Top
20 Most Difficult Company Interviews
1. McKinsey & Co.
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Industry: Consulting
Question: Mom and pop music shop wants to grow with stiff
competition. How should they go about it? Calculate customer lifetime value.
2. Jane Street Capital
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Industry: Investment Banking
Question: You
have 2 decks of cards (each deck contains both red and black cards). One deck
has twice the number of cards in the other deck with the same color ration (so
one deck has 52 cards and the other has 104, both half red and half black). I
offer you to play a game. First you get to chose which deck of cards you want
to play with. Second, you draw 2 cards at random from your deck of choice. If
both are red, then I will give you a ferarri. Which deck of cards would you
chose?
3. Cree
HQ: Durham, N.C.
Industry: Display Components
Question: How many barbers do you need in a city of 1
million people?
4. Bain & Co.
HQ: Boston, Mass.
Industry: Consulting
Question: Help me estimate how many car dealerships there
are in the United States?
5. Boston Consulting
HQ: Boston, Mass.
Industry: Consulting
Question: How many golf balls can fit in a 747?
6. Palantir Technologies
HQ: Palo Alto, Calif.
Industry: Enterprise Application Integration Software
Question: How would you test an elevator to see if it is
safe to ride?
7. Teach for America
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Industry: Education
Question: You want to take the third graders on a field trip
to the zoo, but there is no extra funding to do so. You must ask the principal
to reconsider and allow your students to go on the field trip. Explain how you
would persuade the principal.
8. A.T. Kearney
HQ: Chicago, Ill.
Industry: Consulting
Question: Can you tell me how many airplanes fly out of
O'hare in a given day?
9. Red Ventures
HQ: Indian Land, S.C.
Industry: Direct Marketing Services
Question: If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
10. BP
HQ: London, United
Kingdom
Industry: Oil & Gas Refining, Marketing &
Distribution
Question: If you had to change a tire, how would you do it?
11. ZS Associates
HQ: Evanston, Ill.
Industry: Consulting
Question:: It is your first day, you have no clue about the
work and you have been asked to solve a tough problem. How will you go about it
?
12. Procter & Gamble
HQ: Cincinnati, Ohio
Industry: Personal Care Products
Question: Tell me a time when you had to demonstrate your
leadership skills?
13. Salesforce.com
HQ: San Francisco,
Calif.
Industry: Customer Relationship Management, Marketing &
Sales Software
Question: How do you look for SQL injections?
14. Altria
HQ: Richmond, Va.
Industry: Cigarettes, Cigars, & Smokeless Tobacco
Products
Question: Describe a very hectic week and what you did to
prioritize.
15. Oliver Wyman
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Industry: Consulting
Question: Estimate the percentage of the US which is covered
by man-made structures.
16. Bridgewater Associates
HQ: Westport, Conn.
Industry: Consulting
Question: How would you explain your job to an aunt or uncle
who is not familiar with that industry?
17. Stryker
HQ: Kalamazoo, Mich.
Industry: Medical Equipment & Supplies
Question: Would you say you learn a lot about a little, or a
little about a lot?
18. Amazon.com
HQ: Seattle, Wash.
Industry: Music, Video, Book & Entertainment Retail
Question: Come up with a formula to calculate the angle
between the hour hand and the minute hand in a clock.
19. eBay
HQ: San Jose, Calif.
Industry: Internet Auctions
Question: It's known that an egg broke when dropped from the
100th floor. Given two eggs, how do you figure out the highest floor an egg can
be dropped from without breaking?
20. Gallup
HQ: Washington, D.C.
Industry: Consulting
Question: How did you prepare for our interview?
Sources :
1. http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/06/20/top-20-most-difficult-companies-for-interviews/
2. http://fcsl.edu/blogs/pp/2012/02/24/competency-based-questions-in-interviews/
