Silicon Republic has a story about strange interview questions asked by some of the most highly rated companies in the world. You know: the “why are manholes round?” (not all are!) and “how many golf balls can you put in a mini?” (why are you wasting your employers time putting golf balls in a car?”).
Here’s how I would respond to such a question in an interview …
“Why are you wasting my time? Thank you. Good bye”. And I might just blog and tell the story to everyone I know too … *evil laugh*
Missing the point if the questions. Its about understanding how you think. I think we test way too much on what people know and not nearly enough on how they work through problems and acquire new knowledge.
Am I a fan of those exact questions? No. I like having folks design a machine to coat M&Ms… 🙂 In other words, I get them to solve an engineering problem that is in a completely different domain.
Hey Josh,
Agreed with the concept of different questions. I actually like using a problem/solution style of question where there is no fix to the problem – I keep responding with “that doesn’t fix it, what would you try next?”. That explores who the person thinks, how they’ll work, etc.
Now back to the important subject: how many M&Ms exactly, and are the the peanut ones?