The toughest 27 interview questions being asked by the world’s top companies right now
Global recruitment company, Glassdoor, has updated its list of the toughest job interview questions, detailing the hardest questions being asked by some of the biggest companies in the world right now.
The questions are based on 27 different fields and are ranked on how “tough” they are to answer based on expert analysis and community feedback.
What Makes an Interview Tough?
According to new Glassdoor economic research, the following are factors that drive interview difficulty: Number of interview screens, company size, type of employer (public vs. private), education and age.
“While most of these don’t come as a surprise, we found that hospitals have the toughest job interview process with a 9.7 percent higher difficulty rating compared to the average. Non-profits followed with 9.6 percent,” noted the report.
The report also found that gender does not have any affect on interview difficulty — it appears most employers apply the same rigor to interview processes to male and female candidates.
1. “How do you explain a vending machine to someone who hasn’t seen or used one before?”—Global Data Analyst, Bloomberg L.P.
2. “How many fire hydrants are there in Los Angeles County?”—Software Engineer, Disney Interactive Studios
3. “If your current employer had an anniversary party for you, what five words would be written on the cake to describe you?”—District Manager, Express
4. “Who in history would you want to go to dinner with and why?”—Flight Attendant, PSA Airlines
5. “Prove that hoop stress is twice the longitudinal stress in a cylindrical pressure vessel.”—Test Operations Engineer, SpaceX
6. “What’s the capital of Canada?”—Team Leader, OpticsPlanet
7. “Name a brand that represents you as a person.”—Brand Strategist, Twitter
8. “Estimate how many employees in the next building”—Data Scientist, Risk Management Solutions
9. “How many happy birthday posts do you think Facebook gets in one day?”—Sales Operations, Facebook
10. “If you could take anyone on a road trip with you, who would you take and why?”—Educator, lululemon
11. “What is the first thing you’d print with a 3D printer if you had one?”—Linux Systems Administrator I, Rackspace
12. “If you had to take only one item to a deserted island, what would that be?”—Customer Service Specialist, Squarespace
13. “Please describe an instance where you had to make a decision without all of the necessary information.”—Analytics, athenahealth
14. “How do you reverse a text string on the Unix command line?”—Developer, Capital One
15. “If you are in a boat with a boulder and you drop that boulder into the lake, how does the water level before and after you drop the boulder in the lake compare?”—Mechanical Design Engineer, Apple
16. “You have been asked to lead a multi-million dollar, multi-year grant that will be supported across several companies and universities. How do you start?”—Research Scientist, Ford Motor Company
17. “Sell me on one idea, and then sell me on the opposite of that idea.”—Solarwinds Administrator, Blizzard Entertainment
18. “How would you go about to find the top five Java Developers in a certain area.”—Technical Recruiter, Google
19. “What is the probability of an integer from 1 to 60,000 not having the digit 6?”—Quantitative Developer, AKUNA CAPITAL
20. “If you were a Muppet, which character would you be?”—Donor Family Advocate, LifeNet Health
21. “Give me 48 cents using six coins. Tell me quantity and value of the six coins.”—Human Resource Manager, Wintec
22. “Write an equation to optimize the marketing spend between Facebook and Twitter campaigns.”—Analyst (Data Science), Uber
23. “What is the angle at 3:15?”—Implementation Consultant, Fast Enterprises
24. “What part of the newspaper do you read first? What does this say about you?”—Audit, BDO USA
25. “If a coworker had an annoying habit, and it hindered your quality of work, how would you resolve it?”—Production Technician, Procter & Gamble
26. “Throw your resume aside and tell me what makes you you.” —Sales Executive, Zillow
27. “How would you find the square root of 1.2?” —Hardware Engineer, Jump Trading
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