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I'm sure you'd get a higher pass rate if you just asked for the expected value of rolling a die. People most likely don't pass because they don't realize that's

by nilkn 11y ago

I'm sure you'd get a higher pass rate if you just asked for the expected value of rolling a die. People most likely don't pass because they don't realize that's what you're looking for. The question is phrased in a more confusing way. You have to realize that what the question really means is more like this: if you were able to play this game repeatedly, what's the most you'd be willing to pay for each time so that you don't lose money on average over time? For what it's worth, simply asking "how much" you'd be willing to pay is fairly confusing, because ideally you wouldn't pay anything. This isn't astoundingly hard or anything, but anytime the candidate has to "rewrite" the question the pass rate is going to go down. I'd recommend setting it up as a carnival game and phrasing it from the perspective of the carnival, not the player. Ask for the minimum price the carnival needs to charge so that they can be confident they at least won't lose money on average over time.

bloaf 11y ago
If the person's job is going to be taking well defined problems like "find the expected value of x" and solving them, I'd rather buy software. I would actually want an interview to weed out people who were unable to re-parse confusing real world input, like that problem. I would want employees who could, as a matter of course, take a somewhat ambiguous situation, choose relevant tools (e.g. expected value,) and render a judgment.
- nilkn 11y ago
  Sure, that's fair, but lordnacho has not specified exactly what he means when he says that the candidates failed. Did they just sit there blank, completely stunned? Did they ask any questions at all? We also do not know his interviewing style. Some interviewers are very averse to clarifying the problem, which will backfire big time with a question like this.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  Asking an imprecisely worded question is sometimes a good way of weeding out people who expect every little requirement defined up front before they work on a problem. Any idiot can say, "ERROR. Your question was worded ambiguously, please re-state with more detail." Often the better candidate is willing to ask clarifying questions and/or make (and state) reasonable assumptions and move on.
notahacker 11y ago
Absolutely. In fact, if I was running a hedge fund I'd definitely not want to hire the person that without hesitation signalled willingness to pay the EV of the dice roll: i.e. a person that when offered an opportunity to speculate with the potential for profit and no certainty about the ask price or their own risk tolerance, instantly bids at a price which makes the speculation a zero-sum gamble. I'm assuming some of the relatively smart candidates that don't leap at the answer are pondering whether they should ask about the interviewer about risk aversion, Sharpe ratios etc, or whether that's a trap and they're supposed to make inferences about a measure of risk adjustment based on the known distribution of dice outcomes. Of course, their over-thinking of the problem would help them rather than harm them if they talked through the problem, but people tend to go very quiet when they're convinced they're under more pressure than they actually are.

by nilkn 11y ago

bloaf 11y ago

If the person's job is going to be taking well defined problems like "find the expected value of x" and solving them, I'd rather buy software. I would actually want an interview to weed out people who were unable to re-parse confusing real world input, like that problem. I would want employees who could, as a matter of course, take a somewhat ambiguous situation, choose relevant tools (e.g. expected value,) and render a judgment.

nilkn 11y ago
Sure, that's fair, but lordnacho has not specified exactly what he means when he says that the candidates failed. Did they just sit there blank, completely stunned? Did they ask any questions at all? We also do not know his interviewing style. Some interviewers are very averse to clarifying the problem, which will backfire big time with a question like this.
ryandrake 11y ago
Asking an imprecisely worded question is sometimes a good way of weeding out people who expect every little requirement defined up front before they work on a problem. Any idiot can say, "ERROR. Your question was worded ambiguously, please re-state with more detail." Often the better candidate is willing to ask clarifying questions and/or make (and state) reasonable assumptions and move on.

notahacker 11y ago

Absolutely. In fact, if I was running a hedge fund I'd definitely not want to hire the person that without hesitation signalled willingness to pay the EV of the dice roll: i.e. a person that when offered an opportunity to speculate with the potential for profit and no certainty about the ask price or their own risk tolerance, instantly bids at a price which makes the speculation a zero-sum gamble. I'm assuming some of the relatively smart candidates that don't leap at the answer are pondering whether they should ask about the interviewer about risk aversion, Sharpe ratios etc, or whether that's a trap and they're supposed to make inferences about a measure of risk adjustment based on the known distribution of dice outcomes. Of course, their over-thinking of the problem would help them rather than harm them if they talked through the problem, but people tend to go very quiet when they're convinced they're under more pressure than they actually are.