Odd interview exchange, what should I do?

[EMY]



Sometimes you can give a smartass answer and risk it if you think they have a sense of humor. At my last interview one of the guys asked "How many total fish in the world are there in the sea" and I just said "well based on fishing trip last summer I can honestly tell you there are no fish in the sea".....lol he just looked at me and no I didn't get the job

I was thinking about something similar to this but i now know it probably wouldn't work.

*End of interview*
"Do you have any questions?"
"Yes, when can I start?"

 

[Reggs]



agree with that... i have been on a few interview boards and people get picked or passed over for some random reasons... no point going insane over it unless you are constantly f***ing up...

In college I had one teacher who would interview part time teachers. He said he would begin every interview by offering the interviewee a drink. If they accepted a drink, they lost their chance because "I want people who come here for a job, not to drink."

I always thought that was an awful reason to veto someone, but I've never once accepted a drink at an interview.

 

[CYstyle]



In college I had one teacher who would interview part time teachers. He said he would begin every interview by offering the interviewee a drink. If they accepted a drink, they lost their chance because "I want people who come here for a job, not to drink."
I always thought that was an awful reason to veto someone, but I've never once accepted a drink at an interview.

******* asshole should never be in charge of interviewing/hiring. I never accept drinks either

 

[Nereis]



******* asshole should never be in charge of interviewing/hiring. I never accept drinks either

There have been candidates who have been dinged for wearing brown shoes or having their resume in arial instead of times new roman. Sometimes I wonder.

 

[JayJay]



There have been candidates who have been dinged for wearing brown shoes or having their resume in arial instead of times new roman. Sometimes I wonder.

Seriously?

 

[Nereis]



Seriously?

'We do not share the same aesthetic taste, therefore we'll take the kid who does' sort of thing. You won't believe the snark when passing around some resumes in comic sans or helvetica.

 

[gort]

****, I use wingding font on my resume.

 

[dune]

I asked a graph designer friend for some suggestions, and now I'm making a resume in Mrs Eaves - though that's the "special" one, I have one in Century Schoolbook too.

 

[idfnl]

Here is what I would do:

"This is obviously a guesstimate but lets start with the fact that there are 300m people in the US. The average gas station PROBABLY needs 1000 people/500 cars to have critical mass, so 300,000 stations. To check my estimate, lets say the average gas station transaction is about $50, once a week x 500 cars = 2500 x 500 = 1.25m or 100k a month revenue. That doesnt seem like sustainable revenue, so I would revise down to 200,000, that might still be a touch high. We're not including long haul trucking so that probably increases that number by 10k. 210,000 stations, again, a guesstimate".

Ok, did this and looked it up... didnt **** with my answer:

1997 - 126,889 gas stations. 81,684 (64%) with convenience stores.
2002 - 121,446 gas stations. 93,691 (77%) with convenience stores.
*2007 - 116,223 gas stations. 104,600 (90%) with convenience stores.
*2008 - 115,223 gas stations. 106,696 (92.6%) with convenience stores.

 

[CYstyle]



Here is what I would do:
"This is obviously a guesstimate but lets start with the fact that there are 300m people in the US. The average gas station PROBABLY needs 1000 people/500 cars to have critical mass, so 300,000 stations. To check my estimate, lets say the average gas station transaction is about $50, once a week x 500 cars = 2500 x 500 = 1.25m or 100k a month revenue. That doesnt seem like sustainable revenue, so I would revise down to 200,000, that might still be a touch high. We're not including long haul trucking so that probably increases that number by 10k. 210,000 stations, again, a guesstimate".
Ok, did this and looked it up... didnt **** with my answer:
1997 - 126,889 gas stations. 81,684 (64%) with convenience stores.
2002 - 121,446 gas stations. 93,691 (77%) with convenience stores.
*2007 - 116,223 gas stations. 104,600 (90%) with convenience stores.
*2008 - 115,223 gas stations. 106,696 (92.6%) with convenience stores.

