15 Ridiculously Hard Job Interview Questions From Top Employers Like Google, Goldman Sachs

As tough as the job market has been in 2010, many top-flight employers aren't trying to make the interview process any easier. With the jobless claims at their lowest level in more than two years, job seekers, encouraged by the prospect of an improving economy, are dusting off their interviewing skills for the new year.

Job site Glassdoor.com has sifted through 80,000 interview questions shared by job seekers providing us with some of the most odd and difficult questions asked by top-flight employers this year.

Think you're smart enough to work at Goldman Sachs or Google? Check out the questions to see just how far out the box employers are expecting their interviewees to think. Which questions are expected and which are just too odd?

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Goldman Sachs - Analyst position

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“If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?”

comments(2371)

featured comment

Reply | \"My mother?  Let me tell you about my mother...\"
*BLAM!*

Interview over.', 'http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/job-interview-questions_n_802658.html');}, 50, function() { return typeof Comments != 'undefined';}); return false;"> Share

JShankel said on 30 Thursday 2010 pm31 8:26 pm: "Describe in your own words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother." "My mother?  Let me tell you about my mother..." *BLAM!* Interview over.

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Comments

[George Lekatis]

03:54 PM on 02/25/2011

The job descriptions have also become strange, sometimes it is impossible to meet the requirements. It is interesting to read the 100 job descriptions in risk and compliance management (no registration needed, free)

http://www.risk-compliance-association.com/100_Job_Descriptions_in_Risk_and_Compliance_Management.pdf


George Lekatis
http://www.risk-compliance-association.com

[democrats for life]

01:20 PM on 02/22/2011

getting a job now really has changed over the years. getting hired on in a fortune 500 company is now a 4 month process if you make it all the way to the interview.

[thebearschick]

11:35 AM on 02/22/2011

If they like you, they'll hire you. No matter how you answer the questions. That's really what it comes down to. Most companies weed out the bad fits and in-person interview 5-15 candidates for a given position. Every single candidate can probably "do the job". They pick the one they think will fit in with the company best. It's not just about skills.

[brettrobbins]

03:12 PM on 02/01/2011

"How many bottles of beer are drank in the city over the week."

Is the difficulty of this question whether or not to correct the grammar of the questioner?

[fortressfountain]

11:59 AM on 01/30/2011

I think if we use logistics, homeland security, the internet etc. It should be up to the human resource people to phone the suitable candidate and give them the job offer.
The job seeker should not have to waste their time and talent showing up for an interview when it is not "the right fit."
This is only another smoke screen to justify human resources and other data collectors so they can keep their high salaries and bonuses.
Is the job there and is there demand?

I think people should sue when they get turned down for a job because to my knowlege human resources do not have crystal balls or a psychology degree.
The process has gotten more and more inane as time has gone on.

[thebearschick]

11:31 AM on 02/22/2011

still waiting for someone to call you and offer you a job out of the blue? Good luck with that.

[Robert SF]

08:50 AM on 01/25/2011

None of these questions reflect real world situations nor require real world skills to solve. But they are kind of shibboleth for people in the know. Most of the time, the successful candidate knows the answer, and success really comes from how the answer is presented.

If you just blurt out that the answer is 42, you're doomed. You must instead put on a show of solving the problem. "Hmmm... interesting... well, I think since 20 times 2 is 40 and the square root of 10% of that is 2, then the answer must be around 42, something like that?" Then you have a chance.

The truth is that there aren't enough jobs to go around, so many companies use these questions as a way to choose between equally qualified candidates. As unemployment continues rising, expect more and more companies to resort to these questions.

[tomteboda]

05:27 AM on 01/27/2011

Actually the question about the minimum number of horses is a fairly standard statistics problem of the sort a half-decent software developer should be able to determine rapidly because they'll have to optimize routines that will use similar logic.

[Kasperle]

11:26 AM on 01/24/2011

These all sound like pretty standard questions to me. For analyst and engineering positions (can't speak for sales jobs), questions that require the candidate to show his or her problem solving/thinking process are essential to evaluating whether the candidate can do the job. I imagine the questions have gotten more off the wall because candidates study these sorts of questions before hand and the interviewer wants to get a real response not a business school prepped answer.

[IMeMine]

10:19 AM on 01/24/2011

Ridiculous questions for ridiculous times. Before you know it, they'll be asking questions like, "how many metrosexuals can be balanced on the end of a p#nis?"

[rowdiman]

07:00 PM on 01/21/2011

Goldmann Sachs: Are you willing to lie and steal? That would secure the job.

[publiuswarmac9999]

06:31 PM on 01/20/2011

If you are looking for someone who can think critically, then you ask critical questions.  If you are looking for someone who is merely compliant, then you ask much easier questions.

[Michaela Bauer]

12:36 PM on 01/20/2011

This is the longest I ever spent on voting on pictures.. Mostly because I really had to think about the question first.. and a few of them made no sense whatsover.. on the other hand others were ridiculously easy

[costellowriter]

09:38 PM on 01/17/2011

This is all about sales. Because these companies have so little "real" business - they have to employ people to harass their fellow citizens and try and con them into buying more "stuff".
http://socyberty.com/economics/murder-of-the-middle-class/

[LAustin]

08:15 PM on 01/14/2011

It sounds like so many people here work in Sales.

I can't relate at all. I'm in the field of Psychology. I've worked in hospitals, etc.

Some of those questions are moronic and make the HR department look foolish.
I'm glad I was never in sales, it sounds terrible.

[Thaigold]

08:19 AM on 01/15/2011

I understand your perplexity on these "sales" posts. But, and it is set in stone, nothing happens till the sale is made and closed. Be it a toy bought for a pouty child, a new car for the graduating child, or an F-16 sold to a friendly nation. Also, we must include the care system in all its permutations. Even in your field, you are dependent on the market, as repugnant as it is.

[LAustin]

01:16 AM on 01/17/2011

So true! So true! (re: Your last sentence).

Oh, yeah, and don't get me started on how our Diagnoses usually have not so much to do with the patients actual diagnosis, but rather what his/her insurance company will cover.

Thus, we have decades where certain diagnoses will triple or quadruple in America, not because there are actually trible the number of ppl have that exact illness, but rather because the pharm. and insurance industries pretty much control what we're doing and why....for example "bipolar" and other diagnoses.... we didn't have too many of back in the 1950s or 60s or 70s.

It's sad how the mega pharmaceutal companies and health insurance giants actually control my field. Thank goodness I retired just in time.

[Thaigold]

08:27 AM on 01/08/2011

What's going on here?
When I did interviews, my first word was "make yourself comfortable." From there I conducted the conversation in common terms. Afterwards, I made my distinctions by instinct.
One of my best hires checked in as: my question of an ex-employer was, did he produce, did he make money? The answer was yes, with a caveat; watch him, he has sticky fingers. My question again; did he make your company money? The answer; Yes, a lot.
I hired him and never regretted it. He turned out to be a natural money machine. I still live in part, on this shark's financial efforts.
We need these financial vermin - they just have to be controlled and watched (but with finesse). This was Wall Street's failure. I watched him - they failed to watch their's.
Adios US tax dollars, Hola discontento.

[goldiggerrr]

01:22 PM on 01/07/2011

How about "if I had the answers to all of these questions, I wouldn't be applying at (Your) company."

[costellowriter]

09:39 PM on 01/17/2011

Yep. These interviews have gotten to the point of being completely moronic.
http://gomestic.com/personal-finance/the-end-of-the-leisure-class/