So, you think interviews are hard? There are interviews that are hard and then there are interviews where Google is asking you questions and trust us, you don’t want to be there. Why? Because Google has a history of asking questions that are out of the box and will tease your brain to a point where you would want to ram into the wall. Some of its questions were so tough that according to a report back in 2011, Google banned a few of them.
Lewis Lin is a career consultant who is known for his specialization in interview techniques. He compiled a list that features 140 question that some of his clients had to answer when taking an interview at Google. A number of these questions do not have a ‘right’ answer and have been designed so that the interviewer can assess your creativity and ability to tackle hard questions.
Get ready folks. The questions are coming, the questions are coming. Do let us know if you can come up with any sane answers for these questions. Our team has been trying for hours now without any luck.
- You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present (including you and the friend). Your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find who has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds who does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. Would you accept the wager?
(Nope, nope, nope.)
- You have to get from point A to point B. You don’t know if you can get there. What would you do?
(Google Maps?)
- Explain a database in three sentences to your 8-year-old nephew.
(Somebody needs to explain it to us first.)
- How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?
(How many do you have?)
- You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
(Pretend you’re the Ant-Man?)
- If a person dials a sequence of numbers on the telephone, what possible words/strings can be formed from the letters associated with those numbers?
(HELP)
- Explain the significance of “dead beef.”
(Why is it dead?)
- How many vacuums are made per year in the USA?
(la la la).
- How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?
(Oh wow, look at what a wonderful weather we’re having.)
- A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?
(Does this remind anyone else of Wolf Of Wall Street?)
- Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?
(Kill the men, start Amazon on Earth.)
- How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
(How many pianos are there in the world?)
- You need to check that your friend Bob has your correct phone number, but you cannot ask him directly. You must write the question on a card and give it to Eve who will take the card to Bob and return the answer to you. What must you write on the card, besides the question, to ensure that Bob can encode the message so that Eve cannot read your phone number?
(Hey Bob, Call me maybe?)
- Why are manhole covers round?
(Okay, we know the answer to this one. Ha ha, take that Google)
- How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?
(Yeah, HOW do you answer that?)