DEV Community

What's an interesting question you've been asked at an interview?

Avalander on October 12, 2019

Not necessarily a difficult question, but what is something you've been asked that was uncommon, weird, interesting, puzzling or flabbergasting?

Collapse
 
saurabhdaware profile image
Saurabh Daware ๐ŸŒป

I recently had an interview where we discussed about building a snake game. So they were putting conditions like what if I dont want snake to go out of boundaries, what if apple appears inside a snake. I personally loved that interview.

Collapse
 
worsnupd profile image
Daniel Worsnup

It's interesting to me that they brought up those issues. If I were conducting that interview I'd almost certainly want the candidate to bring them up.

Collapse
 
saurabhdaware profile image
Saurabh Daware ๐ŸŒป

oh they gave these two issues as an example and then asked me to bring issues so yeah it was fun too! I then discussed about the winning condition and handling the snake size after eating each apple :D

Thread Thread
 
worsnupd profile image
Daniel Worsnup

Nice! It sounds like a fun interview!

Collapse
 
andreasvirkus profile image
ajv

I was asked what was my latest "Today I Learned" experience. I really liked it and I've been asking that from people that I click with during an interview

Collapse
 
lazerfx profile image
Peter Street

I had an interview where, as part of the discussion of my history, I was asked what approach I would take if I was to restart my failed web-design company again, at the same time, with the same approach. It failed partially because of the climate (Set up a few months before Sept 11th and the dot-com collapse), and it was quite interesting to look at what I would and could have rationally done with my knowledge now, assuming no knowledge of Sept 11th coming. I rather think I could have succeeded...

Collapse
 
lukeocodes profile image
@lukeocodes ๐Ÿ•น๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป • Edited

What's your favourite pie?

They admitted this was literally a sift question.

Collapse
 
peledzohar profile image
Zohar Peled

My answer to that would be: 3.14

Collapse
 
avalander profile image
Avalander

Haha, that's a fun one! At a previous team we used to ask candidates if they liked cats. The answer never had any weight in the hiring decision, but we were all pretty crazy about cats.

Collapse
 
schmowser profile image
Victor Warno

I wonder if the candidates would go mad for everything you ask - Probably assuming they don't get the job if they don't say they like it.

Do you like dogs?
Do you like bugs?
Do you like Brussel sprouts?
Do you like the little fruits they put on your cocktails and pierce it with a toothpick?

Thread Thread
 
avalander profile image
Avalander

That's a good question. In our case, we then explained that all our test data was about cats, and had cat pictures and gifs in our internal tools and flooded the team chat with cat memes and said that it was okay if they didn't like cats quite that much, but they'd have to deal with us.

Collapse
 
simondodson profile image
SIMON DODSON

favorite excel formula?

what dont you like about this company?

what does hard work look like?

define risk?

Collapse
 
ysris profile image
Yoann

What do you do if you have a 5000+ lines stored procedure that you have to debug ?

Collapse
 
avalander profile image
Avalander

Lol, that would beg the question do you have 5000+ lines stored procedures?

Collapse
 
ysris profile image
Yoann

And the answer would probably be something like "yes we have legacy SQL code that we should refactor one day". ^

Collapse
 
nimmo profile image
Nimmo

I was once asked "why do you want to work here" as the first question in an interview. I found that to be pretty unusual, since I generally go to interviews to find out if I want to work somewhere!

Collapse
 
nopestack profile image
Daniel

Q: What would you do if [you're using TypeScript and] there's no type definitions for the library you want to use?.

Collapse
 
evieskinner18 profile image
Evie

Weirdest one I've had to date:

"Ok let's test your problem solving ability. How many golf balls are there in the United Kingdom?"

Collapse
 
avalander profile image
Avalander

That's an odd one, how did you answer?

Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
avalander profile image
Avalander

O.o That's an odd one. Was there anything in the context that warranted it?

Collapse
 
azeem2793 profile image
Agha Azeem

HR asked me: โ€œwhen will you get marriedโ€ ๐Ÿ˜‘๐Ÿ˜‘