Job Interviewers Now Asking Brain Teasers Questions

When I saw the headline, I thought, How fun, and how right up my alley, because I'm an Intelligent, Creative Person who is Quick-Witted and can easily answer such questions and make millions of dollars. So everything's looking up for ol' Ace.

But they all left me stumped. In a real interview, I would have babbled.

Question 5, which should, according to my own self-conception, play right into my self-perceived strengths, leaves me with my mouth hanging open in stupidity.

I'm just never going to get a real job, am I?

More at the WSJ, and answers (whether real "this is correct" answers or interesting answers for a question without a real answer) here.

A friend went through these questions when he was seeking work as a consultant. Apparently these questions have been standard in that business for a while. Among the questions I remember him mentioning was the now-infamous Monty Hall question, and "Estimate the mass of an empty 747."

My only insight into that one is that a 747 floats, and I can guess that it would sink approximately one third of the way down, and then I guess you could estimate its gross volume and then multiply by the mass of water, x 1/3. I don't know if that's the right answer. (He wasn't sure about his own answer -- he just guessed and babbled -- and no one ever told him the right answer.)

posted by Ace at 01:18 PM

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