Comments on: Interviewing Tip: Stress Test Critical Thinking. Please.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:11:49 +0000

Interesting read, thanks!

By: Arun

Arun — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:58:28 +0000

I just found this blog.. and found interesting to answer the question
Per the question, The gold bar will have seven connected pieces.
I can break them into seven equal pieces. So, no need to bother about the equal payment (similarity in each piece, if I brake the piece). But the given condition is I have to break it only twice.
Here it goes.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
These are seven pieces connected together.
1st day – I will break the 7th piece and pay the worker.
2nd day – I will break at 5th piece so that I will get two pieces connected (5th and 6th), I will ask the worker to give me 7th piece and pay him with 5th and 6th
3rd day – He already has 2 pieces (5th and 6th) now I will give him 7th piece, so that he will have three pieces
4th day – I will ask the worker to return all the pieces he have (5th, 6th and 7th) and I will give him the other piece which i have (1st to 4th connected pieces), so that the worker will have 4 pieces with him
5th day – I will give him the 7th piece, he will have five pieces with him
6th day – I will ask the worker to return the 7th piece and I will give him 5th and 6th pieces bar, so that he will have 6 pieces (1st to 4th and 5th to 6th)
7th day – I will give him 7th piece, so that he will have seven pieces with him.

Thanks
A

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:55:29 +0000

The 1:2:4 answer seems like the optimal one (given the
circumstances) but if the worker can't spend the pay until
after day four then you're not really "paying" him at all til
then. I considered that and then figured an employment contract to pay him weekly would suffice.

It's still a good test to see if the applicant is mentally
awake though. Also it may develop a two way trust to have him return with the money, trusting he could cover food and
transportation to return. :)

By: Ccoop

Ccoop — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:40:49 +0000

I would ignore the part about making only two breaks in the gold bar and give my employee a piece every day. If there are any ramifications as a result of my actions, then I'll deal with them when the time comes. Bottom line is, my employee was paid, consequently he was happy and, as a result, he produced good work.

By: » Interviewing Tip: Stress Test Critical Thinking. Please.

» Interviewing Tip: Stress Test Critical Thinking. Please. — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:53:53 +0000

[...] We found an excellent post while searching the Blogosphere today! Here’s a quick excerpt :

The model suggested in the email of, what I call, temp to perm is not a bad idea because it both allows you to test the person out but more importantly you can check other attributes like leadership and team fit etc. …

You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]

By: Alan Rimm-Kaufman

Alan Rimm-Kaufman — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:49:22 +0000

We use puzzles sometimes, just to see how a candidate handles stress. They're just a small part of the process, and not the most important.Joel Spolsky advises against them, arguing they are about "aha!" more than thinking:

Finally, avoid brain teaser questions like the one where you have to arrange 6 equal length sticks to make exactly 4 identical perfect triangles. Or anything involving pirates, marbles, and secret codes.

That from http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html.While Joel's writing about programmers, I'd highly recommend his whole series on hiring.