There's a scene in the 2013 move "The Internship" where the two laid-off sales guys (played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson) are asked one of those legendary Google brain teaser interview questions.
The question was: 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?
Answer: Lots of variants but one is that you jump out. According to the square-cube law your strength-to-mass ratio should have changed, allowing you to be much stronger for your size and jump really high, like an insect.
That's a real question that Google once asked people. Google has reportedly banned the brain teaser portion of its interview process now but that doesn't mean that interviews with today's biggest tech companies have gotten easy.
We've scoured job-hunting site Glassdoor.com and interview training site Impact Interview and found a number of difficult questions that other tech companies have actually asked.
Question from Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com Customer Service Analyst interview question:
“How would you direct traffic in the result of a catastrophic earthquake?”
Possible answer: This clearly falls into the "brain teaser category" looking for problem-solving skills, as we can't think of a case where a customer service analyst will be asked to become a traffic cop after an catastrophic earthquake.
Have fun with the answer, while explaining how you help people avoid torn up streets and drive to safety.
Question from Microsoft
Microsoft management position interview question:
"What is a product you love but is marketed very badly? How would you market it differently?"
Possible answer: Probably NOT wise to choose: "Windows Phone" or "Microsoft Surface." Just sayin.
Question from Amazon
Amazon Product Management interview question:
"Jeff Bezos walks into your office and says you can have a million dollars to launch your best entrepreneurial idea. What is it?"
Possible answer: Well Bezos likes newspapers (he bought the Washington Post and he's an investor in Business Insider) and he likes clocks (he's spending $42 million on one that's supposed to last for 10,000 years), so if you were trying to impress Bezos, those two areas could be good.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider