Top 20 Most Difficult Interviews

Despite the fact that none of the twenty companies mentioned in THIS ARTICLE is looking for a 67-year-old woman with new hips, I decided to accept the challenge and answer each one of the sample interview questions with the careful and thoughtful response it deserves. [NOTE: Any typos in the questions are THEIRS, not mine. I left them in so you can truly appreciate what quality companies they are.]

1. McKinsey & Co. [Consulting]
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Sample Interview Question: Mom and pop music shop wants to grow with stiff competition. How should they go about it? Calculate customer lifetime value.

          Really? Is this question leftover from a 1973 interview? Unless Mom and Pop want to handle the "stiff" competition by opening an adult video store, they are pretty much out of business by now. Earth to McKinsey, it's 2011. Do you have computer? One word: iTunes. You might want to alert the music industry. Lifetime value of a Mom and Pop music shop to its customers at this point: Less than zero. 

2. Jane Street Capital [Investment Banking]
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Sample Interview 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?"

          Dear Jane: It's clear you're not working with a full deck or spellcheck. First, the "f" in Ferrari is capitalized. Secondly, while you are correct in assuming there are three r's in Ferrari, you have managed to put them in the wrong order. Fourth, this question goes a long way to explaining what's f**king wrong with Wall Street's priorities. 

3. Cree [Display Components]

HQ: Durham, N.C.
Sample Interview Question: How many barbers do you need in a city of 1 million people? 

          None. Unlike food and water, no one actually needs a haircut.

4. Bain & Co. [Consulting]

HQ: Boston, Mass.
Sample Interview Question: Help me estimate how many car dealerships there are in the United States? 

          Seriously. I could do a brand by brand breakout based on number of cars sold, profits per car, margin of profit, operating costs, shiny suits, how dealers lie to customers, and figure this out. But I'm busy, so could you please just fire up your computer and Google the estimate instead of wasting my time? It's right there. Or are you people still using No. 2 pencils and IBM Selectrics?

5. Boston Consulting [Consulting, duh]
HQ: Boston, Mass.
Sample Interview Question: How many golf balls can fit in a 747?
          Who the fu*k cares?

6. Palantir Technologies [Some kind of gobbledegook software]
HQ: Palo Alto, Calif.
Sample Interview Question: How would you test an elevator to see if it is safe to ride?
          Very carefully. Ha, I crack myself up. Doesn't it already say the elevator's been tested right there on the lawfully required inspection sheet that's posted above the emergency phone? So why test it again? Is this for a Department of Redundancy job or something? I'd just get on the thing and push the button. If the elevator doesn't move, consider that not safe. Time to get off. On the other hand you could write to Mythbusters and have them drop it from 95 stories a few times. With you in it. [Just a thought.] That way there'd be an entertaining video, if nothing else. 

7. Teach for America [Education]
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Sample Interview 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.
          First I would need to know the parameters of this "persuasion." Do I have to worry about losing my job? If not, locking up the principal and taking the petty cash becomes pretty persuasive. Option two: Liberate his porn stash. However, good taste and character require another solution. Ooops, fresh out. So, let's do some marketing instead. Have the class dress up as homeless kids and beg for money by the off ramps of major highways. That should do it. Oh, and alert the media. 

8. A.T. Kearney [Consulting]
 HQ: Chicago, Ill.
Sample Interview Question: Can you tell me how many airplanes fly out of O'Hare in a given day?
          All of them. In the past, a couple haven't landed so well. But that wasn't the question, was it?

9. Red Ventures [DIrect Marketing Services]
 HQ: Indian Land, S.C.
 Sample Interview Question: If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
            And the reason this question is relevant to anything but Charades is...?

10. BP [OIL and other egregious crimes]
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Sample Interview Question: If you had to change a tire, how would you do it?
           Easy. I would change into the thong bikini I keep in the trunk for just such emergencies. 

