Ready for your close up?
I’m not sure if the following sample interview questions make me more or less excited about ever wanting to get back in the job market but they definitely make me want to be the dude who sits and asks the questions. Wow. OK, tell me about your strengths and weaknesses? No way. Too easy. Take a look at these and start sweating. (Oh, and by the way, if you want to read a few of the answers that interviewees shared as well as the other questions that these companies typically ask then check out www.glassdoor.com).
1. “If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?” – Asked at Goldman Sachs.
2. “How many ridges [are there] around a quarter?” – Asked at Deloitte.
3. “What is the philosophy of Martial Arts?” – Asked at
4. “Explain [to] me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years.” – Asked at Boston Consulting.
5. “Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are.” – Asked at Capital One.
6. “How many basketball[s] can you fit in this room” – Asked at
7. “Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?” – Asked at
8. “If you could be any
9. “You have a birthday cake and have exactly 3 slices to cut it into 8 equal pieces. How do you do it?” – Asked at
10. “Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum numbers guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint “higher” or “lower” for each guess you make.” – Asked at
11. “If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?” – Asked at Amazon.
12. “An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?” – Asked at Epic Systems.
13. “There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?” – Asked at Apple.
14. “How many
15. “You are in a dark room with no light. You need matching socks for your interview and you have 19 gray socks and 25 black socks. What are the chances you will get a matching pair? “ – Asked at Eze Castle.
16. “What do wood and alcohol have in common?” – Asked at Guardsmark.
17. “How do you weigh an elephant without using a weigh machine?” – Asked at IBM.
18. “You have 8 pennies, 7 weight the same, one weighs less. You also have a judge’s scale. Find the one that weighs less in less than 3 steps.” – Asked at Intel.
19. “Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $150K?” – Asked at New York Life.
20. “You are in charge of 20 people, organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year.” – Asked at
21. “How many bottles of beer are drank in the city over the week.” – Asked at The Nielsen Company.
22. “What’s the square root of 2000?” – Asked at UBS.
23. “A train leaves San Antonio for Huston at 60mph. Another train leaves Huston for San Antonio at 80mph. Huston and San Antonio are 300 miles apart. If a bird leaves San Antonio at 100mph, and turns around and flies back once it reaches the Huston train, and continues to fly between the two, how far will it have flown when they collide.”- Asked at USAA.
24. “How are M&M’s made?” – Asked at US Bank.
25. “What would you do if you just inherit a pizzeria from your uncle?” – Asked at Volkswagen.
Here’s the link to the questions, answers and overviews of interviews (http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/top-25-oddball-interview-questions-2010/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=news-jan11u-top25&utm_campaign=news-jan11u).
Bye.