I guessed on the higher side too

 

[otc]



'We do not share the same aesthetic taste, therefore we'll take the kid who does' sort of thing. You won't believe the snark when passing around some resumes in comic sans or helvetica.

Alright...a comic sans resume for any college educated position is actually almost veto-worthy.

As for the OP's conundrum...wtf? How did you end up that far in the process and not understand what a case interview is? Do you have a career center/adviser available to you? Did they completely forget to mention that a lot of companies place a ton of weight on these stupid problems?

If someone asks you how many phone booths are in manhattan, don't be a smart ass and give the correct answer (4), but instead figure out if they actually want a historical number from before cell phones or if they want a number of payphones rather than actual booths (and figure out why they are asking such a dated question).
You can usually get useful information out of the interviewer if you ask the right questions (and this is actually a plus...if they give you info it means you are moving in the right direction). If you aren't from new york, you could probably expect them to tell you something about how many blocks wide and tall the city is or how many people live there.
From there, throw in some intuition, maybe even sketch a diagram of a few blocks and figure out that maybe in 1985 you would never have been more than a 2 block walk from a pay phone. Thus there will be a pay phone every 4 blocks on the grid (an 8x8 block area would have a booth on every corner plus one in the center and one in the middle of every perimeter stretch). Do some math to extend this out to the length/width of manhattan. Get clever and subtract a few for central park (might be a good question to ask about to show that you are thinking).
Then you have a base number. You should mention something about density and how somewhere like the upper west side will have fewer per block while wall street will have more--but the easy way out from here is to just mention them (so the interviewer knows you are considering it) but assume that they average out to one every 4 blocks.

Who knows if this is right...I wasn't born until a year later and never made it to NYC until phone booths basically didn't exist anymore...but the point is you came up with a number. The real key is that you are showing your interviewer the whole thought process. Think outloud, write down key points, and ask relevant questions.

Personally I think they are kind of stupid and never actually got stuck with a full on case interview (my employer doesn't do that kind of junk), but I can see how they are one way to weed out a bunch of candidates based on problem solving ability (even if the real solution is to just use ******* google).

 

[Texasmade]



I was thinking about something similar to this but i now know it probably wouldn't work.
*End of interview*
"Do you have any questions?"
"Yes, when can I start?"

"what would you say are your biggest weaknesses"
"I only have 1, Kryptonite"

"Where do you see yourself in 5 years"
if interviewing at a law, consulting, accounting firm just say "partner"
if interviewing at a investment bank "managing director"
if interviewing for regular job "having a higher ranking title than you while ************ wife"

You have to say all of these with a stone-cold dead-serious look to get the full effect.

 

[Harbin]



"what would you say are your biggest weaknesses"
"I only have 1, Kryptonite"
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years"
if interviewing at a law, consulting, accounting firm just say "partner"
if interviewing at a investment bank "managing director"
if interviewing for regular job "having a higher ranking title than you while ************ wife"
You have to say all of these with a stone-cold dead-serious look to get the full effect.

Wtf? I just tried this today at my interview for goldman and the MD laughed and told me to leave

 

[Verniza]



Wtf? I just tried this today at my interview for goldman and the MD laughed and told me to leave

THIS IS HILARIOUS. Good job!

 

[Sir Humphrey Appleby]



Don't lose sleep over it. I've been parts of panel/group interviews where my colleagues were suggested some "brain teasers", and delivered the questions so confusingly it washed all meaning from the exercise. I question the validity of most of these brain teasers, anyway.
My evaluation is based off a general sense of poise and confidence of the candidate*. Whether the interview is with staff, HR, VP, N+x management, they're are asked for a 1hr break from their day-to-day for the interview... and they hardly stress and scrutinize over the process as much as the candidates do. So don't maintain a macro-focus on every question, # of questions, body language, the spacing of your resume, its paperstock weight, i.e. every little minutae.
It's just an interview. And it's over. You'll live.
*note, nobody is evaluated on the color of their shoes, whether theyre balmorals or bluchers, 5 eyelets or 4, or whatever silly **** some SF folks are convinced is important.....

What if you wear pink trainers or the interviewer is an SF-er?