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
By standing on the bodies of anyone who gets in my way."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)
Google picture of nuclear explosion"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." -- Boston Consulting
Batman, because he doesn't need super powers to be awesome."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)
5622. All but one player has to lose once (assuming single elimination)"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" -- Amazon (AMZN)
Never been there. Do they build their buildings out of brick?"How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings." --Deloitte Consulting
Weigh one from one bottle, two from the next bottle, three from the next bottle, four from the next bottle, five from the last bottle. 150 - (weight) = the number of the bottle that contains the 9-gram bills."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)
My ability to answer stupid interview questions."What is your fastball?" -- Ernst & Young
Cat toys."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)
Let me Google that..."How many smartphones are there in New York City?" -- Google (GOOG)
This is getting tiresome."You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." -- Schlumberger (SLB)
Because we're not communists."Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $125,000 a year?" -- New York Life
Open the box that is supposed to contain both apples and oranges. Determine what fruit it contains. Put the label for that fruit on that box. Place the other two labels such that neither is on the box it started on. There will be only one way this can be done."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)
From what i've been told, they don't like that answer.
Here's a whacky question for those that gave all the answers - why do you have such shitty jobs?
Jeanna Fine always seemed to have the craziest job interviews.
... so i answered it?
no. measuring the displacement of objects still leaves you guessing at their density to estimate weight.
a more accurate method would be to coax the elephant onto a boat and measure the water line. Then remove elephant and add known weights until the boat sank to the same water line.
The two are the same: 1. An implementation of what the question asks might look like this:No. It asked for the minimum number needed, not the minimum number possible.
node = keyvaluethingiemabob { value = int;
left = node;
right = node;
}
search = function (node pos, int find) {
if find == pos.value
return pos
elseif find < pos.value
return search (pos.left, find)
else return search (pos.right, find)
// ugly exception handling code generally goes here, instead of checking for bounds and non-nulls
}No, it doesn't. You can know the density of the liquid used. If the elephant doesn't float, use saltwater of a calculated salinity, so that it does float--you still know the density.no. measuring the displacement of objects still leaves you guessing at their density to estimate weight.
no. measuring the displacement of objects still leaves you guessing at their density to estimate weight.
a more accurate method would be to coax the elephant onto a boat and measure the water line. Then remove elephant and add known weights until the boat sank to the same water line.
No, it doesn't. You can know the density of the liquid used. If the elephant doesn't float, use saltwater of a calculated salinity, so that it does float--you still know the density.
The two are the same: 1. An implementation of what the question asks might look like this:
If the guess is either >, <, or =, you can do it in one, with the right guess. If the hints were >= or <, or > or <=, then you would have to do a binary search, with a minimum of 10 guesses for an optimum progression, so that you know the <= or >= hint is really =, because there is nowhere else to go.Code:node = keyvaluethingiemabob { value = int; left = node; right = node; } search = function (node pos, int find) { if find == pos.value return pos elseif find < pos.value return search (pos.left, find) else return search (pos.right, find) // ugly exception handling code generally goes here, instead of checking for bounds and non-nulls }
If the above tree is balanced, 10 should be the maximum, I believe.
elephants float. send in the next applicant
Elephant question- just measure the displacement. If it doesn't float on water, use mercury. Or use a balance. Or get a lot of mylar balloons, fill them with helium, and tie them to the elephant until it flies away. But the real answer is- if I only need to weigh it once, I'd skip all the unnecessary infrastructure, training costs, and risk associated with error and just hire an elephant weighing service.
He very well might, but clearly, did not. It's all about semantics, so it's hard to be too semantic. If it weren't about semantics, it would be worded in a way that made the problem's requirements more explicit, in terms that don't require connotation.If you're gonna get that semantic about it, the answer is 0. Sure you might guess it on the first try, but the guy might also give you the answer before you start.
"I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 1000. What is the number? It is 82 by the way."
But I want to put an elephant in a pool! A boat is boring, compared to just dunking the elephant.What? No! Just use a fucking boat people! Get a large shallow bottom boat, mark the water line, get the elephant on the raft, mark the new water line and then figure out the volume of water displaced and thus the weight of the elephant.
But I want to put an elephant in a pool! A boat is boring, compared to just dunking the elephant.