I have worked at real jobs in the past surrounded by people that were possibly the biggest idiots on earth. I knew we have all wondered at one point who exactly interviewed this person next to us in the office and decided they were worth hiring. If you don’t know that person in the office, odds are you are that person everyone wonders about. I’ve never been asked a really weird question in a job interview, but I would be willing to be that many geeks have.
Mashable has a listed of the nine oddest questions that interviewees were asked when trying to land a job at a tech firm in 2011. Some of them are really strange. It’s easy enough to figure out that what the interviewers are trying to do is throw the candidates off and get a real answer rather than something they have been practicing for a while.
Google reportedly asked one person at an interview, “A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?” I would wager he ran out of gas in Vegas. Other strange questions include, one asked by Qualcomm, “Given 20 ‘destructible’ light bulbs (which break at a certain height), and a building with 100 floors, how do you determine the height that the light bulbs break?” I’d ride the elevator to the top floor with one in hand and see when it popped. Check out the other odd questions below and share your answers in the comments to see if you would be worth hiring.
“How many people are using Facebook in San Francisco at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday?” — Asked at Google, Vendor Relations Manager candidate
“If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?” — Asked at Hewlett-Packard, Product Marketing Manager candidate
“Given 20 ‘destructible’ light bulbs (which break at a certain height), and a building with 100 floors, how do you determine the height that the light bulbs break?” — Asked at Qualcomm, Engineering candidate
“How would you cure world hunger?” — Asked at Amazon.com, Software Developer candidate
“You’re in a row boat, which is in a large tank filled with water. You have an anchor on board, which you throw overboard (the chain is long enough so the anchor rests completely on the bottom of the tank). Does the water level in the tank rise or fall?” — Asked at Tesla Motors, Mechanical Engineer candidate
“Please spell ‘diverticulitis’.” — Asked at EMSI Engineering, Account Manager candidate
“You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?” — Asked at Epic Systems, Corporation Project Manager/Implementation Consultant candidate
“How do you feel about those jokers at Congress?” — Asked at Consolidated Electrical, Management Trainee candidate
“If you were a Microsoft Office program, which one would you be?” — Asked at Summit Racing Equipment, Ecommerce candidate
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