Glassdoor.com Reveals Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions of 2010

SAUSALITO, Calif., Dec. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- We all know the job interview process can be stressful, but for many candidates it can feel like a pressure chamber, especially when questions seemingly come out of left field. Glassdoor.com, a career and jobs community offering insights on companies and workplaces, has compiled its annual list of oddball interview questions based on the tens of thousands of interview questions shared by job candidates during the past year.

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The Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions of 2010 on Glassdoor:

1. "If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" – Asked at Goldman Sachs, Analyst position
2. "How many ridges [are there] around a quarter?" – Asked at Deloitte, Project Analyst position
3. "What is the philosophy of Martial Arts?" – Asked at Aflac, Sales Associate position
4. "Explain [to] me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years." – Asked at Boston Consulting, Consultant position
5. "Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are." – Asked at Capital One, Operations Analyst position
6. "How many basketball[s] can you fit in this room" – Asked at Google, People Analyst position
7. "Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?" – Asked at Bloomberg LP Financial, Software Developer position
8. "If you could be any superhero, who would it be?" – Asked at AT&T, Customer Sales Representative position
9. "You have a birthday cake and have exactly 3 slices to cut it into 8 equal pieces. How do you do it?" – Asked at Blackrock Portfolio Management Group, Fixed Income Analyst position
10. "Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum numbers guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint "higher" or "lower" for each guess you make?" – Asked at Facebook, Software Engineer position
11. "If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?" – Asked at Amazon, Manager position
12. "An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?" – Asked at Epic Systems, Project Manager position
13. "There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?" – Asked at Apple, Software QA Engineer position
14. "How many traffic lights in Manhattan?" – Asked at Argus Information & Advisory Services, Analyst position
15. "You are in a dark room with no light. You need matching socks for your interview and you have 19 grey socks and 25 black socks. What are the chances you will get a matching pair?" – Asked at Eze Castle, Quality Assurance position
16. "What do wood and alcohol have in common?" – Asked at Guardsmark, Staff Writer position
17. "How do you weigh an elephant without using a weigh machine?" – Asked at IBM, Software Engineer position
18. "You have 8 pennies, 7 weigh the same, one weighs less. You also have a judges scale. Find the one that weighs less in less than 3 steps." – Asked at Intel, Systems Validation Engineer position
19. "Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $150K?" – Asked at New York Life, Sales Agent position
20. "You are in charge of 20 people, organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year." – Asked at Schlumberger, Field Engineer position
21. "How many bottles of beer are drank in the city over the week?" – Asked at The Nielsen Company, Research Analyst position
22. "What's the square root of 2000?" – Asked at UBS, Sales and Trading position
23. "A train leaves San Antonio for Huston at 60mph. Another train leaves Huston for San Antonio at 80mph. Huston and San Antonio are 300 miles apart. If a bird leaves San Antonio at 100mph, and turns around and flies back once it reaches the Huston train, and continues to fly between the two, how far will it have flown when they collide?"- Asked at USAA, Software Engineer position
24. "How are M&M's made?" – Asked at US Bank, Leadership Program Development position
25. "What would you do if you just inherited a pizzeria from your uncle?" – Asked at Volkswagen, Business Analyst position.

The interview questions are part of the Glassdoor Interview Reviews section, offering in-depth accounts of the interview process for specific job titles at specific companies – all for free. To date, approximately 80,000 interview questions around the world have been collected. Interview Reviews include details from actual candidates about the entire hiring process -- from the interview format and average duration to overall difficulty. Each review also includes details as to whether an offer was made and whether it was accepted or rejected -- and why -- along with any negotiation tips.

Users can find or share Interview Reviews through the "Interviews" tab from the Glassdoor.com home page or via http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/index.htm.

About Glassdoor.com

Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community offering a free inside look at jobs and companies with access to millions of job listings. Glassdoor enables employees, job seekers, employers and recruiters to simultaneously see – for the first time – unedited opinions about a company's work environment along with details on salaries, company reviews, CEO approval ratings, job interview questions and reviews, and office photos as well as career advice.

Headquartered in Sausalito, Calif., Glassdoor officially launched in 2008, and was founded by Richard Barton, Robert Hohman and Tim Besse in 2007. The company has raised $9.5 million from its founders, Benchmark Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures. More information about Glassdoor can be found on its blog (www.glassdoor.com/blog), Twitter (www.twitter.com/glassdoordotcom), and Facebook (www.facebook.com/glassdoordotcom).

SOURCE Glassdoor.com