While any interviewee should be prepared to answer staple interview questions, in this market you had better be prepared to stand out and tackle the more thoughtful – and sometimes odd – questions. So as a final wrap up to 2009 and its job-related ups and downs, we have identified our Top 25 oddball interview questions from the more than 14,000 interview questions submitted by job candidates through Glassdoor.com. Enjoy!
Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions:
1. What was your best McGuyver moment? – view answers
Asked at Schlumberger. More Schlumberger Interview Questions
2. How many tennis balls are in this room and why? – view answers
Asked at Yahoo. More Yahoo Interview Questions
3. If you were a brick in a wall which brick would you be and why? – view answers
Asked at Nestle USA. More Nestle USA Interview Questions
4. How would you move Mount Fuji? – view answers
Asked at Microsoft. More Microsoft Interview Questions
5. If two cars are traveling in a two lap race on a track of any length, one going 60 mph and the other going 30mph, how fast will the slower car have to go to finish at the same car to finish at the same time? – view answers
Asked at Morgan Stanley. More Morgan Stanley Interview Questions
6. Are your parents disappointed with your career aspirations? – view answers
Asked at Fisher Investments. More Fisher Investments Interview Questions
7. Tell me how you would determine how many house painters there are in the United States? – view answers
Asked at Acquity Group. More Acquity Group Interview Questions
8. What should it cost to rent Central Park for commercial purposes? – view answers
Asked at Bain & Co. More Bain Interview Questions
9. If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it? – view answers
Asked at Apple. More Apple Interview Questions
10. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why? – view answers
Asked at Pacific Sunwear. More Pacific Sunwear Interview Questions
11. How many hair salons are there in Japan? – view answers
Asked at Boston Consulting. More BCG Interview Questions
12. If both a taxi and a limo were priced the exact same, which one would you choose? – view answers
Asked at Best Buy. More Best Buy Interview Questions
13. How to measure 9 minutes using only a 4 minute and 7 minute hourglass? – view answers
Asked at Bank of America. More BOA Interview Questions
14. What are 5 uncommon uses of a brick, not including building, layering, or a paper-weight? – view answers
Asked at Kaplan High Education. More Kaplan Higher Education Interview Questions
15. What is the probability of throwing 11 and over with 2 dices – view answers
Asked at American Airlines. More American Airlines Interview Questions
16. What is your favorite food? – view answers
Asked at Apple Store. More Apple Interview Questions
17. Say you are dead- what do you think your eulogy would say about you. – view answers
Asked at Nationwide. More Nationwide Interview Questions
18. Given a dictionary of words, how do you calculate the anagrams for a new word? – view answers
Asked at Amazon. More Amazon Interview Questions
19. How many lightbulbs are in this building? – view answers
Asked at Monitor Group. More Monitor Group Interview Questions
20. Given a square grid of numbers, considering all the numbers at the boundary as one layer and numbers just inside as another layer and so on how would you rotate each of the layers of the numbers by a given amount. – view answers
Asked at Microsoft. More Microsoft Interview Questions
21. How would you sell me eggnog in Florida in the summer? – view answers
Asked at Expedia. More Expedia Interview Questions
22. Develop an algorithm for finding the shortest distance between two words in a document. After the phone interview is over, take a few hours to develop a working example in C++ and send it to the manager. – view answers
Asked at Google. More Google Interview Questions
23. Given a fleet of 50 trucks, each with a full fuel tank and a range of 100 miles, how far can you deliver a payload? You can transfer the payload from truck to truck, and you can transfer fuel from truck to truck. Extend your answer for n trucks. – view answers
Asked at Palantir. More Palantir Interview Questions
24. You are in a room with 3 switches which correspond to 3 bulbs in another room and you don’t know which switch corresponds to which bulb. You can only enter the room with the bulbs once. You can NOT use any external equipment (power supplies, resistors, etc.). How do you find out which bulb corresponds to which switch? – view answers
Asked at Goldman Sachs. More Goldman Sachs Interview Questions
25. If you saw someone steal a quarter. Would you report it? – view answers
Asked at Amazon. More Amazon Interview Questions
Would you be prepared or ready to answer some of these questions?
You can see how others answer these and other interview questions on Glassdoor.com job interview reviews, because keep in mind that according to Glassdoor users, 45% of those who made it to the interview process did not receive an offer. In addition you may need to speak with a number of different interviewers before you reach the person who has the authority to decide who gets hired. In fact we found that in order to get an interview, 42% had to detail their past job experience through online applications, 14% discussed their background with a recruiter and 3% percent went over past professional highlights with a staffing agency.
