Were you asked any logic riddles in job interviews?
Are you usually asking riddles in job interviews?
What are they, and what are the answers?
I was asked once how can you divide evenly 5 apples to 6 people without dividing any apple to 1/6 (or 1/12 or 1/18 etc.).
(Would love to hear answers in the comments, I'm not sure my answer was the best)
You can read the article Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles! on TheDailyWTF. The comments in that post will also provide you with a lot of insight. All of them seem to conclude that riddles in a job interview are a bad idea, because people who are good at answering riddles, are not necessarily good programmers.
On the other hand, When I interviewed for my current job, my would be boss asked me one or two riddle type questions ("How many people do you think pass through the local airport each day?" being the only one I remember), but it was more to see how I went about solving problems than whether or not I arrived at the correct answer.
Yes riddles areasked in job interviews to check the smartness and problem solving ability of the candidate.
For sites are mentioned below where you can find more riddles for job-interview:
According to this PDF
http://extension.usu.edu/aitc/lessons/pdf/apple_science.pdf
How can you evenly divide 6 apples among 7 people?
Make applesauce.
This would drive any logical person mad.
Was reminded of another riddle: A plane leaves NY to LA (for the sake of the question, its 500 miles) at 500 mph. At the same time, a bird leaves LA to NY at 1000 mph. Everytime the bird reaches the plane -> it returns to LA, every time it reaches LA -> it goes back towards the plane etc.
The question was, what will be the distance covered by the bird by the time the plane reaches LA.
Check out How Would You Move Mt Fuji: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle it explains some of the common types of puzzles in use and the best ways to approach problems like that. Also explains about the background of these types of puzzle and why HR people like to use them.
Basically, they test your ability to think laterally rather than give up on what appears to be an impossible situation. This means questioning initial assumptions, thinking about information in an abstract way, breaking a problem down logically and then explaining your reasoning. The key thing to remember is that there usually is a way to solve the puzzle correctly; if there isn't - like the Mt Fuji example or the "How many piano tuners are there in the world.." - then they are just curious about how you would logically approach the problem anyway. Put yourself in the hypothetical situation. Where do you start, what can you base your estimation on?
If the puzzle does have a correct answer, you have been given all the information you need to solve it. Think carefully about the wording of the puzzle and how you might extract information from the particular scenario you have been given - if Mt Fuji, for example, why that mountain in particular? What is distinguishing about that mountain that could make it easier or harder to estimate how you would move it? Where could you move it to, and how long would that take?
There are a number of sites around that try to compile lists of the puzzles asked by Microsoft that you could find by Googling or someone will paste the links. If I was interviewing for Microsoft I would definitely want to study those questions.
Since everyone is talking about the microsoft cult of riddles and I did a pretty fun Google interview I will throw this in.
Question 1: How would you find all road intersections in America without using any mathematics API's (just plain C) ?
Question 2: Suppose you had a very big graphics texture and you built all levels of mip-maps what would be the total size of your mipmapped texture ?
Question 3: How would you count all the words in the internet ?
Question 4: Do you have any questions for me ? - I asked what kind of car do you drive ?
Friend's question from his interview:
You have a deep golf-hole, 3 feet deep. How will you rescue the ball without using anything but your body? (For the sake of the question, you can spend 24 hours next to the hole but then you REALLY have to go home, with or without the ball).
Apparently, the solution he suggested was to pee in the hole several times until the golf ball emerges. As disgusting as it sounds, I think it'll work..
I think a good tech riddle is to ask how the NES Duckhunt gun works.
Here's what I got in my interview:
You have a bottle of unknown size and shape. You also have a marker.
You need to figure out where is the exact middle of the liquid.
I didn't know the answer but the interviewer told me the answer: apparently, you're supposed to flip the bottle upside down and if it's the exact same position it was before - it's the middle. (no matter what the shape of the bottle it). For that, you need the marker...
I've been asked riddles in interviews once or perhaps twice, but none of them were very clever. Personally, I've been asked the FizzBuzz question as many times as any given riddle.
Trying to know the right answer to the riddle beforehand isn't gonna get you too far. The odds of you knowing the "right" answer to your first real assignment after they hire you are even less likely.
HOw about you give each person nothing. Yay! That's even and you didn't have to divide anything.