Crazy Questions at Google Job Interview

I got an offer from Bloomberg right out of college before going to my masters. The last interview was fairly grilling, in a social way, not technical questions.<p>The hardest question after I mentioned my interests in business was why I wouldn't start a company right after getting a job. At the time I answered truthfully: I thought I needed experience at a real job before knowing what it takes to start a company.<p>Since then, I'm convinced I could have had a fair shot at success by starting a company on the spot.<p>So the biggest question I would be asking if I were Google: why don't you want to work for yourself right away?

Google is like Microsoft 20 years ago. Everybody should read "How Would You Move Mount Fuji" -- a detailed book on the topic of IQ, puzzles, and job interviews.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/0316778494/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4092533-0204619?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1190087721&#38;sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/031677849...</a><p>Microsoft has, of late, moved away from these sorts of questions because they don't really translate into job performance, from what I understand. ;)

I heard a funny one about someone who created a popular programming language and now works for a large company (not Guido/Google, sorry), from the horse's mouth: <p>After a few of these questions, he stops the interviewer and says - listen, you guys are interested in Flub, and use Flub a lot - do you want to hire me, or not?

The parting line confirms my suspicion that marketing and SEO types secretly worship/unconsciously patronize Googlers and their ilk. Frankly, I don't care whether or not I have what it takes to work at Google.

oh, man. i HATE questions like this. i know they're checking to see if you're game and up for a hard challenge, but personally i'm just thinking that they want to make me dance, and my brain rebels at such shenanigans. most of the smart people i know love to dig into challenges like this, and i'm sad that i don't. as much as i'd like to work at google, i think questions like this would cause me to get up and walk out of the interview.

Here's another version of #9: <a href="http://www.xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html</a>

Am I missing something obvious about #14? Or is it something dumb like "Don't tell your friend when your birthday is"?

Some of these questions are simply stupid. I mean, if I'd be shrunk to the size of a nickel, I would have bigger problems than imminent blending. Assuming constant cell size, which cells would I lose? Or do they shrink the atoms too? Wouldn't the required pressure needed to pump blood through my veins go up? Terrible, terrible question (for computer scientists at least, might be great for biologists).<p>But I think 9, 13 and 16 are predictive of certain logic skills that you'd need for e.g. debugging. I hate to say that I failed 13 - the answer is so simple.

Makes me tip my head. In what way does it help Google HR evaluate talent by answering these questions? Curious...

I'm curious as to how long you'd have to answer all these. Many are pretty fun to think about, but I'd be pissed if they only gave me 60 seconds to answer some of them.

My response to a lot of these would be to ask the interviewer if he was joking.<p>There is absolutely no value in making wild-ass guesses about window washing costs and global piano ownership. Who cares.<p>The pirates would divide up the money equitably because game theory is full of shit and that's not how people think, or pirates vote.<p>Likewise, nothing happens in the cheating village cause who wants to be the rat? Or they conspire and pin it on an asshole.<p>It's very hard to find a shirt? You have too many shirts. Give some to goodwill. Only a queer would have a shirt organization system.