Friday, January 07, 2011

Will you be able to answer the questions asked at your next job interview?

Finance.yahoo reposted material titled The 25 Weirdest Interview Questions of 2010 from Glassdoor. The interview questions were notable for having nothing to do with factual background of the applicant OR with the sought-after job. Many of them reminded LBE of an often-used Ph.D. qualifier question: how many grave-diggers are there in Palo Alto (or wherever)?
Some were similar to questions on the "games" section of an LSAT.

One, with some explanation given, illustrated that familiarity with old television shows could be helpful:

What is the philosophy of martial arts? (A spokesperson for Aflac, where this question was used, says she hopes the candidate quoted Kwai Chang Caine from the 1970s TV show Kung Fu: "I seek not to know the answers, but to understand the questions.") [The vocal macaw Lex Luther already has learned the word Aflac; next will be "Aflac sucks"]

Some of the others:

How many basketballs can you fit in this room? (Reportedly from Google) [IPBiz: Need to know volume of room; volume of basketball; then reduce by filling factor for closest packing of spheres).

Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required? (Reportedly from Bloomberg LP)

You have a birthday cake and have exactly three slices to cut it into eight equal pieces. How do you do it? (Reportedly from Blackrock Portfolio Management)

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

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Kimberly Weisul states: Surprisingly, it really is possible to hit these questions out of the park. In our next post, we'll show you how.

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