11. ZS Associates [Consulting]
HQ: Evanston, Ill.
Sample Interview 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 ?
         No problemo. I would simply find my boss and tell him he can take this job and shove it. Giving somebody a difficult problem to solve on their first day is bullsh*t. First days are for welcome lunches and checking out the hot employees. Giving somebody a tough problem without proper training the very day they walk in the door is a red flag announcing that abusing you is gonna get worse. Get out while you can.

12. Procter & Gamble [Personal Care Products]
HQ: Cincinnati, Ohio
Sample Interview Question: Tell me a time when you had to demonstrate your leadership skills? 
          The day I kicked an OB resident out of the labor room after he started cranking my bed down and making me very uncomfortable. When I asked him why he was doing that, he said, "Because I can't examine you in that position." Whereupon I said, "Then get the fu*k out of here and get someone who can." He left. And sent someone else. Hey, you try bossing docs around when you're having a baby and see how you do.

13. Salesforce.com [Software and a bunch of other stuff]
 HQ: San Francisco, Calif.
Sample Interview Question: How do you look for SQL injections?
          Okay, I give.


14. Altria [Tobacco products]
HQ: Richmond, Va.
Sample Interview Question: Describe a very hectic week and what you did to prioritize.
          I'm sure whoever came up with this question never had a child who wouldn't go to school without her orange socks, never had to miss the train to drop off a lunch that got left behind, never had to produce 26 cupcakes in half an hour, never had to ask a neighbor to forge your signature on a field trip permission slip, and never had to take a call from an emergency room doctor in the middle of a meeting. Hectic weeks have a way of prioritizing themselves. With or without kids.


15. Oliver Wyman [Consulting]
HQ: New York, N.Y.
Sample Interview Question: Estimate the percentage of the US which is covered by man-made structures. 
          Man-made? I take it anything designed or built by women is not included in this little exercise. Maya Lin might take exception. Try human-engineered structures. I know, you hate it. I don't care. WARNING to WOMEN: Beware of companies that say "MANNED" instead of "STAFFED." They're only superficially PC. 


16. Bridgewater Associates [Consulting]
HQ: Westport, Conn.
Sample Interview Question: How would you explain your job to an aunt or uncle who is not familiar with that industry?
          You mean like consulting, for example? Well, Auntie Em, every Monday I get on a plane and go to another city. Why? Because one of the benefits of my job is frequent flier mileage. I know! How great is that? While I'm there I live in a hotel. During the day I work at a company that pays my company to give them advice. Kind of like you do for me when I call and you tell me how to keep the cheese sauce from getting lumpy. Exactly the same. I help the company get the lumps out of their cheese sauce. And while we're at it, I also help them find new ways to use their cheese sauce. Like the time you suggested I pour it over broccoli and cauliflower together. Same deal. After I give them advice for four days, I fly back home and do my laundry so I can fly back again on Monday and pile up more frequent flier mileage. Then I get to help them with something else, like how to keep their avocados from turning brown. No, they don't really have brown avocados, that was just a way to explain things. Really? You're nice to offer, but I'm sure they don't need your recipe for guacamole. Seriously, they don't need it. Maybe another time.
            
17. Stryker [Medical Supplies]
HQ: Kalamazoo, Mich.
Sample Interview Question: Would you say you learn a lot about a little, or a little about a lot? 
          I learned I wouldn't want to work for Stryker just reading this question. Somebody at headquarters probably has a framed copy of PT Barnum's "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time." 
         
18. Amazon.com [Retail Sales of music, video, books, entertainment]
HQ: Seattle, Wash.
Sample Interview Question: Come up with a formula to calculate the angle between the hour hand and the minute hand in a clock.
          I'd rather poke myself in the eye. Join me?

19. eBay [Internet Auctions] 
HQ: San Jose, Calif.
Sample Interview 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?
          Is this one of David Letterman's stupid people tricks? It should be.
             
20. Gallup [Consulting]
HQ: Washington, D.C.
Sample Interview Question: How did you prepare for our interview?
          I showered, brushed my teeth, shaved my legs, styled my hair, put on my favorite outfit and even found some clean underwear. What did you do?  

