachs (GS)
I'd remember that physics won't allow for the matter that creates me to be destroyed in a way that shrinks my size and therefore this question is invalid
"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
Let's genetically engineer a tulip, rose, daisy and find out! Also let's clone a human while we're at it.
"What is the philosophy of martial arts?" -- Aflac (AFL)
Don't fuck with Chuck Norris
"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." -- Boston Consulting
We've done our best to decide that muslims and gays don't count as real people, then patted ourselves on the back about ending racism by electing a half black President
"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?" -- AT&T (T)
Professor Xavier. I'm bald already anyway, might as well be able to control your mind too
"How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?" -- IBM (IBM)
Very carefully.
"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" -- Amazon (AMZN)
In pair off, single elimination there's no fair way to do it as that number isn't a power of two. So I'd need more parameters of the rules of the tournament
"How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings." --Deloitte Consulting
Do they even use bricks in Shanghai?
"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)
Take some pills from each bottle and hope I get a good buzz
"What is your fastball?" -- Ernst & Young
It's actually a fastball special. You see, Colossus throws me into battle and I pop my claws and go berserker on their asses
"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)
Replacement testicles for cancer patients
"How many smartphones are there in New York City?" -- Google (GOOG)
Despite the common nickname I don't think any phones are artificially intelligent in a way that deserves to be called smart. So I answer none
"You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." -- Schlumberger (SLB)
Having no interest in bicycles, I fire everyone keeping their salaries for myself and make up a convincing sounding number
"Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $125,000 a year?" -- New York Life
Capitalism is a bitch.
"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)
Fuck Apples. Go banana!
"How many ball bearings, each one inch in diameter, can fit inside a 747 aircraft?" -- SAIC
Give me use of a 747 and at least 100 million ball bearings and I'll get back to you in about and hour to tell oyu this is a stupid question.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

I got this fun interview form to do. I'm stumped. I don't think I'll finish. At least when it asked technical questions I could at least guess.

Your boss is heading into a press conference and she stops at your desk. She says, "In 10 minutes, I need an estimate of how many gas stations there are in the United States." Unfortunately, your computer is turned off so you can't access the internet (please come up with something more creative than "turn on the computer" or "use my smart phone". You do have a phone book. You can make three phone calls. How do you get her an answer? What if you can't use the phone?

 

[Fayd]

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

huh? not getting your answer.

my answer would have involved an open top tank of water. lead elephant in, let it float, measure displacement from having elephant in, calculate displacement * weight of water.

 

[iCyborg]

"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.

I think this assumes something like a digital scale that gives you an answer in grams. You could take 1 pill from the first box, 2 from 2nd ... 5 from the 5th. Weigh them all, if the result is 149 it's the 1st box, if 148 it's the second etc.
Otherwise, I don't see how you can do it in one weighing, 5 cases means a 3-bit number problem space and a balance scale can at most halve the problem space.

 

[Cerb]

huh? not getting your answer.

Archemdes is alleged to have stepped into a bath, seen the water rise, and immediately went out and ran through the streets, shouting, "eureka," at having figured out how to measure the volume of oddly-shaped objects.

 

[Fayd]

Archemdes is alleged to have stepped into a bath, seen the water rise, and immediately went out and ran through the streets, shouting, "eureka," at having figured out how to measure the volume of oddly-shaped objects.

... so i answered it?

 

[techs]

"What is the philosophy of martial arts?" -- Aflac (AFL)
Don't fuck with Chuck Norris

Great answer.

Though I would have said:
"Spend thousands of dollars and years of training only to be shot by a guy with a 99 dollar gun"

 

[ShawnD1]

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

Nowhere in the question did anyone say that any box was labeled "mixed". All we know is that the labels are incorrect.
box of apples labeled "penis"
box of oranges labeled "computer"
mixed box labeled "scientology"

 

[blinblue]

Nowhere in the question did anyone say that any box was labeled "mixed". All we know is that the labels are incorrect.
box of apples labeled "penis"
box of oranges labeled "computer"
mixed box labeled "scientology"

And that's why I dislike trick questions. Because usually the trick revolves around something pedantic. And you can always come up with something even more pedantic that invalidates the original trick question.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

"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.

