I've been asked by my company to perform some technical interviews with some potential job/intern candidates at Georgia Tech.

Along with the obvious EE-related problems such as analog circuits and controls, I was wondering if anyone knew of any good problem solving questions I could ask the candidates.

I want to give them intentionally difficult problems and ask them to discuss with me the procedure in which they plan to attack the problem.

Thanks for the help, and solutions would be appreciated ( ) since I'm not the one being screwed with

9/14/2006 5:46:58 PM

9/14/2006 5:57:31 PM

You can probably look a lot of this stuff up on various websites. My favorite I remember seeing somewhere along the line:

"How do you put an elephant in a refrigerator?"
"Open the refridgerator door, put the elephant in, close the refridgerator door."

Explanation being simplicity and thinking outside the normal scope of what a common item is.

9/14/2006 6:39:38 PM

You have 100 pieces of gold and 5 pirates who wish to split the gold. The most senior pirate has to suggest how to split the gold up, and if 50% of the other pirates vote for him/her, then that's how they split it. If not, they will kill him, and the next person will have a go. How do they split the coins?






Answer: Pirate 1 (most senior) gets 98 coins, Pirate 3 gets 1 coin, Pirate 5 gets 1 coin. Why? If pirate 1 kept it for himself, then 2-5 would vote against him. If 2 kept it all for himself, then 3-5 would vote against him. if 3 kept it all for himself, then 4-5 would vote against him. pirate 4 only needs himself to vote to be 50% so pirate 5 can't get the gold no matter what.

9/15/2006 3:22:54 AM

you have a 7 pieces of gold linked together (like a kit kat bar). you can only break it twice, to get smaller pieces. you must use this to pay someone for 7 days of work, one bar a day. how do you break it to give the worker a new bar of gold each day?




-break it so there are 1, 2 and 4 pieces. the first day you give one, the next day you ask for it back and give the two, then give the 2 and 1, then ask for that back and give the 4 etc...

9/15/2006 11:11:12 AM

You have a chessboard which is missing two opposing corners (ie, a1 and h8). How can you cover this board with 1x2 dominos?

answer: you cant, every domino covers a white square and a black square, but there are now 32 white squares and only 30 black)

9/16/2006 4:28:27 PM

You see a turtle lying on his back, struggling to fix himself upright. Although you recognize his plight, you are unable to help him. Why?


You are a turtle yourself and cannot upright him.


Teaches seeing things from the perspective of the other person and shows how well the person can relate to others.

9/20/2006 2:08:57 PM

Why are potholes round?


Because drills are round.

9/20/2006 2:09:33 PM

i think the correct question for ^ - is why are manhole covers round

9/20/2006 2:24:27 PM

Get them to brainstorm ideas for a circuit that needs to accomplish a certain task. or give them an inefficient design and have them give ideas on how to optimize it.

9/20/2006 4:18:41 PM

^^ i agree... and have heard another answer being that people are round so it is the most efficient space to slide a man thru or because a round manhole cover can go on without much trouble of matching edges (think of a square) so they can close them quickly...

for more "thinking questions" the typical consultant questions are open-ended things like how would you determine how much of carter finley stadium (or how many stadiums) could be filled with all of the books in the library. or how many blocks are in manhattan... the answer isn't a trivial trick, the person has to go through the thought process of how they would get the numbers.

9/20/2006 6:43:19 PM

i think the answer is more along the lines of either than "manholes are round so of course the covers are round" or "due to it being round it can never be dropped down the manhole

microsoft has triangle manholes on its campus i believe

9/20/2006 8:38:19 PM

if you doing something at work that you can't quite figure out, then ask them about that

if they come up with a pretty good solution, just simply don't hire them and then take credit for their solution

9/20/2006 10:00:14 PM

John does 10 hrs worth of work a week, Mary does 30 hrs, Jeff does 40 hrs, and Jose does 50 hrs. When the company downsizes, who gets fired?




answer: everyone but John, because obviously he is the boss.

10/2/2006 2:46:59 PM

Quote :

"microsoft has triangle manholes on its campus i believe"

Triangles don't work, it has to be a Reuleaux triangle.

10/2/2006 4:48:43 PM

Quote :

"Why are potholes round? Because drills are round."

my bad...manholes, potholes...typo.

[Edited on October 2, 2006 at 5:00 PM. Reason : asdf]

10/2/2006 4:59:54 PM

manholes are not round because drills are round, that answer is wrong

10/2/2006 6:11:13 PM

How many bricks did it take to finish EB I?








1 Brick

10/3/2006 2:12:19 PM

if you yourself are too incompetent to think up your own question then don't ask one others have given you, it just doesn't make sense

these types of things are dumb in my opinion, ask them something work related, if they have little experience, tell them the basics and then ask for a solution in basic terms...

10/3/2006 7:40:52 PM