Easter Leftovers

Tonight is the last night of Passover, or was, since I neglected to post this entry in a timely fashion. Passover, as you may or may not know, is the Jewish holiday that overlaps with Easter because of the whole Last Supper thing. Passover is the silk thread of religious DNA that links the Judeo to the Christian heritage. It is worth noting that there are any number of 21st century Christians who are shocked to learn that Jesus was Jewish and his final meal was a seder.  
          In the interest of full disclosure, despite having a Jewish grandmother, I was raised an Episcopalian, probably one of the most notoriously anti-semitic of all the varietals. Second only to the Catholics. My Jewish grandma married a Catholic, so clearly, they didn't get the memo. Over the years, dinner conversations might have been quite lively, but, my father was a psychoanalyst, so not talking was usually the easiest way to get through meals with him. 
          Unlike Judaism, the five-thousand-year-old religion which gave us the Ten Commandments, membership in my hallowed, self-involved Episcopal sect began with a horny English King who was looking for a loophole in his pre-nup about five hundred years ago. Despite its unholy beginning, the Episcopal church has sunk its roots deep into English and American culture. 
          Across the pond, they insist on calling themselves Anglicans, for those of you keeping track. Anything to distance themselves from the Yanks. 
          Meanwhile, because Henry VIII was probably in such a rush to divorce his wives as fast as possible, the Episcopal/Anglican liturgy is virtually the same as the Catholic mass. Probably not enough time to make changes before the beheadings got underway. One notable exception to the sameness is the Lord's Prayer. The Catholics end their version early. Right after "...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," the prayer stops in its tracks. Episcopalians, on the other hand, who are inclined to embellish everything, opted for a big finish after deliverance from evil -- "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, amen!"  
          Just an FYI -- the Episcopal and Catholic churches are also so similar on the outside that you can't tell them apart until you go inside and see  • gasp •  female priests blessing the wine and those strange, taste-free wafers and preaching from the pulpit. Definitely not Catholic. 

          The rampant ironies in Christianity's 57 varieties do not escape me. Nor do the stereotypes.  Episcopal membership means that I'm 99% sure to be white, blond, and driving one of those suburban SUVs, sporting a hairdo that screams to be worn with large sunglasses, and talking on my iPhone. If I were married, my husband would look like Jimmy Stewart from It's a Wonderful Life. Our home would have a turret, our children would play soccer, and our dog would be a labradoodle. Years ago, in a moment of sharing stereotypes about our respective religions, I asked a Jewish friend how he could tell when a gentile family had moved into the neighborhood. He said, "When the wife is mowing the lawn."  

          Since my own wedding oh so many years ago, I've eschewed Sunday services whenever possible. Attendance for me is rare. Instead of spending Sunday mornings in church, I prefer watching Sunday Morning in bed. Props to the Catholics for having services at 5:00 PM Saturdays that cover your Sunday obligation. Best PR move they ever made. That and getting rid of fish on Friday. My Protestant mother, a nurse with nutrition training, thought having fish once a week was such a good idea, she adopted the Catholic Friday menu for our family. We also said the same grace. And our parish had a gay priest. 

          Not counting funerals and weddings, I've been to church only three times in the last seven years. The first time I went to my niece's baptism. The second time I went to her brother's baptism. And the third was this past weekend, when I went to her other brother's baptism.
          Unlike the Catholic church, which considers baptism a preventive measure, like a vaccine, to be performed as quickly as possible following a baby's birth, the Episcopal church considers baptism a form of fraternity hazing. Something to endure to become a member of an exclusive club. Complete with WASP certification papers at the end. No hurry. But doing it sometime before the little rascals are potty trained has been suggested. Like circumcision, it's probably better to have no memory of the experience. 

