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You've heard of
those brain teaser questions that may well come between you and a job someday.
No matter how much you may prepare yourself for a job interview, you may never
be completely ready when that interviewer asks you why manhole covers are round.
Even that question has been asked so often by now, it's considered one of the
easy ones. Microsoft is partly to blame.
Ever since the
Seattle-based software giant made news a few years ago for asking applicants
questions like "How many golfballs does it take to fill a 747?", more and more
companies have been adding their own mindbenders to the interview mix - and it's
not just at software behemoths like Microsoft, but also at consulting firms and
investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Smith Barney. Don't feel prepared just
because you've got a bulletproof resume and have thoroughly researched the
company you're interviewing for. Be ready for something unorthodox to pop up out
of the blue.
It's how
you answer, not what you answer
It's not a matter of answering the
question "correctly" - in many cases there is no correct answer. The company
wants to know how you think. They are interested in how and why you arrive at
your answer. According to one contractor who was writing anonymously on a website
devoted to Microsoft job interviews, the interviewer "wants to know what you're
like, not what you think you should be like. While it might seem obvious that
authenticity is vital, many people still get the misguided impression that there
is a character type they must reflect."
These brain teasers
range widely in difficulty. Some of them do have actual answers. One example
is,"Calculate the number of degrees between the hour and minute hands of an
analog clock that reads 3:15." Hint: the answer is not zero. Others exist
primarily to see how creatively and elegantly you can reason under pressure, for
example, "How many gas stations are there in the United States?" While these may
involve some math, it's fairly simple stuff. The key is to show how flexible
your mind is when figuring these things out.
Take the manhole
cover question, one of the easier brain teasers out there. Why are they round?
Don't panic. Consider the question from different angles. You might answer that
manhole covers are round because it makes them easier for one person to move
them around by rolling them on one side. They might be round because if the
manholes were, say, square - or for that matter, any shape other than a circle -
they could easily drop through the hole. This is the orthodox "right" answer to
the manhole question. Another popular answer to this is that the round covers
don't need to be rotated to fit over the hole they're covering, as square ones
would.
Or consider this:
What's the size of the market for disposable diapers in China? Start big and
take this brain teaser one mathematical step at a time. Estimate how many people
live in China and pick a percentage of that number that would represent Chinese
people of child-bearing age. Divide that number in half to get the number of
Chinese women of childbearing age. Assume a percentage of those women
have children, a fraction of whom are under two years old. Recall that on
average, Chinese families tend to have only one child. Plug in the numbers and
do the math.
The number may not
be the precise answer, but the logic you use to get it shows the interviewer
that you know how to think. The trick is to use big, round numbers that are easy
to add, subtract, multiply, and divide on the fly. By showing the interviewer
that you can think on your feet, you'll begin to demonstrate that you'll be a
solid problem-solver as an employee.
-
Brian Braiker, Salary.com contributor
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