5 ms·

I don't take crap like this from interviewers. One time an interviewer asked me "how would you go about counting the ridges of a US quarter?" I rattled off so

by umvi 6y ago

I don't take crap like this from interviewers. One time an interviewer asked me "how would you go about counting the ridges of a US quarter?" I rattled off some ideas about counting the ridges in an arc and then multiplying to get total ridges but the interviewer kept prodding and eventually ended the question and said he was looking for me to say "google it" (I didn't realize it was a known, fixed number). I just rolled my eyes and laughed and said "Huh, good one, but how would you go about counting the ridges of a foreign coin assuming it's freshly minted and the number of ridges is unknown?" The interviewer shifted uncomfortably and just said "yeah, I'd probably do something like what you said - count the ridges in an arc and multiply..." (i.e. "if you are going to give me bogus lateral thinking puzzles to test my competence I'm going to fire them back to see how you handle them")

jbay808 6y ago
I don't think googling is even a valid answer. If he asked "how would you find out how many ridges are on a quarter" then yes (and I think Google it would be everyone's first answer). But counting, as a verb implies the act of measurement, not just obtaining the final number. Assuming that he used that word, it sounds like a trick question.
- phkahler 6y ago
  I was once asked how many golfballs could fit in a school bus. I blathered on about measurements of the bus, volume of a ball, the average due to gaps between balls, are the seats still there, etc... bottom line we could spend a lot of time getting an ever more precise estimate. The guy seemed satisfied. Later at home I realised that my test engineer friend may have suggested doing an actual experiment - rent a bus and a few tons of balls. The later would be easy since there is a local company here that recovers lost balls from golf courses (even from the water), repaints the and sells to driving ranges. You can buy them in bulk. Which answer is better? Which were they looking for? Who knows.
  - MrLeap 6y ago
    If we live in a world where reality is on deck, and not the seemingly arbitrary and capricious one that folks sometimes weave, I think you can determine what answer is "better" with more context. Renting a bus and filling it with golf balls is significantly more effort intensive than calculating, but it might give interesting, real world insights if the values differ. For the purpose of running a business, the choice, to my mind, hinges on how much your revenue / customer satisfaction / product depends on the real world intelligence such an endeavour might bring. The situation illustrated is contrived, so it's hard to contrive an answer to that question. There's hybridized approaches. Here's a 3D/AV interactive developer's contribution to your approach list: I've used lidars and depth cameras as a hammer quite a bit over the last year, so I'd do thus - Realsense D435 capture the inside of a bus. Use meshlab to align and stitch all your pointsets. Perform reconstruction on it so you get a 3d mesh. Use your tool of choice to perform a physics simulation on golf balls (I'd probably use Unity3d, because customers love simulations they can play with.) Run your simulation a ton of times with epsilon changes to initial conditions. Maybe even do it with an evolutionary algorithm that tries to maximize the count! Either way, report back with a distribution. Also capture frames every once in a while so you can give them a timelapse. God customers love timelapses.
  - m463 6y ago
    They are black-box testing your mind.
aeternum 6y ago
When he inevitably asked you to code an algorithm as the next question I hope he also accepted using Google for the answer.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  I see nothing wrong with this, why would I write algorithm X from memory or taking my best guess at it on the spot, isn't the whole point of learning them recognising when are they applicable and how to find them quickly ?
  - hashkb 6y ago
    It's kind of like knowing multiplication tables, or intervals in music. There's some stuff you just gotta know.
    - minot 6y ago
      Knowing the multiplication table is such steaming nonsense. I know 7x10 is 70 so half of that, 7x5 is 35. I can add seven to 35 fast enough that I don't have to memorize 7x6 is 42. Memorizing is not knowing.
      - hashkb 6y ago
        How did you divide 70 in half and get 35?
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
The tradeoff with this approach, if you fail to build a good rapport with the interviewer, you'll get labeled as not a good culture fit. Calling them out for a dumb question or critiquing the expectation of an 'expected answer' is not going to get you the job.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  That doesn't sound like a tradeoff per se to me. Chances are that if the interviewer gets offended by a candidate turning a question back at them, that candidate may not actually be a cultural fit. It's much lower cost for both the company and the candidate to find this out earlier rather than later, so I'd actually call it a win-win.
  - takeda 6y ago
    Speaking of wasted time, this reminded me. I was interviewing during the time covid started and everyone started working from home. I was interviewing with a company. I had a call with recruiter then with a hiring manager. I also got a project to work on over weekend. Then got response something like, we really like you, but currently our hiring is suspended, we will let you know when it is back up. Like, why did you wasted my time if you knew that I can't proceed to the on-site interview and you won't do it remotely?
    - janee 6y ago
      I've witnessed this a few times. Usually because you actually passed the current hurdle, but the company got cold feet because the next step requires more effort from them and they can't make up their mind...eitherway as irritating as it is you probably dodged a bullet Its sort of like companies doing subconscious window shopping...absolutely infuriating stuff
- jhanschoo 6y ago
  > I just rolled my eyes and laughed and said In this case, it sounds like the mood was right in the room for it to be taken well candidly.
Impossible 6y ago
It's funny that his expected answer was "Google it". In most cases when people answer with that (it could be the answer for any tech interview question...) you get encouraged to actually do the problem, so it's a time waster. For the interviewer it gives them no signal outside of you having the ability and awareness of the existence of search engines, although there could be some vague behavioral signal that shows you have a stronger urge to find existing solutions rather than waste time creating your own. This is a really toxic interview because you're basically expected to read the interviewer's mind. I've had a couple of these with peak Silicon Valley companies. At pre-IPO Zynga I was asked by a GM "what the most important number in game design is", at River Studios (Mike Rothenberg's company...) the entire interview was basically this style of question.
- hashkb 6y ago
  False. We want you to be confident and admit you Google all day every day. Simple as that. You seriously would have done all that before Googling it?
  - swatkat 6y ago
    >> We want you to be confident... Who is this “we”?
    - hashkb 6y ago
      Interviewers who want to make sure you don't think Googling is shameful.
      - akdas 6y ago
        Every interview is different. You're asking people to read your mind: https://hiringfor.tech/2020/03/02/are-you-asking-candidates-to-read-your-mind.html https://hiringfor.tech/2020/03/02/are-you-asking-candidates-...
        hashkb 6y ago
monkeycantype 6y ago
I hope his google doesn't land on this thread: The US 25 cent denomination coin or 'Quarter' has eleven ridges
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tolbish 6y ago
  I am thinking that a google search about an interview question about the number of ridges on a US quarter or "Quarter" (whatever the 25 cent coin is) would unlikely point to this thread, or to your statement, which is (paraphrased): the US quarter has 11 ridges.
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
Neither do I. I always ask up-front to try to suss out if a "technical interview" is going to consist of this kind of BS and I preemptively prune my candidate company set aggressively. If I do end up in this situation it's already a pretty big turn-off, so if the spirit moves me I take it as an opportunity to collect data before ending it. I like to respond with something like "Tell me more about this question. What are you trying to gauge?" I'm looking, minimally, for some indication that they've actually thought about what they need for the role and how they're attempting to elicit a signal with regards to it. Nine times out of ten, they have no clue. What they actually want is a gesture of submission. It's a hazing ritual, and in part, pushing back this way is also a way to indirectly tell them to fuck off with their petty ego trip.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by umvi 6y ago