          With only three children scheduled to be baptized into the fold, I thought we would be in and out in no time. But not when the event is scheduled for the Saturday night before Easter. Plenty of people showed up, no doubt so they could sleep in the next morning. 

          To make sure everyone got their money's worth, the service was conducted by the light of flickering white candles we each held in our hands. Plus every prayer and supplication was sung in its entirety from beginning to end. And all were invited to come up and kneel at the railing, if not for communion, to at least have a blessing. We were getting the full monty.
          Yes, the candles were beautiful. Yes, the singing was pretty. But the melted wax sure was messy. And the dim light made reading the words of the songs nearly impossible. Not to mention what it was like making faces to keep my nephews and niece entertained. And my rear end from going numb. 
          During the Nicene Creed, I kept wondering how long is this going to last? During the Handshake of Peace, I wondered whether this fairly recent addition to the Episcopal service was also borrowed from the Catholic mass, or was its appearance just a well-timed coincidence, like Armageddon and Final Contact having the exact same plot?  
         Two hours. That's how long it took to get my three-year-old-almost-but-not-quite-potty-trained nephew baptized. 
         The good news is now he's a member of the tribe. The bad news is I'm sure I'll have to do this drill again. 

I'm gonna be an Episcopalian and you're not!

Messing With The Laundromat Rules

Those of us with limited social lives have to seek our entertainment where we can. In my case, it's the laundromat. In a strip mall, between a Subway sandwich shop and my favorite Arab-owned Jewish deli, my town's single laundromat thrives as the only option for the washing machine challenged. As laundromats go, it is small and run down, but thanks to new ownership, it is plenty expensive. It's where I go to wash my down comforters and other large items, like car seats and lawn mower attachments. 
          When the previous owners still owned the place, they had hours you might expect for an establishment of washers and driers. They were open 16 hours a day. 7 AM to 11 PM. You could get in a load of wash at 7 AM and be on your way to work [if it wasn't too far] by 8:15. Or in by 9:45 at night and out before 11 PM. 
          But the new owner instituted different rules. First he changed the hours. 7 AM to only 10 PM. That was bad enough. But now the last load of the day -- wash or dry -- had to be in the machine by 8:30 PM. If you weren't inside the laundromat by 8:30 PM, you would be locked out because he now has a cleaning crew there ready to shut the place down. 
          One night I showed up at 8:15 and his crew had already locked the door. They gave me the universal shrug sign to indicate they 1] didn't speak English  2] didn't give a shit if it wasn't 8:30  3] weren't going to open the door for anyone, including a woman who was threatening to expose her 67 year old behind. 
          I called the owner to suggest he might want to check up on his crew to make sure he wasn't losing even more night business than he already was with his stupid new lock out procedures. 
          Out of spite and having way too much time on my hands, I began to show up every night for a week at 8:25. Yep I washed the same comforter five nights in a row just so the crew couldn't shut down the place at 8:30 and leave. Each night I stayed until ten so they had to wait until I left. I ran the machine twice before putting the comforter in the dryer. Or I put the heat on the coolest setting so it would take as long as possible to dry.
          One night someone showed up at 8:31 and they wanted to send them away. I said, oh no, they're coming in. 
          Another night, the crew got tired of waiting around and left with plans to come back to close up at 10 -- the way it should be. Before leaving they made me and another patron who beat the 8:30 deadline promise not to let anyone else in. At 9, we let in a guy who only had to dry a load of clothes. It took him about sixteen minutes. And he still had almost 45 minutes to spare. 
          After the fifth night, my comforter needed a break, and I was running out of quarters, so I stopped my personal crusade for a few days. But after a couple of weeks, I was back. Yep, five more days in a row. I brought my neighbor's comforter. I found some of my grandmother's acrylic afghans. I was in for the long haul. And I wish you could have heard the groan when the crew saw me pulling up in my car. One load of wash in the big washer, $5.00. Eight minutes in the dryer, $.25. The expression on their faces, priceless.  
          The latest -- they're willing to let people in as long as they get there by 9:00 now. I'll have to come back to see if that only happens when I'm there.  Or do I have to remind them once again that it's not nice to mess with Mrs. Linklater. 
             

