The big companies that like to be a difficult candidate

While Google says it is no longer keen to make trouble for candidates during interviews, it admits that the questions raised are not actually meaningful. But according to the information released by glassdoor.com users, we can still see that there are still a lot of "boring" companies still holding the "brainstorming" approach, and let's look at how big companies are making it difficult for their candidates.

1. Microsoft: How many gas stations are there in the United States?

Microsoft's senior project manager was asked to estimate the number of gas stations in the United States during the interview. How can we solve this problem? The number of petrol stations in a small town estimated to be about 30,000 people could begin, then extended to the entire United States, with a population of about 314 million, so the amount of gas stations could be inferred proportionately.

Conclusion: The number of gas stations in the United States is about 117,000. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2008, an average of 2,500 people had a gas station.

2. IBM: How would you test a calculator?

In May 2013, IBM raised the issue with its software engineer candidate.

This is a vague question, and the direction and background of the problem are rather limited. The details are as follows.

Perhaps the candidate will give the following answer:

When you perform functional testing of a calculator, you can test the accuracy of the calculator by "entering values to produce the expected data." In addition, you need to test some of the calculator's basic system functions, such as whether the power button to work properly, the removal function and so on.

According to different positions, will ask different questions, in order to be able to face a variety of exotic work interview topics answer, the interviewer may have to further into the computer world.

3. IBM: How many golf balls are there in Florida?

In an interview in May 2013, IBM raised the issue with its business experts.

To get the answer, the interviewer may try to estimate the number of people in the United States, and then the percentage of golfers who play golf, and then further infer the number of golf players used in a year. Finally, through the analysis of these data, the number of golf in Florida accounted for the proportion of the entire U.S. golf players. Remove discarded and unused balls and draw final data.

By this method, it is possible to estimate that the number of golf balls used in the United States is about 2 billion a year, and this is the final data that has been eliminated from the 100,000 golf balls that are no longer in use.

4. JPMorgan Chase: How many streetlights are there in New York?

If you're unlucky to be eliminated from an IBM interview, I suggest you not go to J.P. Morgan for an interview, the company's interview question is also about the size of the market.

The problem can be calculated from the Manhattan I. orderly line of streetlights, then the horizontal and vertical direction, followed by the number of street lights in each administrative district. Because there are five administrative districts, we need to multiply by 5.

The answer: There are about 300,000 street lights in New York.

5, Epic Bae: An apple 40 cents, a banana 60 cents, a grapefruit 80 cents. So how much does a pear cost?

Epic Bae, a healthcare company, raised the subject in an interview with its February 2013 project manager and executive advisor.

Here's a way to get the answer and feel like this is a shame:

Assuming that each vowel has a value of 20 cents, then "apple" with two vowels is worth 40 cents, and three vowel "banana" is 60 cents, and four vowels "grapefruit" Of course is 80 cents. So we can come to the answer: "Pear" is worth 40 cents.

6. Bain: Estimating the demand for U.S. team plastic bags?

This problem, if it is simply based on the traditional demographic analysis, is simply not enough. There is also a need to take into account the consumption of residential use, businesses and government units, etc. Of course, we may have to take into account the problem of the ban on plastic bags! Well, small knitting can't figure out how to do it, and I'm sure the interviewer will be surprised to get the interviewer to appease them.

However, some people have come to the answer, according to the United States, the network said that the annual demand for plastic bags in the United States 380 billion.

7, Digitas: to a coma for 30 years, just wake up people (hereinafter called awakened) describe what the Internet is?

Digitas asked their analyst interviewers to describe what they used in their daily lives.

You might think of comparing the internet with something that the awakened one has known 30 years ago, can be a scene in a sci-fi movie or something described in a book, and so on. Well, if you really can't figure out how to describe it, let your answer be humorous.

8. American Express: Which of the following data is most helpful for estimating the number of people working on the 30 floor?

1 The number of vehicles parked at the stop station;

2 The number of meals in the restaurant;

3 The number of people working on the 11 floor;

In June 2013, American Express presented the issue to its strategic analysts and testers.

If only one of the three data is available, the number of people working on the 30 floor cannot be inferred. Also consider whether the office building is located in the suburbs or the urban area, but also to guess how many people may be driving, how many people may be on the bus, or some people may be carpool to work. Otherwise, the final result cannot be inferred.

9. Morgan Stanley Investment Company: How much revenue does Starbucks in New York Times Square generate each year?

This summer, Morgan investment company analyst was asked this question during an interview.

We can first estimate the average vehicle flow per hour and average ticket consumption, multiply the data by 24, and multiply by 365. In fact, this is also a problem of market size.

The result is an average of about 1 million dollars per Starbucks. And a place in the bustling Times Square Starbucks should be twice times!

10. T3 Trading: A scientist put a bacterium in a petri dish at noon. Every minute, the bacterium can be split in Split. By one o'clock noon, the petri dish will be full. So when do bacteria fill up half the petri dishes?

For this problem, do not use exponential growth to calculate, and do not need to consider the type of bacteria, in fact, this problem is very simple. If the bacteria multiply every minute, and the whole Petri dish is at 1 o'clock, it's half full, just a minute ago.

11, Austrian latitude consulting: McDonald's in the United Kingdom how many kilograms of potatoes sold each year?

The issue is the February 2013 Austrian latitude consulting for management consultants this position proposed.

In fact, this question has nothing to do with how much you know about McDonald's or potatoes, but how you deal with the problem.

First calculate the number of McDonald's restaurants in the region, and then from each restaurant's fries or potato pie order number, as well as the number of potatoes per order to calculate the amount of potatoes required for each restaurant, of course, this requires a strong mental arithmetic ability Oh!

In 2011, McDonald's sold a total of more than 200 million kilograms of potatoes in the UK, The Telegraph reported.

12, Haina International Group: 5 people of different ages sitting on the round table, is the probability of ascending or descending order?

The following are methods for calculating probabilities:

Five persons are labeled as 1,2,3,4,5 (assuming their age is also 12345 respectively). They have five ways of arranging their positions by age: {1 2 3 4 5},{2 3 4 5 1} and so on. The five-seat method has 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1, so 5 divides (5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1) and becomes out of 1/24.

13, ZS Associates Company: You have 12 coins, one of which is not the same weight as other, there are three times to use the opportunity to measure balance to find the weight of the different one. What should I do?

This is a distortion of the classic balance problem and becomes even trickier. The key to this process is whether you have a normal coin that can be used as a reference.

The following is a solution provided by the forum.org User:

We first label the coins separately (1-12) and compare them in the following manner:

1,2,7,10 VS 3, 4, 6, 9

1,3,8,11 VS 2,5,6,7

2,3,9,12 VS 1,4,5,8

If the measurements are not equal, the weight of the 8th coin may be different.

Via:businessinsider