- Aug 20, 2000
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Being fairly early in my career, I'm just now starting to regularly interview people to come for me at my company. I'm looking at hiring a few bright young interns for the summer to run with a project or two that they'll almost totally self-manage. Any tips on questions I should ask to get an idea of their character? Self-motivated problem solvers are at the top of my list.
Also, what do you think of posing these "Fermi questions" to the developers on the spot and having them reason out each step as they problem-solve out loud? I'll provide the question on a piece of paper, with a pencil, so they can sketch out rough equations and keep track of the numbers they've already theorized. My goal with this is to get a sense of how good their on-the-spot analytical skills are.
1. How much has the mass of the human population on the earth increased in the last year? (kilograms)
2. How many litres of gasoline are used in your home town in one week? (litres)
3. How many individual frames are needed for a feature length motion picture?
4. According to the Canadian Blood Service, how many litres of blood are donated in Canada in the average year? (Hint: One unit of blood is equal to about 0.45 litres).
5. What is the total mass of the CN Tower? (kilograms)
6. How many traffic lights are there in Toronto? (number of traffic lights)
Edit: I think I didn't provide enough context for those questions. I was assuming that a lot of people here would have run into them because many people here work in tech jobs and were probably subject to one or two questions of this type.
The idea isn't to get an accurate answer or require much calculation at all; it's just a mental exercise. I'll cut/paste what a Fermi question is all about:
Making accurate estimations isn't an issue. I want to see how they step through a problem.
Thanks.
Also, what do you think of posing these "Fermi questions" to the developers on the spot and having them reason out each step as they problem-solve out loud? I'll provide the question on a piece of paper, with a pencil, so they can sketch out rough equations and keep track of the numbers they've already theorized. My goal with this is to get a sense of how good their on-the-spot analytical skills are.
1. How much has the mass of the human population on the earth increased in the last year? (kilograms)
2. How many litres of gasoline are used in your home town in one week? (litres)
3. How many individual frames are needed for a feature length motion picture?
4. According to the Canadian Blood Service, how many litres of blood are donated in Canada in the average year? (Hint: One unit of blood is equal to about 0.45 litres).
5. What is the total mass of the CN Tower? (kilograms)
6. How many traffic lights are there in Toronto? (number of traffic lights)
Edit: I think I didn't provide enough context for those questions. I was assuming that a lot of people here would have run into them because many people here work in tech jobs and were probably subject to one or two questions of this type.
The idea isn't to get an accurate answer or require much calculation at all; it's just a mental exercise. I'll cut/paste what a Fermi question is all about:
A "Fermi question" is a question in physics which seeks a fast, rough estimate of quantity which is either difficult or impossible to measure directly.
For example: The question "How many drops of water are there in Lake Erie?" requires an estimate of the volume of a drop, the volume of Lake Erie from its approximate dimensions and conversion of units to yield an answer. This answer would be an estimate hopefully accurate within an order of magnitude, i.e. a factor of ten.
Making accurate estimations isn't an issue. I want to see how they step through a problem.
Thanks.