On the Road with Mrs. Linklater

Travel tales. Sorry. I gave it a try, but I still don't like the GPS. Not when I have directions in hand. I prefer route numbers, when possible, not the local names of roads, thank you. And I'll pay my way to avoid traffic. The GPS on the rental car wanted me to take the business route which was free, instead of the toll bridge on my way back from the Outer Banks to Norfolk airport. But I took the toll bridge so I could ask the toll taker a question about our next exit. However, for some mysterious reason, our car had pre-paid the toll for the bridge, which meant I had just a few seconds to pass beneath the raised bar before it came crashing down on top of the car. "But what's the exit for route 64?" I whined as I began moving forward. "You've got two seconds and the bar is going to land on you!!" "Route 64?" I pleaded, as we drove out of sight. "Exit *MUMBLE MUMBLE*" shouted the toll taker into the wind. Just as the bar missed the car's trunk by its chinny chin chin. Naturally, despite my efforts to ignore the woman who lives inside the GPS, she picked up where she left off and began ordering us around in time to take a shortcut to the rental car return via the cargo exit, which would have been all well and good if we hadn't been looking for a gas station, not a short cut. All so we could fill up the tank and save some surcharge money. BTW -- Gas was $3.59 in Virginia. It's as much as $4.39 around Chicago. The surcharge might end up being less than the cost of gas here. 


Travel tales foodwise. Ordering Starbuck's Fraps in airports is risky. I've learned over the years that asking for more than three things in a Starbuck's drink is asking for trouble. Even at a Starbuck's you patronize every day. The size of the drink, the type of coffee, and a flavor are all that most baristas can handle. So my attempts to procure a Decaf Tall Mocha Frap with a shot of Hazelnut is fraught with possible errors. I don't even bother to add "With no whipped cream" until they're almost done. Only two times out of ten has this concoction tasted the way I think it was meant to taste, i.e., with hazelnut and mocha. At the Norfolk airport, next to gate B16, the order taking barista thought I meant a shot of espresso instead of a shot of hazelnut, although I don't know how she confused espresso with hazelnut, except that she wasn't listening. When I queried the other barista tasked with making said order into something I could consume, the error in her playback made the mistake apparent. So another Decaf Tall Mocha Frap with a shot of Hazelnut was started. You'd think that care and concern would be part of the second equation, except it wasn't. One sip of the latest efforts and I realized that mocha and hazelnut had still not been included. Time to just get on the plane. 


Travel tales baggage wise. For half an hour the luggage carousel number for our flight wasn't posted. I talked to a woman in charge of tracking lost luggage and taking complaints, who informed me that there was lightning outside, so all luggage operations were suspended. Every so often we checked the monitors waiting for the weather to get better. But no carousel was posted on the monitor as time continued to tick away. We checked the carousels, too, looking for the flight number, just in case. Nothing. I noticed other flights after ours had carousel numbers already posted. Ours still didn't. Again, I asked the woman in charge of misinformation about the luggage. This time, she asked for my luggage tag number, since I must have made a mistake. "Aha! Your luggage has been around three times already." she practically shouted. "But the carousel number is not posted. Anywhere." I whined. "Didn't you hear the announcement? It's on carousel three," she said with smug satisfaction. "Have YOU ever heard an announcement in an airport?" I replied, wanting to poke her in the eye, after realizing that the crackling and buzzing I heard earlier must have been what she referred to. Then, in a moment of maturity I added, "You're an idiot!" And left to get my luggage. As we were leaving, I noticed the carousel number still wasn't posted on the monitor. Nor was the flight number posted on the carousel where the luggage arrived. So I stopped by the desk to repeat my sentiments from earlier, "In case you didn't hear me, you're an idiot."  For some reason she didn't make eye contact. This story will not make it into the next volume of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Unless they change it to Chicken Shit.