101–110 of 145 posts
I thought it was funny that the link she gave to "15 Google Interview Questions That Will Make You Feel Stupid" has wrong answers in the solutions. See if you can beat their answer for the two egg problem - Bonus prove your answer is actually the minimum possible.
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From the Googler: “You lost me at the ‘only clicking on ¼ of the ads’ comment. Let’s move on.” Yes, indeed. Someone who has a slightest clue about the whole stuff just can't say 1/4 of users will click an ad in Gmail. I am sorry for her, but that is just so off...
I know it's anecdotal, but I've never clicked on an ad in gmail. (to be fair she said that all users will click on 1/4 of the ads presented to them, not '1/4 of users will click on an ad')
That's even worse: she assumed that 4 ads would be presented per e-mail, so the CTR would be 100% per e-mail.
That's beyond absurd.
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To be honest, a moderately intelligent 5th grader could have answered that question about the 10 cents per ad. I know that math isn't her field, but on some level one is expected to be well rounded.
I've taught some very intillegent third graders. No. No they wouldn't have under the time constraints and pressures. People blank with pressure. The first thing the interviewer should do is lay off the pressure not turn it on. Seniors and Out of Job People tend to freak. First easy thing to do which isn't describe. Tell the person to sit down with a pen and paper. And then talk about the why and how. That was the dem…
Even at Google, a job is not a vacation. Wanting to hire people who react well under pressure is completely valid.
The mistake, which is not at all unique to Google, is to think that "high pressure interrogation at a job interview" is usefully similar to the kind of pressure that might occur on the job. For some jobs it will be. For many others, it's completely different.
Compare these scenarios: "QA just found a huge, unexpected performance problem in this server application and no one knows what's causing it. The application goes live in 48 hours and you and your team have until then to make it handle ten thousand times as many users as it does now." vs. "You just landed after a 10-hour flight and will be meeting a major potential customer in 30 minutes. TSA blew up your laptop because it looked suspicious and the airline sent your luggage to Albuquerque so instead of a carefully-prepared presentation all you have are a couple index cards with vague notes about the product. If you don't make a sale, your company will be bankrupt in a week."
I worked for Google for a few years, and did a lot of phone screens. Most of the people who I interviewed probably felt the same way as this lady. The process may seem brutal, but it is impossible to invite everyone in for an on-site interview, and the phone screen does a pretty good job of filtering out the definite nos (although I'm sure that some good candidates are rejected). I could count the number of people wh…
I can't stand talking to people from companies like Google, they're always so smug and judgmental like that. Part of my decision to drop out of the job market and focus full-time on my company (to pretty reasonable success this year) is because I like being paid based on a judgement of my work/products, rather than some half-assed assessment of me as a person made in an interview.
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To be honest, a moderately intelligent 5th grader could have answered that question about the 10 cents per ad. I know that math isn't her field, but on some level one is expected to be well rounded.
I've taught some very intillegent third graders. No. No they wouldn't have under the time constraints and pressures. People blank with pressure. The first thing the interviewer should do is lay off the pressure not turn it on. Seniors and Out of Job People tend to freak. First easy thing to do which isn't describe. Tell the person to sit down with a pen and paper. And then talk about the why and how. That was the dem…
But the sort of quick estimation skill necessary for these interview questions is really important. There've been countless meetings when someone (often me) has proposed a solution and I've done some quick mental math calculations only to find out that it just won't work. It's really valuable to get those calculations done in a minute so that you can brainstorm new ideas, rather than waiting until after the meeting when you probably just won't do the math at all.
And this is something that I really wish schools taught more of. Being able to get a quick, mostly-right-but-slightly-wrong answer, and being able to tell what ways your answer is wrong, is probably more important than being able to come up with exact answers or parrot back the formulas you supposedly memorize.
This wasn't an interview, it was a test. I had a similar experience with a startup. I was interviewing for a Marketing Communications Manager position. Essentially PR. One of the unofficial interviewers (at 24 year old MIT engineer working as an email marketer) challenged me with the question "How many barbers are in San Francisco?" We proceeded to map it out the analytical process on the whiteboard. He wanted to see…
I don't think this is such a terrible thing, although clearly this adversarial approach to testing ideas isn't for you, or everyone. Enrico Fermi used to challenge grad students with similar questions, the famous example being 'how many piano tuners in Chicago?'. I don't think it's a stupid or impossible question, but one that seeks to establish how you go about estimating tricky things and thus identifying fruitful…
A number out of your ass - regardless of how soundly backed with logic - is at the end of the day a number out of your ass. This isn't to say that all inference or estimation is bad - but rather that estimations done in a complete void of background data is practically useless.
A more concrete example: estimate the number of users our chief competitor has. I can go through this like a logic puzzle and come up with a number that has zero verifiability... or I can go look up relevant data (their page rank on Google, other available metrics on their site, etc) and arrive at a far better conclusion.
I agree with the GP that these exercises are pointless and unrelated to the job for which you are interviewing. As a traditionally educated engineer, my training teaches me not to guess whenever facts are available. Don't try to memorize and infer numbers - keep your references within reach at all times. An engineer who makes few assumptions about his data is one who makes fewer mistakes and costs less money in damage.
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On the other hand, specific data about actual click-through rates, number of users, number of ad impressions, etc. would be required input to any reasonable approach for such judgement. Data, that is, not guesses. Estimates without ballpark cultural knowledge are also just guesses. For my own part, never having bought Google ads, nor having displayed them, I would rather estimate no more than 1% of people would click…
You'll have hard data on your own products, but you can still only make guesses about your competitors' products, your complements, and other variables in the marketplace. Joining a company doesn't eliminate uncertainty, it just shifts the uncertainty from that company's numbers to everyone else's numbers.
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To be honest, a moderately intelligent 5th grader could have answered that question about the 10 cents per ad. I know that math isn't her field, but on some level one is expected to be well rounded.
I've taught some very intillegent third graders. No. No they wouldn't have under the time constraints and pressures. People blank with pressure. The first thing the interviewer should do is lay off the pressure not turn it on. Seniors and Out of Job People tend to freak. First easy thing to do which isn't describe. Tell the person to sit down with a pen and paper. And then talk about the why and how. That was the dem…
If I was at a job interview and was asked these sort of puzzles, I wouldn't feel under pressure. Instead I'd think "Cool, I like solving puzzles! And I'm good at it too so this is a chance to make a good impression." Maybe Google are looking for potential employees with that attitude?
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I can't stand talking to people from companies like Google, they're always so smug and judgmental like that. Part of my decision to drop out of the job market and focus full-time on my company (to pretty reasonable success this year) is because I like being paid based on a judgement of my work/products, rather than some half-assed assessment of me as a person made in an interview.
I bet the commenter above would prefer to be judged on his accomplishments as an interviewer, rather than some half-assed assessment of him as a person made in a comment.
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Yeah, it's easy. When you deal with logic problems all day. Or if you're used to solving problems in your head. Personally, I solved it easily in my head. But, I had to read the problem the first time, then read it again slowly getting all the numbers into the proper places in my head. An interview is a stressful place, so easy things can get a lot harder.
She spent 5 minutes on it, 5 Minutes...