
The most ridiculous job interview questions - stevenj
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/05/the-most-ridiculous-job-interview-questions/
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aphyr
_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?_

Log_2 1000.

 _"How many balloons would fit in this room?"_

.64 * length * width * height (distance measurements roughly in feet).

 _"How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?"_

Displacement of the zoo environment's pool.

 _"If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to
be played to determine the winner?"_

Let d = Log_2 N. Sum 2^(d-k) for k = 0 ... d

 _""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?"_

The fact that no label is correct reduces the degrees of freedom by one,
making the problem solvable.

 _"How many ..."_

The packing efficiency of randomly organized spheres is .64. Know this number.
Fear it.

~~~
bartonfink
Not to be too much of a smartass, but I'd be tempted to say "1" for the
"minimum number of guesses" question. After all, you could be correct right
off the bat and 1 is a technically correct answer to the ? as stated.

~~~
hugh3
If we're going to be a smartass about it, the question never specifies that
we're only looking at integers, so I'm forced to assume we're looking at
reals.

Thus the probability of you correctly guessing the correct number within any
finite number of guesses is zero.

~~~
orijing
_Given the numbers 1 to 1,000_

Seems to me like they're asking for integers, but suppose they mean reals.
Depending on the distribution, you can still guess the right number with
positive probability. It could be dominated by 500!

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patio11
As much as I love logic puzzles, the _real_ question is "How can you convince
someone with hiring authority in the company that you would be an asset to
them personally?"

This does not typically involve resumes or dredging up old math team tricks on
command.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
As part of a technical interview, then yes it can help determine if the
credentials (college degree) actually taught you anything.

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blahblahblah
Assuming that it was an interview for an electrical engineering position, the
Intel question "Explain quantum electrodynamics in two minutes, starting now"
doesn't seem at all ridiculous. If you don't understand the topic well enough
to give a brief overview of the concepts, you're not qualified to work an
engineering job in the semiconductor industry.

~~~
hugh3
Quantum electrodynamics? Really? OK, give me your two-minute explanation
starting now.

~~~
blahblahblah
I didn't say that I was qualified to work an electrical engineering job at
Intel. (I'm not.) However, I know enough (from watching Feynman's University
of Auckland lectures - see <http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8>) to
understand that QED theory is absolutely fundamental to Intel's business, both
in chip design and in manufacturing processes.

~~~
hugh3
Are you sure you're not getting quantum electrodynamics confused with quantum
mechanics? Because QED barely matters in semiconductors at all. Pretty much
anything you could possibly care about in semiconductors can be done with the
plain ol' Schroedinger equation.

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yaks_hairbrush
I interviewed with Epic Systems last week, saw the question about flowers, and
answered it correctly. If all but 2 are roses, all but 2 are daisies and all
but 2 are tulips, you have three flowers (one of each).

Contrary to the article, though, Epic asked this on a written assessment test,
so they were not so interested in thought process.

~~~
steve_g
Would two gardenias work as well?

~~~
yaks_hairbrush
Seems it would, but there might be an issue with having a bouquet of two
flowers. Still, I like your answer better... predicating on the empty set is
fun.

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hugh3
Most of these aren't all that ridiculous.

The worst type of interview question is the "you either know it or you don't"
type. There's some special trick to solving it, and it's so overused that half
the people being interviewed have heard it before. The "blender" one here is
an example -- I've heard it a couple of times before, but I've never thought
of a good solution... I guess I'm not sufficiently familiar with blender
design. Is it a good move just to wrap myself around the blade shaft?

 _"Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are."_ : You could
tell a lot about a person (especially a person straight out of college) by
their answer to this one. Not sure what I'd give myself. Maybe a 2 pi.

 _"Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years."_
\-- sounds like a silly question, but _wow_ you're going to be able to find
out a lot about a person's world view by the way they answer that.

 _"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?"_ \-- this I don't
like. It makes me feel like I'm being interviewed by a nine-year-old. Also, is
it too obvious to say Batman? Probably.

 _"What is your fastball?"_ \-- What? Is this a baseball thing?

~~~
Getahobby
I like the fastball question. To me a fastball is directly challenging the
batter. No trickery. Your best against my best. Hit it if you can.

~~~
hugh3
I still don't get what the question is supposed to mean.

~~~
Adrock
I believe it is asking what you think is your greatest strength.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
What is your best move. Depends upon the situation.

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ahsanhilal
If anyone is interested in answering such questions, or are interviewing for
positions that would require them to answer such questions, they should read
the following book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Would-Move-Mount-Microsofts-
Puzzle/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Would-Move-Mount-Microsofts-
Puzzle/dp/0316919160)

In my past life, I used to work in private equity, and as such before landing
that job has a lot of interviews which posed such questions for trading,
banking, quant hedge funds etc.

The ridiculousness of these questions amazes me; most companies spit out the
same 1000 questions or so across multiple candidates, and eventually people
just learn the answers to such questions and memorize them.

I think case interviews, where you actually have to solve problems are much
more effective, and can be used towards different positions.

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babycakes
Maybe I'm getting old, picky, arrogant, or some other malady, but I am simply
uninterested in working at a company that asks these types of riddles. There
are many more practical ways to gauge people's thought processes, and I'd like
to think that my PhD and patents are superior evidence of abstract thought
than answering questions that are common enough to have books published about
them.

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cafard
Reminds me of the Saki character who was asked a young woman how many chickens
she could keep in a pen of certain dimensions. His reply "Whole crowds, as
long as you keep the door closed." satisfied her, or at least closed of
further questions.

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dsimms
Is this Glassdoor's way of pranking CNN?