Unit fail...

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Unit fail...

ok, 10k balloons per cubic foot. it's not like i crashed a probe into mars because of the metric system

 

[PlasmaBomb]

"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?

You forgot beer pong...

 

[PlasmaBomb]

"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

ROFL.

Well played.

"What is the philosophy of martial arts?" -- Aflac (AFL)
Don't fuck with Chuck Norris

Again :thumbsup:

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Clearly, you are in category #1.

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.

Nope never heard it before... didn't take too long to work out.

Didn't get the flowers question though till you pointed it out

 

[PlasmaBomb]

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

One - Battle Royale

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Nowhere in the question did anyone say that any box was labeled "mixed". All we know is that the labels are incorrect.
box of apples labeled "penis"
box of oranges labeled "computer"
mixed box labeled "scientology"

Unless you work for a shipping company which freights bulk penis, I don't think that should be a problem.

So what is the solution to your problem?

Before you are 3 boxes containing either apples, oranges or a mix of both - they are mis-labelled "penis", "computer", and "scientology"

How can you by opening just one box, and without looking inside, and taking out just one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?

 

[Cerb]

Nope never heard it before... didn't take too long to work out.

I give you three mislabeled boxes, one of oranges, one of apples, and one of both. You open the one labeled oranges and apples, and pick out an apple.

How do you know that each box's label is false? To know that, someone must have already confirmed what is in each box. So, either ask them, or open at least two boxes. If this is not known, then that each box is itself falsely labeled is also not known, so you really need to check at least two boxes, because all you really know is that you have enough of each type of produce product not accounted for that you could fill these three boxes, and anything more is just speculation.

If the problem is with boxes of stuff, then the context should damn well fit what might occur with boxes of stuff, because when you're actually working, you use that additional contextual information to decide how you will really solve real problems.

Didn't get the flowers question though till you pointed it out

All but two are roses, all but two ate tulips, all but two are daisies. The trick is to getting it is to divorce the way it is described, from what is actually described. The problem could be stated this way, FI, and be much easier for most people (as stated, it is a kind of trick question):

You have a bouquet of flowers. This bouquet is composed of an unknown number of roses, and two flowers which are not roses, an unknown number of tulips, and two flowers which are not tulips, and an unknown number of daisies, and two flowers which are not daisies. How many flowers do you have?

Complete non-set-based solution:
roses = flowers - 2, tulips = flowers - 2, daises = flowers - 2
flowers = roses + tulips + daisies
flowers = flowers - 2 + flowers - 2 + flowers - 2
flowers = 3*flowers - 6
6 = 2*flowers
3 = flowers

... so i answered it?

Yes. The hint was a hint based on possible history, not an answer, itself .

Label them all "Fruit".

We have a winner!

 

[Aharami]

"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

Hah! nice!
i actually figured out the flower one pretty quickly (3 flowers)

 

[sactoking]

"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?"

Label them all "Fruit".

 

[Numenorean]

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

Single or Double Elimination?

 

[ShawnD1]

"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?"

Label them all "Fruit".

That's actually a really good answer.

 

[nanette1985]

"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?"

Label them all "Fruit".

The other classic answer to this one is to label them all "Clearance Sale - 99 cents"

 

[Hacp]

Weighing one is easy. label bottles 1 2 3 4 5. Take 1, 2, 3,4,5 pills from the bottle. Weight them. See what value you get.

 

[Spikesoldier]

That's actually a really good answer.

seconded

kinda describes apples business strategy.

build up the name (fruit), then whether our next products are expensive apples or cheap oranges, or a mix of the two, sell it as the less specific fruit we're known for, at the same price.

 

[silverpig]

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

No. It asked for the minimum number needed, not the minimum number possible.