jbay808 6y ago

I don't think googling is even a valid answer. If he asked "how would you find out how many ridges are on a quarter" then yes (and I think Google it would be everyone's first answer). But counting, as a verb implies the act of measurement, not just obtaining the final number. Assuming that he used that word, it sounds like a trick question.

phkahler 6y ago
I was once asked how many golfballs could fit in a school bus. I blathered on about measurements of the bus, volume of a ball, the average due to gaps between balls, are the seats still there, etc... bottom line we could spend a lot of time getting an ever more precise estimate. The guy seemed satisfied. Later at home I realised that my test engineer friend may have suggested doing an actual experiment - rent a bus and a few tons of balls. The later would be easy since there is a local company here that recovers lost balls from golf courses (even from the water), repaints the and sells to driving ranges. You can buy them in bulk. Which answer is better? Which were they looking for? Who knows.
- MrLeap 6y ago
  If we live in a world where reality is on deck, and not the seemingly arbitrary and capricious one that folks sometimes weave, I think you can determine what answer is "better" with more context. Renting a bus and filling it with golf balls is significantly more effort intensive than calculating, but it might give interesting, real world insights if the values differ. For the purpose of running a business, the choice, to my mind, hinges on how much your revenue / customer satisfaction / product depends on the real world intelligence such an endeavour might bring. The situation illustrated is contrived, so it's hard to contrive an answer to that question. There's hybridized approaches. Here's a 3D/AV interactive developer's contribution to your approach list: I've used lidars and depth cameras as a hammer quite a bit over the last year, so I'd do thus - Realsense D435 capture the inside of a bus. Use meshlab to align and stitch all your pointsets. Perform reconstruction on it so you get a 3d mesh. Use your tool of choice to perform a physics simulation on golf balls (I'd probably use Unity3d, because customers love simulations they can play with.) Run your simulation a ton of times with epsilon changes to initial conditions. Maybe even do it with an evolutionary algorithm that tries to maximize the count! Either way, report back with a distribution. Also capture frames every once in a while so you can give them a timelapse. God customers love timelapses.
- m463 6y ago
  They are black-box testing your mind.

