How do you answer questions in interviews for which you think, they are senseless?

Question

I am mentioning a few questions which are usually the part of interviews, I dont understand what is the intent behind then. Of course one might argue, just to see how you think, or how you react, but isn't it better if you ask a more meaningful puzzle, at least for which you can be sure of answer, or justify unanimously. For example, see this bulb puzzle:

a meaningful puzzle: a closed room has three lightbulbs, and outside the room you have 3 switches, one for each bulb, but you do not know which switch is for which bulb. Find out which one is for which, you cannot open the door, only once when you have the answer.

Well, the crown jewels according to me in the category of meaningless are:

• A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?
• How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?
• You have to get from point A to point B. You don’t know if you can get there. What would you do?
• How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
• You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

What is best strategy to answer in such cases?

Addendum -- An excerpt from Nikesh Arora's (President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development for Google Inc.) interview --

" I was travelling with Larry, on a plane on a clear day, and looking at the landmass below he was calculating how long it would a fleet of cars to map every mile of every road in the US -- perhaps 500 cars in sex months or thousand cars in the 3 months? Thats how his mind works. thats's how Google Street View was born..."

I am sure i would have turned down a thought like that. s hit me!!!

Answer 1

The best strategy is to ask questions if you don't understand what the question means, and explain in detail your thought process. This is exactly what the interviewer is looking for. It usually doesn't even matter if you get the right answer on this type of question, as long as you come up with a reasonable answer and a solid problem-solving thought process.

Answer 2

The best answer is to tell them exactly what you are thinking through your entire process of answering the question. Saying 30,000 to the number of golf balls that can fit on a bus, as an example, and providing no further insight will not help the employer get a sense of how you think and will seem meaningless as a question.

Try to respond to each question to the best of your ability and do not shrug off the questions, as that could be viewed as simply being uninterested in problems you do not care about (which can be viewed as bad!)

Answer 3

Don't get hassled, answer them with good humor. Try to talk your way through the problem, e.g. for the golf ball problem - 'assume each golf ball is 1.5 inches, assume bus is 50 ft x 8 ft', etc. Crack a joke about your shitty assumptions, if they're the sort who'll take a joke. And relax, it's probably stressful for the interviewers too, after all they probably have better things to do.

Answer 4

Some of your "meaningless questions" are actually known as Fermi Problems, and can not only be fun, but show that you can derive an accurate estimate quickly using known quantities.

http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir0/fermi_questions.html

Answer 5

And ofcourse for pals who are thinking about the bulb puzzle what is the solution, it below mentioned.

the answer to blub puzzle... - leave switch-1 on for a while. - switch it off now (switch-1) - keep Switch-2 ON - open the door go in

Now,
- the bulb which is on is the bulb corresponding to Switch-2.
- try to reach the one of the off bulbs, one which is warm but off, if the bulb corresponding to switch-1.
- the last one off and cold, is corresponding the switch-3.

I was once re-questioned by interviews, see you have problem here, you assumed that the bulbs are reachable, in case they are not what do you do?
I Just said, take a glass of water and throw on each of the off bulbs, the off+warm(switch-1) bulb will blow-up (break). of course further assumptions can be made, but still the point is clear. We can think reasonable/logical here... but how do you tackle question, which are absolutely senseless to you.

Answer 6

Those meaning less questions are towards making you ask the right things to get towards a solution. There is such a thing as an incomplete problem-statement. If you cannot cross the primary hurdle of asking the correct questions that will complete the problem definition, you cannot even start towards the solution.

Many problems (like the 3-switch example here) appear very interesting and analytical to your mind.
That is because it has grasped almost all the necessary parameters of the problem.
But, what happens when you see an incompletely defined problem, do you just move ahead -- next-question-please -- or, do you dwell into it to probe those parts which if you knew, would help you figure out what is to be solved.

To take an example -- estimating number of piano tuners, is a classic Fermi problem

Fermi was known for his ability to make good approximate calculations with little or no actual data, hence the name. One well-documented example is his estimate of the strength of the atomic bomb detonated at the Trinity test, based on the distance traveled by pieces of paper dropped from his hand during the blast.[1] Fermi's estimate of 10 kilotons of TNT was remarkably close to the now-accepted value of around 20 kilotons.

The classic Fermi problem, generally attributed to Fermi,[2] is "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?" A typical solution to this problem would involve multiplying together a series of estimates that would yield the correct answer if the estimates were correct.

Having said all this, I do agree that there will be interviewers who ask such questions from popular interview guide books without understanding any basis for them. To that extent, it might be better to leave such things out of an interview.

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Here is Jeff's take on The Hardest Interview Puzzle Question Ever.
And, don't miss his back reference On Interviewing Programmers there.

Hiring is difficult under the best of conditions. But an interview process that relies too heavily on puzzle questions is risky. Sure, you may end up with programmers who can solve (or memorize, I guess) the absolute gnarliest puzzle questions you throw at them. But isn't effectively communicating those solutions to the rest of the team important, too? For many programmers, that's the hardest part of the puzzle.

Answer 7

Some of the "puzzle" type of questions are discussed in How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, which was sufficiently popular that you shouldn't be caught off guard if some of the questions from it appear in an interview.

Answer 8

If you feel they are senseless questions and they base your hiring on them, do you really want to work for this company?

Unless you really want the job at all costs, ask them how this helps them in the hiring process. Otherwise, just answer the best you can.

Answer 9

You can probably count good piano tuners with one hand. It is not easy at all.

Answer 10

With that sort of questions an employer wants to test your way of thinking. Can you communicate your thoughts to others? Are you creative? Can you do basic calculations?

You should give different types of answers depending on the question:

• if the question is type of fun ("A man pushed his car...") there is no true or false, just answer something that makes sense, something funny or something creative. No silence, say what you are thinking

• if the question is type of guesstimate ("How many golf balls...") there is no true or false either, but you should get to a reasonable number. Typically this involves some basic calculations and some reasonable assumptions. Be structured and talk while you are thinking. Train this before the interview! Ask your friends to help you.

• if the question is type of unclear/idiotic assume positive intent and ask what the question means.

And prepare the basics... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gww2vrIhjeU

Answer 11

THis questions are intended to see how prompt you handle unusual situations. In other words, they check how quick you are to solve a problem.. e.g. if they ask you

How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

then give him a figure say 20,000 and stick to that no. if he asks how could you tell the exact figure then you can simply say you can verify it. Its nothing but simple way to check the person's alertness and smartness.