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Once long ago when I interviewed at Apple I was asked the classic "fork in the road, two guys, one always tells the truth and one always lies" riddle, with comp
by modeless 2mo ago
Once long ago when I interviewed at Apple I was asked the classic "fork in the road, two guys, one always tells the truth and one always lies" riddle, with complete earnestness as far as I could tell. Possibly the single worst interview question I've ever been asked.
Of course I told the interviewer I'd heard it before and then gave the correct answer. In my case we just ended up chatting about previous experience instead of doing another brainteaser and I ultimately passed the interview, I think. But afterward the recruiter strung me along for weeks telling me they wanted to make an offer but not giving me one, and I ended up going to Microsoft instead.
Not the worst interview experience I've had, though. That would be the time I interviewed for a full time position after an internship and a group of guys who knew me and had worked with me all summer asked me a pointless brainteaser as the only interview question. I crashed and burned for a full 40 minutes in front of them. Humiliating, and pretty much a pointless hazing ritual as they offered me the job anyway. Luckily I got a better offer and was able to turn them down.
Here are some other brainteasers I've been asked in interviews. I actually think these physics based ones are fun (probably because I had no trouble solving them), but they're still terrible interview questions:
You're in a boat on a lake with a bowling ball. After you drop the ball overboard and it sinks to the bottom, is the lake water level higher or lower or the same?
Three balls are on three downward sloping tracks. One track is a straight line down to the end, the second is the same except for a small hill in the middle, and the third is the same except instead of a hill it has a small dip. All tracks start at the same height and end at the same height and cover the same horizontal distance. The balls are released at the same time and roll to the end without leaving their tracks. Which one gets there first?
- stephbook 2mo agoMaybe they were judging your perseverance and conduct, not whether you actually finished the work.
- lostlogin 2mo agoI have no idea and want the answers: Boat + bowling ball = level stays the same? Ball roll = the constant gradient is quickest?
- AlecBG 2mo agoFirst one water is lower. Ball is more dense than water, in boat displaces its weight in water, in water displaces it's volume Dip for hill roll is faster
- CodesInChaos 2mo agoA dip increases the speed (decreasing travel time), but also the distance to travel (increasing travel time). Which of those effects dominates depends on the shape of the dip. The hill decreases speed and increases distance, so it's always slower than the straight line.
- modeless 2mo agoMost things that can fairly be described as a "small dip" should decrease travel time. When I was presented with the problem it came with illustrations to clarify. Surprisingly hard to make it watertight with text alone.
- robocat 2mo agoNext bail 10 litres of water from the lake into the open-topped boat. What are the effects of the 10 litres of air displaced from within the boat?
- RealityVoid 2mo agoLake level stays the same.
- b3lvedere 2mo agoUnless there was a butterfly in that part of the air .. not much.
- ninkendo 2mo agoFirst one depends on the bowling ball. Most alleys have balls ranging from 7lb to 16lb, all the same volume, and the crossover point where they’d sink is 11.6lb. If it was a floating bowling ball, the lake water level would stay the same when you toss it from a boat. If it were a sinking one, it would decrease.
- pjmlp 2mo agoHere a few additional teasers, - How many golf balls fit into the plane - How many gas stations exist in country (or alternative version with city) - How many turns do you have to go on a gum machine until colour comes out? Naturally they all evaluate properly the skills required for the job, and other professions get asked the same kind of stupid questions. Unless it is for a position I really, really want, or are unemployed and every opportunity counts, that is usually where the interview ends for me.
- voidfunc 2mo agoIts funny how some people react to these? I suspect you see them as time wasters which is why you end the interview. I see them as ice-breakers and rather enjoy them because they are fun to talk through.
- pjmlp 2mo agoI am on my 50's now, if I have to prove that I am worthwhile being an employee with such teasers instead of what I have done thus far, I rather spend my time elsewhere, unless I am desperate for getting the position.
- voidfunc 2mo agoHonestly that may be just the reaction the company was hoping for which is both valuable for you and them. You save time not going through an interview for a place you might dislike and they get to move on quickly.
- modeless 2mo agoYeah I can see people using these as proxies for age discrimination
- pjmlp 2mo agoSeniors are not welcomed by most companies, because we already seen all movies management pulls up employees to trick them "doing more with less". Ironically the same companies are more than willing to get the same seniors as highly paid external contractors for exactly the same tasks, and without these kind of time wasting interviews.
- fenomas 2mo agoThis reminds me of the weirdest interview I ever had (boutique software agency, maybe 30 devs). I walk in, and the CEO's secretary hands me an IQ test and says I have one hour. I do the test, then I meet the CEO and we chat about general topics while she grades the test nearby. Then she announces my IQ, and the CEO says "hmm, yes, that's above the minimum I'd consider for a developer." Then for the last few minutes he goes through the 2-3 questions I got wrong and asks me to explain why I gave the answer I did. That was the first and only interview, and about six weeks later they call me back in and the CEO made an offer. I reply that I'll need a few days to consider. CEO: "What? Why??"
- steveBK123 2mo agoThats a particular type of insane that might have been fun to take the offer
- pelagicAustral 2mo agoAt least he didnt came out with a measuring tape and tried to measure your skull.
- pstuart 2mo agoThat's silly! Everybody knows it's the shape that shows the intelligence, not the circumference!
- arjie 2mo agoThis can't have been recent. Or perhaps it was and they violated the law. A standard IQ test is probably quite good at assessing if you'll be good at a programming job but it is also quite illegal unless it has passed through a battery of compliance paperwork - which it actually cannot pass because it would require the output of IQ tests to be race-equal and they cannot be both an IQ test and race-equal. This is literally a Title VII violation.
- tptacek 2mo agoI'm a broken record about this, but no, it's not illegal to administer IQ tests in white-collar employment, and it doesn't take a battery of compliance paperwork to do so. This is an Internet myth.
- Otterly99 2mo agoI've always wondered about these brainteasers: do interviewers really expect people to solve them? The truth/lie one is pretty well known so either: A. You answer it from memory. B. Have to actually solve it, which from my experience requires a bit of time. It just seems awkward to have somebody look at you while they wait for you to solve some riddle.
- lightedman 2mo ago"I was asked the classic "fork in the road, two guys, one always tells the truth and one always lies" riddle" To which I always reply "I just start beating the crap out of one at random - the reaction of the both victim and witness will tell me which is which."
- modeless 2mo agoUhh, strong reject