aeternum 6y ago

When he inevitably asked you to code an algorithm as the next question I hope he also accepted using Google for the answer.

reader_mode 6y ago
I see nothing wrong with this, why would I write algorithm X from memory or taking my best guess at it on the spot, isn't the whole point of learning them recognising when are they applicable and how to find them quickly ?
- hashkb 6y ago
  It's kind of like knowing multiplication tables, or intervals in music. There's some stuff you just gotta know.
  - minot 6y ago
    Knowing the multiplication table is such steaming nonsense. I know 7x10 is 70 so half of that, 7x5 is 35. I can add seven to 35 fast enough that I don't have to memorize 7x6 is 42. Memorizing is not knowing.
    - hashkb 6y ago
      How did you divide 70 in half and get 35?

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

The tradeoff with this approach, if you fail to build a good rapport with the interviewer, you'll get labeled as not a good culture fit. Calling them out for a dumb question or critiquing the expectation of an 'expected answer' is not going to get you the job.

pmiller2 6y ago
That doesn't sound like a tradeoff per se to me. Chances are that if the interviewer gets offended by a candidate turning a question back at them, that candidate may not actually be a cultural fit. It's much lower cost for both the company and the candidate to find this out earlier rather than later, so I'd actually call it a win-win.
- takeda 6y ago
  Speaking of wasted time, this reminded me. I was interviewing during the time covid started and everyone started working from home. I was interviewing with a company. I had a call with recruiter then with a hiring manager. I also got a project to work on over weekend. Then got response something like, we really like you, but currently our hiring is suspended, we will let you know when it is back up. Like, why did you wasted my time if you knew that I can't proceed to the on-site interview and you won't do it remotely?
  - janee 6y ago
    I've witnessed this a few times. Usually because you actually passed the current hurdle, but the company got cold feet because the next step requires more effort from them and they can't make up their mind...eitherway as irritating as it is you probably dodged a bullet Its sort of like companies doing subconscious window shopping...absolutely infuriating stuff
jhanschoo 6y ago
> I just rolled my eyes and laughed and said In this case, it sounds like the mood was right in the room for it to be taken well candidly.

Impossible 6y ago

It's funny that his expected answer was "Google it". In most cases when people answer with that (it could be the answer for any tech interview question...) you get encouraged to actually do the problem, so it's a time waster. For the interviewer it gives them no signal outside of you having the ability and awareness of the existence of search engines, although there could be some vague behavioral signal that shows you have a stronger urge to find existing solutions rather than waste time creating your own. This is a really toxic interview because you're basically expected to read the interviewer's mind. I've had a couple of these with peak Silicon Valley companies. At pre-IPO Zynga I was asked by a GM "what the most important number in game design is", at River Studios (Mike Rothenberg's company...) the entire interview was basically this style of question.

hashkb 6y ago
False. We want you to be confident and admit you Google all day every day. Simple as that. You seriously would have done all that before Googling it?
- swatkat 6y ago
  >> We want you to be confident... Who is this “we”?
  - hashkb 6y ago
    Interviewers who want to make sure you don't think Googling is shameful.
    - akdas 6y ago
      Every interview is different. You're asking people to read your mind: https://hiringfor.tech/2020/03/02/are-you-asking-candidates-to-read-your-mind.html https://hiringfor.tech/2020/03/02/are-you-asking-candidates-...
      - hashkb 6y ago

monkeycantype 6y ago

I hope his google doesn't land on this thread: The US 25 cent denomination coin or 'Quarter' has eleven ridges

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tolbish 6y ago
I am thinking that a google search about an interview question about the number of ridges on a US quarter or "Quarter" (whatever the 25 cent coin is) would unlikely point to this thread, or to your statement, which is (paraphrased): the US quarter has 11 ridges.

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

Neither do I. I always ask up-front to try to suss out if a "technical interview" is going to consist of this kind of BS and I preemptively prune my candidate company set aggressively. If I do end up in this situation it's already a pretty big turn-off, so if the spirit moves me I take it as an opportunity to collect data before ending it. I like to respond with something like "Tell me more about this question. What are you trying to gauge?" I'm looking, minimally, for some indication that they've actually thought about what they need for the role and how they're attempting to elicit a signal with regards to it. Nine times out of ten, they have no clue. What they actually want is a gesture of submission. It's a hazing ritual, and in part, pushing back this way is also a way to indirectly tell them to fuck off with their petty ego trip.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]