We have all seen the super-difficult, often quite abstract questions used by big tech firms like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple in interviews when they hire for roles like product managers or engineers.
Competition is fierce for these jobs and the firms need to work hard to sort the large numbers of applications they receive. Candidates work hard too, with many going through development programs to give themselves the very best chance of success.
Interview questions are often so novel they end up on social media feeds for us to test ourselves on for a bit of fun when we should be working at our existing jobs rather than doing interview questions for another one.
You will no doubt have tried one or two yourselves. So you know what we are talking about, we mean questions like:
- How many tennis balls will fit into the Great Pyramid
- Why are manhole covers circular?
- You have a five-liter bucket and a three-liter bucket. How do you measure out four liters of water?
Very frequently, there will be some “trick” to the questions, so they are not quite as they appear. Failing to realize the specific idiosyncrasies of the question will mean going around in circles, wracking your brain with complicated analysis (and likely bringing in a lot of superfluous algebra), whilst noticing the crucial point of difference often lets you get at an answer quite quickly.
Criticisms
Questions like these can indeed be fun as a little distraction from a boring Excel sheet on a Wednesday afternoon, but they will be less fun for an interview candidate sweating it out to figure out what they’re missing with their future salary on the line.
In some quarters, it has been argued that these kinds of questions should not be used. Arguments are put forward that puzzles of this nature are either unnecessarily harsh, unfair, or ineffective. More often than not, these ideas are conflated and blended into one another.
Here, though, we look at why big tech firms feel these questions are useful and why some objections to them are based on misconceptions.
Indeed, using these kinds of questions in interviews significantly predates the likes Amazon or Google, with very similar brainteasers having been used by top-flight consulting firms like McKinsey for decades prior and Fermi questions frequently being used in interviews for science courses at high-ranking universities. One of the few things the tech firms didn’t invent themselves!
Misunderstandings
A major misunderstanding is that these kinds of questions are true that they are intended to “trick” candidates.
This is not the case. Brainteasers and puzzles are given to assess the ability of an applicant to solve tricky problems in creative ways. Thus, they are not some unnecessary detour added just to make an interview “hard”, but are testing the skills required for the job.
If a tech firm is looking for a product manager or an engineer, they are will be looking for someone who can think innovatively about problems and see clever ways to solve them. A physicist might say that they are looking for someone who can see the “symmetries” in a problem – to see how something complex
The Correct Answer Often Doesn’t Matter
An important point to consider here when realizing there isn’t intended to “trick” is that the assessment criteria are not as harsh as many imagine. Specifically, you don’t need to get the right answer, as long as you show good thought processes. Thus, a candidate might kick themselves for not arriving at the right answer to a puzzle in their interview, but still, end up getting the job as the interviewer will have been impressed by how they approached the challenge.
Indeed, where these kinds of questions are used, they will typically be delivered as a conversation between interviewer and interviewee. You the candidate should walk the interviewer through your rationale from start to finish.
Background Neutral
As we mentioned, these kinds of puzzle questions test the skills required for the job. You might ask, though – why not just ask questions more closely related to the job itself?
Part of the answer is that these firms like to recruit a wide variety of individuals, who might have very different initial levels of direct knowledge and experience about the specific job they will be doing. This is possible as many of the roles will be accessible to individuals from multiple different academic and technical backgrounds.
Asking very specific questions, then, might give those happening to have more background in the area an advantage over other candidates who might be just as good or even better after a little training. Since this is sub-optimal for finding the best new talent, more abstract questions can be used to level the playing field and remove such advantages.
But… Things Change
If you were applying to a big tech firm and were worried about your prospects with one of these brainteaser-style questions, then things might not be so bad. In recent years, some tech firms have been using these questions a lot less.
Some of this move might be due to the brand implications of the criticism these kinds of questions received. They might even be worried about scaring off good candidates who won’t apply for fear of grueling interviews.
Alternatively, though, it might be as the companies have grown and matured – with roles becoming both more specialized and more codified in their requirements, that hiring practices have changed for more practical reasons. If HR departments can devise selection processes that sort the available talent better and do so by asking questions more representative of the real job. Then it seems clear they should do so.
This is what had already happened at the management consulting firms which had originally used similar puzzles well before the tech sector. Eventually, brainteasers were set aside in favor of the modern case interview, where candidates must solve problems that simulate the actual work they will be doing.
As such, puzzle questions will potentially be less of a worry for tech applicants now than previously. However, this does not mean you should not prepare for them if you are interviewing – it is very likely they will still come up. It also does not mean that selection will not still be difficult.
