2009/9/8 J. Andrew Rogers <[email protected]> > On Sep 7, 2009, at 9:22 PM, Kiran K Karthikeyan wrote: > >> I would be interested to see what questions silklisters use to guage >> analytical, problem solving, and other skills when you are looking for >> both >> a creative and analytical profile. This is of course apart from questions >> based on their domain/work experience to guage the same skills, but I use >> standard questions so that I can compare one against the other if >> required, >> especially when the backgrounds and experience vary considerably. >> > > The couple questions posed here were problematic in that a person could be > familiar enough with those types of interview questions to give an easy > response even if those individuals were not particularly good candidates. I > have seen those before as classic questions, have built-in answers, and I > imagine plenty of other people will as well. At the same time, I don't have > really good answers for this. >
I agree, which is why I ask a question to which there is no solution. Not many candidates expect it, and assume that there is a solution and proceed to solve it. Once they're not able to solve it, not many can confidently state that a solution is not possible. But you can tell a lot with the way they approach the problem. For e.g. if a candidate puts 6 balls on each pan for the first weighing without realizing its a waste i.e you learn nothing new really except that one side might have the heavier and the other the lighter - without eliminating any balls or knowing which of them have the standard weight with which to compare against. The most efficient use of the first weighing is putting 4 against 4 since it conclusively eliminates at least 4 no matter what the scenario i.e. if the pans stay level or if they don't. There are other pointers to indicate their solution approach all through the solution. The second one is just to guage their business thinking. Obviously the airline is doing it (BA did this last year) so that customers use up miles which are sitting in their accounts. And the reason they selected the particular time to do it is because their costs are low at that point of time (you can safely assume that it is the only input into the product which has significant cost variation, and has significant impact on prices). Will respond to the rest of your post soon. This is as far as I got. Kiran
