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Impossible Interviews

James Shaw
Have you ever been faced with an interview question that seemed impossible to answer?


Mine was delivered on the premises of a 'world class' engineering company. "How would you ensure that a project is completed on time?"


My mind raced from the general to the particular - If I knew the answer to that I would be a billionaire! - Strikes, bad weather, supplier failure, poor specifications etc. Probably no words came out as the interviewer started to drop hints, "It begins with a 'P', it ends in 'N', it has four letters." "Plan?" I say. "Exactly!" says he. 'Idiot' thinks I.


In retrospect perhaps it was a test to see if I was suitable to develop for senior management - the 'big picture' people. "We will deliver better value, we will be smarter!" But how? Engineers, small-minded, always bothered about the details!


Needless to say, I didn't get that job. Perhaps just as well.
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    I am sure there is a whole topic on useful mental arithmetic tricks that some have been taught and others have developed for themselves. My mental arithmetic has never been very good and I used to calculate approximate logarithms in my head during tube journeys when scoping an idea so as to avoid multiplication. The other trick was to round numbers off say by 20% and compensate at the end of the calculation. Bear in mind that this was for engineering not banking!


    It occurs to me that people may have knowledge but don't use it. They have been examination trained, they have the certificate, they can churn it out at an interview but 'on the job' it is never applied. In real life problems don't come well-defined and certainly not with a neat list of tabulated parameters.


    When I was studying A-level physics we had a new teacher who thought it was a good idea to set questions in a practical style. We were given a Boyle's Law problem involving a bicycle tyre. The 'number-pluggers' were able to solve it, the 'thinkers' were stumped. "It's a constant volume problem", he explained in frustration. "But it is a rubber tyre, it stretches but we don't know how much." "Not very much.", says he. Academic precision changed to real-world approximation and nothing to tell us that the rules had changed makes for an 'Impossible' question!
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    I am sure there is a whole topic on useful mental arithmetic tricks that some have been taught and others have developed for themselves. My mental arithmetic has never been very good and I used to calculate approximate logarithms in my head during tube journeys when scoping an idea so as to avoid multiplication. The other trick was to round numbers off say by 20% and compensate at the end of the calculation. Bear in mind that this was for engineering not banking!


    It occurs to me that people may have knowledge but don't use it. They have been examination trained, they have the certificate, they can churn it out at an interview but 'on the job' it is never applied. In real life problems don't come well-defined and certainly not with a neat list of tabulated parameters.


    When I was studying A-level physics we had a new teacher who thought it was a good idea to set questions in a practical style. We were given a Boyle's Law problem involving a bicycle tyre. The 'number-pluggers' were able to solve it, the 'thinkers' were stumped. "It's a constant volume problem", he explained in frustration. "But it is a rubber tyre, it stretches but we don't know how much." "Not very much.", says he. Academic precision changed to real-world approximation and nothing to tell us that the rules had changed makes for an 'Impossible' question!
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