Posted on 11/20/2010 1:23:01 PM PST by WebFocus
Google came to Syracuse’s campus to recruit new graduates when I was a senior. I attended the information session and learned which jobs I could qualify for. I created a fancy cover letter and resume, crossed my fingers and e-mailed them my documents. One week later I had an email in my inbox from Google.
Google wanted to interview me! Forbes’ #1 company to work for was interested in speaking with me about an Associate Product Marketing Manager position in Mountain View, California. I called everyone I could think of, ecstatic and day-dreaming that my job hunt might end quickly and painlessly with me surfing during lunch breaks at the Googleplex.
Everyone says your GPA doesn’t matter when you’re finding a job—those people obviously never applied to Google. My 3.6 suddenly seemed inferior. Google also wanted to know if I had received any job offers. They wanted to know who was recruiting me and how far along I was in my job search. Talk about salt on an open wound to a college senior. Sad and dejected, I ticked off the “No” [no one wants me] and “Yes” [I’m still unemployed] boxes. I should have realized then that this was shaping up to be a grueling interview process, but I was too excited to pay much notice.
To prepare for my two back-to-back conference calls, I googled Google and learned their history, products, current news, founders, locations, business models, competitors, AdWords, investors and mottos. My heart had never been in anything more and I was prepared for any curve ball they could throw. I practiced interviewing with friends and felt confident when my cell rang at 4:00pm sharp.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Can you define neat? I always work best when parameters are well established. ;)
Well, something better than my bedroom and bathroom, anyhow. :-)
But in reality, in retrospect, I think that one would be best answered by recalling what kind of organization you had going at work. I could have recalled the good filing system that I had at my first real job out of college, and I might have gotten that job, temporary though it would have been.
So, recall how orderly you kept the burger assembly line at Burger King or how you kept each technique specification package and it’s associated materials in its own file folder, or whatever.
She is not even smart enough to know she never should have written an article detailing how she could not answer a basic math question that kids in grammar school should be able to answer.
What a dufus. Plus, over all my years from interviewing in grad school to searching for jobs during my career, I learned that one will come across some rather strange interviews and interviewers. They are quite useful in determining whether one would have any interest in working for that company.
And now every future potential employer now will Google her name and read this tripe.
Not smart.
writer graduated in 2008 ad got a job...
...Math?! I hadn’t taken a math course since freshman year of college...
She apparently didn't like math and it was not required for her degree:
That apparently is the real problem.
As to the first math problem:
* An advertiser makes $0.10 every time someone clicks on their ad. Only 20% of people who visit the site click on their ad. How many people need to visit the site for the advertiser to make $20?
To make $20 for $0.10 a click you need $20.0 divided by 0.1 or 200 clicks. To get 200 clicks when 0.2 % of the people click you need 200 divided by 0.2 or 1000 people.
>> One example: name 10 people that you admire. When you ask “Dead or Alive?”, he says, “10 of each.”
I wonder if you’d get hired if you rattled off twenty in no time at all — and one of them was Jesus, and you put him in the “alive” group.
I’d bet that no matter how well you did on the interview, that answer to that interview question at essentially any high tech company (especially one HQ’d in Kommiefornia) would be a “bad career move”.
Just because.
Morons, it’s spelled “Sycacuse”.
Writing down the question and having a calculator handy would have helped.
That’s a hard question because the Saints are alive too.
I’ve interviewed others, and I’m guilty of using that technique.
I love taking an engineer and asking him who composed the 4 seasons? Basic knowledge questions in a field diametrically opposite to his own.
And yes, I get all the maths questions because my diploma actually reads a BA in History. :)
Actually I’m quite boring. Now a tidy person on the other hand...
I'd answer by saying that I don't admire that many people to begin with. I have work to do, I have no time for admiration of others. Next question!
My brother’s first interview with a partner of a law firm included the partner handing him a rubber chicken and demanding “Sell me this chicken. “. I love it.
* An advertiser makes $0.10 every time someone clicks on their ad. Only 20% of people who visit the site click on their ad. How many people need to visit the site for the advertiser to make $20?
To make $20 for $0.10 a click you need $20.0 divided by 0.1 or 200 clicks. To get 200 clicks when 0.2 % of the people click you need 200 divided by 0.2 or 1000 people.
Put another way,
Let x= site visitors, 0.20x = site visitors who click, at $0.10 a click, (0.20x)($0.10) = $20.00, $0.02x = $20.00, x = ($20.00/$0.02) = 1000.
A mathematician (or an engineer) can answer "everybody, or nobody - this is equally probable, as long as I don't listen to that music. It's a division by zero, or an infinitely thin layer of probabilities that integrates to unity. You can also view it as an event that occurred outside of our light cone. Yet another way to put it is 'if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it...' (linky)"
It's far more informative this way, instead of just saying "Vivaldi" if you properly dislike Baroque :-) Even most of Mozart's works are "too old" for my taste. The Romantic period is far more lively, and is well represented.
And I’d respond,
\
“Mathematics is for Mathematicians”, which is a quote from Copernicus of all people!
When I interview potential programmers I always ask them what their favorite book about programming is and why they like it.
I know that if somebody reads those books, that they are really interested in what they do. If they can’t come up with one, then I know they don’t take their craft seriously.
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