I came across a list of so-called oddball interview questions of 2010 from glassdoor.com, gathered by a number of job seekers who had encountered them from various renowned employers over the year. I can’t resist but to share the top 25 questions here with you.
- “If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?” Asked at Goldman Sachs.
- “How many ridges (are there) around a quarter?” Asked at Deloitte.
- “What is the philosophy of Martial Arts?” Asked at Aflac.
- “Explain (to me) what has happened to this country during the last 10 years.” Asked at Boston Consulting.
- “Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are.” Asked at Capital One.
- “How many basketballs can you fit in this room?” Asked at Google.
- “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?” Asked at Bloomberg LP.
- “If you could be any superhero, who would it be?” Asked at AT&T.
- “You have a birthday cake and have exactly 3 slices to cut it into 8 equal pieces. How do you do it?” Asked at Blackrock.
- “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?” Asked at Facebook.
- “If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?” Asked at Amazon.
- “An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents. How much is a pear?” Asked at Epic Systems.
- “There are 3 boxes. One contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labelled 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?” Asked at Apple.
- “How many traffic lights are there in Manhattan?” Asked at Argus Information & Advisory Services.
- “You are in a dark room with no light. You need matching socks for your interview and you have 19 gray socks and 25 black socks. What are the chances you will get a matching pair?” Asked at Eze Castle.
- “What do wood and alcohol have in common?” Asked at Guardsmark.
- “How do you weigh an elephant without using a weigh machine?” Asked at IBM.
- “You have 8 pennies, 7 weight the same, one weighs less. You also have a judges scale. Find the one that weights less in less than 3 steps.” Asked at Intel.
- “Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $150K?” Asked at New York Life.
- “You are in charge of 20 people, organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year.” Asked at Schlumberger.
- “How many bottles of beer are drunk in the city over the week?” Asked at The Nielsen Company.
- “What is the square foot of 2000?” Asked at UBS.
- “A train leaves San Antonio for Houston at 60mph. Another train leaves Houston for San Antonio at 80mph. Houston and San Antonio are 300 miles apart. If a bird leaves San Antonio at 300mph, and turns around and flies back once it reaches the Houston train, and continues to fly between the two, how far would it have flown when they collide?” Asked at USAA.
- “How are M&Ms made?” Asked at US Bank.
- “What would you do if you just inherit a pizzeria from your uncle?” Asked at Volkswagen.
So what do you think of the answers of the above questions? Or are you deeply offended if you are asked these in your ucpoming job interviews?
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