3 ms·

I think it has to do with how you phrase the question. People go to job interviews knowing that they're going to be tested for their knowledge, and phrasing the

by tinco 14y ago

I think it has to do with how you phrase the question. People go to job interviews knowing that they're going to be tested for their knowledge, and phrasing the question like that triggers a "how am I supposed to know that?" response. But you're not actually asking them to know it, you're asking them to reason about it. So perhaps instead of asking "How many gas stations do you think are in this town?" try asking "Could you give me a reasonable estimate of the amount of gas stations in this town?". I think a lot of people just lock up when they're asked something they don't know in a synthetic situation even when in a real situation they would actually make very good judgements since in any real situation the context is often so much more clear, unless you like to keep your employees in the dark..

Terretta 14y ago
> I think a lot of people just lock up when they're asked something they don't know in a synthetic situation even when in a real situation they would actually make very good judgements since in any real situation the context is often so much more clear, unless you like to keep your employees in the dark. I've had that mental block happen, not when asked to estimate something like balloons in a gym, but when asked to estimate something I knew for a fact was a single search query away. I was asked, "So how many travelers or trips in the US each year?" Googling "how many travelers in us" gives http://www.ustravel.org/news/press-kit/travel-facts-and-statistics http://www.ustravel.org/news/press-kit/travel-facts-and-stat... as the top result. Knowing this is that kind of data, I was unable to put myself in a frame of mind to make believe reasoning through it. The interviewer told me to just pretend we were white boarding a marketing plan for a travel tool. I pointed out that in such white boarding or brainstorming conversations, someone would look that data point up because it's obvious a lookup would be more quickly available and more accurate than running through a Fermi style reasoning chain. Partly because the best developers are "lazy", morally opposed to reinvention of wheels, your point about performance in a synthetic situation is dead on.

by tinco 14y ago

Terretta 14y ago

> I think a lot of people just lock up when they're asked something they don't know in a synthetic situation even when in a real situation they would actually make very good judgements since in any real situation the context is often so much more clear, unless you like to keep your employees in the dark. I've had that mental block happen, not when asked to estimate something like balloons in a gym, but when asked to estimate something I knew for a fact was a single search query away. I was asked, "So how many travelers or trips in the US each year?" Googling "how many travelers in us" gives http://www.ustravel.org/news/press-kit/travel-facts-and-statistics http://www.ustravel.org/news/press-kit/travel-facts-and-stat... as the top result. Knowing this is that kind of data, I was unable to put myself in a frame of mind to make believe reasoning through it. The interviewer told me to just pretend we were white boarding a marketing plan for a travel tool. I pointed out that in such white boarding or brainstorming conversations, someone would look that data point up because it's obvious a lookup would be more quickly available and more accurate than running through a Fermi style reasoning chain. Partly because the best developers are "lazy", morally opposed to reinvention of wheels, your point about performance in a synthetic situation is dead on.