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
1 min 10 max about 4 on average.
"Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are." -- Capital One (COF)
10, I am in the top 10% in many many ways.
"Explain quantum electrodynamics in two minutes, starting now." -- Intel (INTC)
From wikipedia:...
"How many balloons would fit in this room?" -- PricewaterhouseCoopers
Assuming inflated.
Min: none (no Macy's thanksgiving day parade in here), max: as many square mm of air as is in this room (one square mm is the apx size of an angeoplasty balloon). Functionally: as many as you would put up with.
"If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" -- Goldman Sachs (GS)
if it's like mine at home you can unscrew the blade by moving it the opposite direction of the standard rotation; now that there is somewhere for air to enter from I would shimmy against opposing walls and pop the lid off.
"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
"all but" means that exactly two are; that you are communicating poorly and must mean "no more than two are" does not bode well for my desire to work here.
"What is the philosophy of martial arts?" -- Aflac (AFL)
it depends on the martial art; but to my knowledge they all share discipline, dedication and a greater knowledge of your own limitations and how to grow past them.
"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." -- Boston Consulting
one word: Bush. (I took 'the fuk' to be implicit after the wood what)
"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?" -- AT&T (T)
Ozymandias, it would be just like being me but with proper recognition.
"How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?" -- IBM (IBM)
I would walk it on to two scales, one for the left half one for the right and average the two.
Also, look up the average/Standard deviation weight of an elephant and height and extrapolate from the tape measurable height.
"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" -- Amazon (AMZN)
min 1, round robin 1v1: summation(5622),
Reasonably: 14 Swiss rounds should be a fair number, with a cut to single elimination top v bottom for the top 12 with a round robin at top 3 then tie break based on Swiss round rankings.
"How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings." --Deloitte Consulting
I don't know, but give me a day and I'll get a very close approximation; most importantly though: why do you ask?
"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)
read the bottle, read the pill, google the medication, or, the answer:
Put one pill from the first bottle, 2 From the second 3 from the third 4 from the 4 th on the scale. 100 grams - the weight is the bottle number that has the 9 gram pills. (or if it is 100, then it is the 5 th bottle).
"What is your fastball?" -- Ernst & Young
it is clear that you are interested in my sports aptitude: I have none and don't want to work for a company for which this would be an impediment for my advancement.
"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)
I wouldn't, marketers are the scum of the earth and I would rather be unemployed than a millionaire marketer.
But for shits and giggles: chew to escape ball gags, the one thing in your house that your child still needs to become a Mensa member, a better packing material for boxes, a water filtration system that returned missing nutrients to your bottled water, a way to get the kenect to recognize people, a competitor to nerf that shoots ppbs instead, captain kangaroo home games.
"How many smartphones are there in New York City?" -- Google (GOOG)
I would look up the income demographics of NYC and the smart phone market penetration among those demographics and do the math.
"You are in charge of 20 people. Organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." -- Schlumberger (SLB)
Assuming these resources have been allocated to me for this very purpose
Randomly call households and get a statistically significant estimation. Similar situation but with stores selling bikes. But first do a few open ended interviews about the nature of the volatility over the year of bike sales in each of the market needs bikes fill.
"Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $125,000 a year?" -- New York Life
Because if a much larger percent of the population made 125k/y that same small percentage would be making significantly more than 125k/y. And if I'm any indication of how smart the top 2% of people with masters degrees are (ie standardized tests have some reasonable level of validity) then then all but a small percent are too stupid to deserve, or know what todo with, that kind of money.
"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)
if I know the labels and the labels are o a o/a then if I chose an apple from the apple box then it is the mixed fruit box; the box labeled apples must, then be oranges and the remaining box must be apples. Ssdd if I get an orange. Or,as I said, write not 100% over each label.
"How many ball bearings, each one inch in diameter, can fit inside a 747 aircraft?" -- SAIC (SAI)
Radius, in inches of a 747*2 ^2 times it's length. I don't know how many 1inch BBs fit in a cubic yard, but the packing will approximate the reducton in volume that we see with the hull of th 747 being a tube and not a rectangular sold, thus the use of square measurements for both items and vessel.