At one interview I was given the 3 bags with black, white, and mixed marbles puzzle and they listened as I talked through my answer. When my first conclusion was too high they asked if I was sure and if I could do it with less. Took a few minutes but I eventually got it.
. On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 1:31 PM, Judah McAuley <ju...@wiredotter.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Michael Dinowitz > <mdino...@houseoffusion.com> wrote: >> If I was interviewing someone, the skills I'd be looking for other than >> language would be: >> how fast can they find a viable solution through knowledge, research or >> experimentation >> how fast they can see that they are on the wrong path or are mistaken >> about something >> How well they adapt to new situations and learn new things >> > > On another interview we did a year or two ago, my coworker and I were > both sitting in as part of a group interview. One person asked this > guy, Support position if I recall, "How many gas stations are their in > the US?" > > It is a fairly classic reasoning question. No one is expected to know > the answer off the top of their head. Instead, you look for how they > tackle the question when they don't know the answer. After the > interview (which the guy did kind of meh on), we sat around and > discussed how the interview went and also discussed that question. It > was interesting to see how different people approach it. > > I had a logic and reasoning route, starting at a guess for how many > stations are roughly in my area, extrapolating up to the population of > my city, then extrapolating from there to the population of the US. I > later also did a google search because I wanted to know more precisely > and found a report from a petroleum industry association. > > My coworker went to Google maps, did a search for "gas station", then > zoomed out to the level of the United States. > > He's really damn smart, btw. And our different ways of answering the > question all came to within a pretty reasonable agreement with one > another. Cool stuff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:331866 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
