It’s tough to prepare for every facet of a job interview. But career site Glassdoor has amassed thousands of company reviews that include interview questions which can help you practice — and also show how companies get quite creative with the way they assess potential employees.
San Francisco-based Glassdoor, which has a database of more than 640,000 companies with reviews and ratings, put together its annual list of “tough” interview questions submitted by U.S.-based job candidates during the past year.
Based on its research, Glassdoor found that hospitals have the toughest interview process, followed by non-profits. Gender does not have any influence on interview difficulty, Glassdoor noted, while the tougher a job interview, the happier an employee will be in the future.
Here are 27 of the toughest questions from Glassdoor, which raised a $40 million investment round in June and valued the company around $1 billion. They include questions from tech giants like Facebook, Google, Apple, and others.
- “How do you explain a vending machine to someone who hasn’t seen or used one before?” – Global Data Analyst, Bloomberg L.P.
- “How many happy birthday posts do you think Facebook gets in one day?” – Sales Operations, Facebook
- “Write an equation to optimize the marketing spend between Facebook and Twitter campaigns.” – Analyst (Data Science), Uber
- “How many fire hydrants are there in Los Angeles County?” – Software Engineer, Disney Interactive Studios
- “How would you go about to find the top five Java Developers in a certain area.” – Technical Recruiter, Google
- “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
- “Throw your resume aside and tell me what makes you you.” – Sales Executive, Zillow
- “Who in history would you want to go to dinner with and why?” – Flight Attendant, PSA Airlines
- “Prove that hoop stress is twice the longitudinal stress in a cylindrical pressure vessel.” – Test Operations Engineer, SpaceX
- “What’s the capital of Canada?” – Team Leader, OpticsPlanet
- “Name a brand that represents you as a person.” – Brand Strategist, Twitter
- “Estimate how many employees in the next building” – Data Scientist, Risk Management Solutions
- “If you could take anyone on a road trip with you, who would you take and why?” – Educator, lululemon
- “What is the first thing you’d print with a 3D printer if you had one?” – Linux Systems Administrator I, Rackspace
- “If you had to take only one item to a deserted island, what would that be?” – Customer Service Specialist, Squarespace
- “Please describe an instance where you had to make a decision without all of the necessary information.” – Analytics, athenahealth
- “How do you reverse a text string on the Unix command line?” – Developer, Capital One
- “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
- “Sell me on one idea, and then sell me on the opposite of that idea.” – Solarwinds Administrator, Blizzard Entertainment
- “What is the probability of an integer from 1 to 60,000 not having the digit 6?” – Quantitative Developer, AKUNA CAPITAL
- “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
- “If you were a Muppet, which character would you be?” – Donor Family Advocate, LifeNet Health
- “Give me 48 cents using six coins. Tell me quantity and value of the six coins.” – Human Resource Manager, Wintec
- “What is the angle at 3:15?” – Implementation Consultant, Fast Enterprises
- “What part of the newspaper do you read first? What does this say about you?” – Audit, BDO USA
- “If a coworker had an annoying habit, and it hindered your quality of work, how would you resolve it?” – Production Technician, Procter & Gamble
- “How would you find the square root of 1.2?” – Hardware Engineer, Jump Trading
