15 Ridiculously Hard Job Interview Questions

[Mental]

I am bored and don;t want to study what I need to for work. So I am here to whore up the DS, just like when I worked there

15 Ridiculously Hard Job Interview Questions From Top Employers Like Google, Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs - Analyst position
“If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?”

Aflac - Sales Associate position
“What is the philosophy of Martial Arts?”

Boston Consulting - Consultant position
“Explain [to] me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years.”

Capital One - Operations Analyst position
“Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are.”

Google - People Analyst position
“How many basketball[s] can you fit in this room[?]”

Bloomberg LP Financial - Software Developer position
“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?”

Facebook - Software Engineer position
“Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum numbers guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint "higher" or "lower" for each guess you make.”

Epic Systems - Project Manager position
“An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?”

Apple - Software QA Engineer position
“There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?”

Argus Information & Advisory Services - Analyst position
“How many traffic lights in Manhattan?”

Guardsmark - Staff Writer position
“What do wood and alcohol have in common?”

New York Life - Sales Agent position
“Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $150K?

Nielsen Company - Research Analyst position
“How many bottles of beer are drank in the city over the week.”

US Bank - Leadership Program Development position
“How are M&M's made?”

Volkswagen - Business Analyst position.
“What would you do if you just inherited a pizzeria from your uncle?"

[CaptGoodvibes]

Facebook - Software Engineer position
“Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum numbers guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint "higher" or "lower" for each guess you make.”

1

Or "maximum" number of guesses would be log1000/log2 = 9.97 =~ 10.

[McVaaahhh]

"hard" is subjective. I asked an interviewee this week what he liked about writing software and his response was: "umm.... uhhh..... I like writing code." FAIL

[salsashark]

^^ werd... no one "likes" writing code! It's the worst part of the job. making the code you write do what you want it to do... that's where it's at. Puzzle solving - that's how I look at it.

[McVaaahhh]

^^ werd... no one "likes" writing code! It's the worst part of the job. making the code you write do what you want it to do... that's where it's at. Puzzle solving - that's how I look at it.

Actually, the worst part is writing the supporting documentation...

My developers spend about 50% of their time writing docs. Pretty unique to our environment though as we create laboratory software and are highly regulated by the FDA.



Needless to say, we won't be making him an offer...

It really surprises me how many candidates I get that are totally unprepared for the interview. Many of them have little to no idea what my company does, have no questions for me, and are content to just sit there and let me pepper them with questions.

There's a ton of information available on preparing for an interview. If you haven't read any of it, get to it. I've got a big stack of resumes that look just like yours, how are you going to stand out when you're sitting in my office? (This is especially true for entry-level positions)

[salsashark]

I get that as well. I'm not a fan of writing documentation either, but apparently I have a knack for it. I would think that in a large development house, your engineers wouldn't be writing the documentation. In my last job, we had a lady that worked in our group that handled all communications and documentation for our products. English majors have to eat too.

As for the prep work, I couldn't imagine going into an interview without knowing everything I can about the company and the job, if possible. The interwebz are a wonderful thing when it comes to researching job postings. Social media like LinkedIn works great as well. Even for internal postings at Lockheed, I've always tried to hunt down someone who knows about the job posting, or the hiring manager, or the program just to get more info. Also, during interviews, I always take notes during the interview. My boss at my current job mentioned it when I got hired that he took note that I was taking notes.

Also, never leave without asking a question or three (and "how much do you pay?" doesn't count). I usually have a couple written down before going into the interview and will think of a couple during the interview.

Interviewing is a game and I'm amazed at how many people don't come to play.

[ghostrider_9]

I get that as well. I'm not a fan of writing documentation either, but apparently I have a knack for it. I would think that in a large development house, your engineers wouldn't be writing the documentation. In my last job, we had a lady that worked in our group that handled all communications and documentation for our products. English majors have to eat too.

As for the prep work, I couldn't imagine going into an interview without knowing everything I can about the company and the job, if possible. The interwebz are a wonderful thing when it comes to researching job postings. Social media like LinkedIn works great as well. Even for internal postings at Lockheed, I've always tried to hunt down someone who knows about the job posting, or the hiring manager, or the program just to get more info. Also, during interviews, I always take notes during the interview. My boss at my current job mentioned it when I got hired that he took note that I was taking notes.

Also, never leave without asking a question or three (and "how much do you pay?" doesn't count). I usually have a couple written down before going into the interview and will think of a couple during the interview.

Interviewing is a game and I'm amazed at how many people don't come to play.

I have to agree with this 100%. I can pretty much guarantee that I did not get hired at my company because I was the most qualified candidate. I did, however, walk into the interview with a file of information that I had pulled from the internet and from local gov't websites. From the moment I walked in, I wrote down names and their jobs, so I could better know "who" I was talking to.

Somewhere during the interview, the two managers of the section I would be working for, asked me what I know about the company. At that point, I opened my file and pulled out a cheat sheet I had made and started giving them information ranging from when the company was formed, who the main clients are, along with some of the figures from the company's various reports, like how many employees they had in a particular year. During the interview, they mentioned that I had seemed to have done my homework. I explained that I was investing in them as much as they would be investing in me. I did not want to walk into a place that was falling apart, just as much as they did not want to hire someone who wasn't willing or capable of doing the job. After I was hired, they ended up admitting that I told them things about the company that they did not even know. It was kinda funny, but it showed that I took the time to know what I was getting into and not just blindly hoping to find a job.

