Page 72 - How To Answer Interview Questions (II)

Job Interview Question 33

How many tennis balls can you fit into a limousine?

Will you get asked a brainteaser question in your interview? Maybe, maybe not.
Yes, they can seem ridiculous. The method behind the madness is to evaluate how you think and

how you approach a problem. The key is to be ready for anything, and don’t get flustered.
If they ask you any kind of brainteaser question:

How many tennis balls in a limousine?
How would you move Mount Fuji?
How many gas stations are there in the US?
Just remember that you don’t have to get the exact right answer. What you need to do is demonstrate
that:

1. You don’t get flustered, confused, or thrown off your game by the unexpected.
2. You can come up with a reasoned, logical approach to problem solving.
So just take a deep breath and start thinking through the question out loud. If you need a pen and
paper to help you think (I would), then use the ones you brought with you to take notes.
For tennis balls in a limousine, maybe I would say, “I would first have to look up the average cubic
feet of the inside of a limo, and then I would do a simple calculation based on that number divided by
the size of a tennis ball. Or, I could get a 1 foot cube, fill it with tennis balls, count those, and multiply
that by the average cubic square feet of the inside of a limo.” So now, I’ve shown them that I can
come up with multiple ways to approach and solve a problem on the fly.