4 ms·
Here 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 man
by pjmlp 3mo ago
Here 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoYeah I can see people using these as proxies for age discrimination
- pjmlp 3mo 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.
- mcv 3mo agoYeah, I was recently asked to do a coding assignment for a company I wasn't even sure I wanted to work for. Sorry, but I'm not going to start an interview process with extra work. I'd do it if I was really sure I wanted to work there, but that's something I discover during the interview process.
- paulcole 3mo agoI think those questions are good ways to assess open mindedness, estimation, and verbal communication skills. There are other ways to assess those skills, sure. But questions like that aren’t bad ways.
- TheDong 3mo agoThings that open-ended are ripe for abuse, which is to say when you have a team of white techbros, guess which candidates get high marks on these ad-hoc questions?
- phoghed 3mo agoHot Asian milfs?
- paulcole 3mo agoFrom the comment I was replying to: > 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 This person is close minded and is filtering themselves out of the process. This is ideal. Are you saying you’re against all open-ended questions in the interview process?
- pjmlp 3mo agoIdeal would be if the questions are actually job related, how many other professions do you think get these kind of stupid questions? Since we are it, lets make Jeopardy for getting a job.
- rel_ic 3mo agoCompanies are groups of people behaving a certain way, and jobs are behaving that way. As an outsider, you don't know what the job is. If the interview is a bunch of questions you think is stupid, then the job is probably doing a bunch of stuff you think is stupid. If you want the money and prestige anyway, then learn to do the stupid stuff.
- pelagicAustral 3mo agoSee how you fare with these: https://subway-kann.exe.xyz/ https://subway-kann.exe.xyz/
- GrumpyYoungMan 3mo agoHaving had to estimate peak user traffic patterns, bandwidth usage, etc. for continent-scale services, Fermi estimation questions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem) are excellent questions for people working at the largest scales. Even if the guessed inputs or formula for the estimate are imperfect, being able to bang out an approximate formula that can brought out for discussion with peers and refined into something that can be agreed upon as a target is extremely valuable. It's not a useful skill for everyone but for those aspiring to be more than a mere coder, it's worth knowing.
- Tangurena2 3mo agoYears ago, I read a book titled How Would You Move Mount Fuji? [0] about the cult of Fermi Questions [1]. These are questions where you're looking for an order of magnitude. The cult of Fermi Questions in Silicon Valley started with William Shockley [2] using them in interviews. Several of his smart dudes quit to start companies you may have heard of like Intel, AMD & Fairchild [3]. Notes: 0 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316778494 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316778494 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem And not the question Where are they? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Same guy. At the same Los Alamos. 2 - You know, the guy who got a Nobel Prize for inventing transistors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
- pjmlp 3mo agoNot everyone dreams to found the next unicorn, real life for most of us isn't the Silicon Valley TV series. Just like not every cook wants to be a Michelin star with molecular cuisine, a tiny food drop in the middle of a gigantic plate.
- modeless 3mo agoOh yeah the estimation problems are terrible. The probability ones are at least notionally trying to test your math skills. But still pretty far from being relevant in almost all cases.