The other thing that I did was to ask questions when they asked if I had any. Even though I already knew quite a lot about the company, I asked about the hierarchy of the company and how the pieces worked together. Based off of the names and roles of the people I had met during the interview(s), I was able to piece most of it together, but asked anyway, using specific names and their roles. I am pretty certain I kinda surprised them that I had paid as much attention to the people there as they had paid to me.

The point is, that being prepared can say as much, or more, about you as anything you might actually say during the interview process.

[Ricky]

^^ werd... no one "likes" writing code! It's the worst part of the job. making the code you write do what you want it to do... that's where it's at. Puzzle solving - that's how I look at it.

I actually like writing the code. It's my favorite part

What I don't like is having to go back and find where the problem is...

[salsashark]

I actually like writing the code. It's my favorite part

What I don't like is having to go back and find where the problem is...

hmmm... ok maybe it's just me.

I've been doing web dev for a decade and there's only so many loops and conditions you can write before you've seen it all before. Yep, maybe it's time to go back to school and re-engineer myself.

[modette99]

..

[aerofaze]

Guardsmark - Staff Writer position
“What do wood and alcohol have in common?”

My answer: "Consuming the latter may increase the chances that the former will occur. In my circle, we call it, ‘beer goggles.'"

[vort3xr6]

One of my first sales jobs, the CEO set a BIC pen on the table and told me to sell it to him.

I made that pen sound like Michelangelo used it to paint the sistine chapel and I was chosen out of 20 other applicants.

[Ricky]

hmmm... ok maybe it's just me.

I've been doing web dev for a decade and there's only so many loops and conditions you can write before you've seen it all before. Yep, maybe it's time to go back to school and re-engineer myself.

I could see getting bored with the same old loops in the same old language. I've been coding for about 17 years now, and I've probably gone through 20 different languages. PHP was a primary for awhile, but now it's all about C# and the .Net framework. It's constantly expanding, and I'm always learning new stuff from it.

I'm also lucky enough to be in an environment where I'm always given new tasks to pursue. I work with an enormous production database with hundreds of thousands of customers, so there's always something interesting going on.

[asp_125]

“Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are.”

11, obviously since 1-10 would be following the rules of conformity.

“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?”

Five - race groups of 5. Pick the fastest three times from the 5 winners.

“What is the philosophy of Martial Arts?”

Chuck Norris would give philosophy a roundhouse kick

[vort3xr6]

Five - race groups of 5. Pick the fastest three times from the 5 winners.

It would actually be six races.

In order to find the 3 fastest horses, you would run 5 heats with 5 horses a piece. Take the winner from each of those races, and run them in all in one last 5 horse final. The top 3 are your fastest horses.

[asp_125]

It would actually be six races.

In order to find the 3 fastest horses, you would run 5 heats with 5 horses a piece. Take the winner from each of those races, and run them in all in one last 5 horse final. The top 3 are your fastest horses.

Yes I thought so the first time I replied to Bonnielass's thread on the same questions. (that somehow got lost)

But I thought about this after. I was assuming you would have finishing times for each horse, so the sixth race would not be necessary; just do the math. Running the sixth race would mean subjecting the 5 fastest to a second heat, which could end up to be a test of endurance and not all out speed. Now, if they don't use clocks on horses then you'd be correct and need 6 races.

[vort3xr6]

Correct. I am assuming they are basing "fast" as relative to the competition, not relative to a time. In which case the minimum number of races would be 5 for time and 6 for competition.

[DFab]

Yes I thought so the first time I replied to Bonnielass's thread on the same questions. (that somehow got lost)

But I thought about this after. I was assuming you would have finishing times for each horse, so the sixth race would not be necessary; just do the math. Running the sixth race would mean subjecting the 5 fastest to a second heat, which could end up to be a test of endurance and not all out speed. Now, if they don't use clocks on horses then you'd be correct and need 6 races.

The 5 winners are not necessarily the fastest. One race could have the 3 fastest horses overall.

[CaptGoodvibes]

It would actually be six races.

In order to find the 3 fastest horses, you would run 5 heats with 5 horses a piece. Take the winner from each of those races, and run them in all in one last 5 horse final. The top 3 are your fastest horses.

Without a stopwatch, you would have to run races until only three remain. 11 or 12 depending on your methodology.

[asp_125]

My brain just exploded

[vort3xr6]

This drive home is going to make my brain explode. Jeff you gotta let me know when you are in denver west so we can hit up some Pho.

[aerofaze]

...Jeff you gotta let me know when you are in denver west so we can hit up some Pho.

You guys need to let me know when you're doing pho. All pho-king related outings will be seriously considered by this Southie.

[asp_125]

Pho fridays?

[aerofaze]

Pho Fridays would be in line with my Thai Tuesdays.

I promised consideration, not attendance. But let me know!