Mindgames during interviews

They rigged my toilet not to flush. It was awkward.

seems a little far fetched to try and test someone, if you ask me.

I had one interview where the interviewer read the WSJ and looked around the room the whole time pretending to be bored with me. However when I got the call back for the superday, the interviewer told me that I did great. Obviously mindgames vary from interviewer to interviewer but I don't think you would really see something from Liar's Poker.

i had an interview where one guy was super nice, the other guy was a total jackass. the typical "good cop / bad cop" scenario. one guy looked around the room annoyed and bored. the other guy engaged in conversation, was nodding and very encouraging.

they basically wanted to see how you deal with the jackass. do you ignore him? do you continue to address him and look his way? the key is really not to get flustered.

I had one where the guy hypnotized me - a little strange, but I still think I nailed the interview

Do they ask any math questions? I hope not. What department has the least amount of math involved?

The only math questions I received were simple, as in what is 17 squared.

Yeah I wouldn

I was interviewing some kid and thought it'd be funny to try hypnotizing him. Amazingly, it worked, so I had my way with him. After cleaning up and getting his clothes back on, I told him, "I'm about to count to 3. When I get to 3, I will snap my fingers and you'll wake up, thinking the interviewer nailed you. I mean, uh, thinking you nailed the interview."

i should try hypnotizing someone one day

the smashing of the window seems desperate - you will probably have more mind games at an oxbridge interview. Cue: "Here's a banana, describe it to me", "why are manholes round", "do something shocking"

had a guy read a newspaper the whole time

had another guy who kept going in and out of the room to check his messages...maybe he had something important to do, but it def threw me a bit off

1. # of pennies you could fit in this room (some bond desk in Chicago)
2. # of ping pong balls you could fit on a 747 (BofA)
3. Measure 4 exact gallons using a 3 and 5 gallon jug (BofA - yes, they really did)
3. Precise angle formed by the hands of a clock at 5:45 (GS)
4. You have 9 identical billiard balls -one being lighter than the rest- and a justice scale; in two moves, how do you determine which ball is the lightest? (Credit Suisse)

Just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

"do something shocking"

when i was asked this, i told my interviewer to close her eyes. i leaned across the desk and kissed her. when she told me that it was just an interview question and that i could "stop now," i continued kissing her neck and started feeling up her tits. she started panicking and tried pushing me off, but i held her hands down and climbed on top of her and started beating her senseless while ripping her clothes off.

a minute and a half later, i had finished raping her thoroughly (she had given up at this point and was covered in bruises and blood). i realized that what i had done was illegal and that the other interviewers out in the lobby would eventually start wondering what was going on, what with all the screaming, so i looked around the room for options.

i climbed off of her limp body as she wept, and walked across the room to pick up a heavy lamp. a few blows to the skull and i knew she was fully unconscious or close to dead. but how to get the body out of the room? we were on the 50th floor and the windows were sealed.

aha! i took a page from the brilliant anecdote in Liar's Poker and heaved an Aero desk chair against the glass until it shattered. now what? this was a Lehman office, full of posh furnishings: i ran out of the interview room and within seconds came across an old Oriental rug. while an old secretary stared, i heaved it over my shoulder, hurried back to the interview room, wrapped my interviewer's body in it, and sent the rug-and-corpse burrito tumbling down toward Park Ave.

i put the lamp back on the desk, rubbed the blood into the carpet as best as i could, hid my resume/file in the trash, and walked out with a sigh of relief. close one.

when I was asked this, I stood up, said to the interviewer: "I'll see you when I start the internship this summer", and walked out.

1.? pennies in room? just say you need width and diameter of pennies and area of room?

2. Similar type of answer as #1 but with or without seats installed in 747?

3 I understand:
1. Fill up the 5 gallon container.
2. Pour as much in the 3 gallon container as you can. That will leave 2 gallons in the 5 gallon container.
3. Empty the 3 gallon container.
4. Pour the 2 gallons in the 5 gallon container into the 3 gallon container.
5. Fill the 5 gallon container.
6. Pour one gallon out of the 5 gallon container to fill the 3 gallon container.
7. That will leave 4 gallons in the five gallon container.

OR

Fill the 3, pour into the 5. Do it again, leaving one gallon left in the three. Dump the 5, then empty the one gallon from the 3 into the 5. Fill the 3, empty it into the 5 and the 5 will have 4 gallons.

4. 120 Degrees

5. Wouldn't you actually need three moves and an even number of balls?

Answer to 4 would be 97.5 with a sweeping hour hand because the hour hand is 3/4 of the way between 5 and 6, not stuck on the 5 unless it's some weird hour hand that stays on 5 for the whole hour then snaps to 6 - never seen one of those. More important point is you get extra credit for thinking through everything that's moving and pointing out nuance after you get the basic understanding across.

Ah I see. I had been thinking about that but reverted to my elementary understanding of the concept when my answer seemed conveniently correct.

yeah... 30/4 = 7.5...

Not bad

you can weight 3 balls on each side, if they are same, then lighter ball is among remaining 3.
repeat.

tada

that's not 2 steps. how are you supposed to know WHICH ball among the remaining 3 it is, idiot?

Complete Sol: divide the 9 balls into 3 groups of 3 balls. Pick any two groups and weigh them on the scale. 1) If the sale came of balanced, than the lighter ball is in the remaining group, pick any two balls from that group and weigh them on the scale, if the scale again came off balanced, then the remaining ball is the one we're looking for; if not balanced, you know which ball it is. 2) If the scale came of unbalanced, pick any two balls from the group on the lighter side of the scale and weigh them again. If the scale came of balanced, the remaining one from this group is the lighter one; if not, you again know which ball it is. Each 1) or 2) takes only two steps. The End.

at a GS internship interview, I had a good cop/bad cop situation. The bad guy interviewing me kept sending text messages and generally ignoring me..

you can't just empty one gallon as there are no measurements...

so

1) Fill up three gallons in to the three gallons
2) Pour this into the five gallon bucket
3) Pour another three gallons into the three gallons bucket
4) So pour this into the five.. You can't, as you can only pour in five, leaving you with one gallon left in the three gallon bucket
5) Empty the five gallon bucket, and pour into it, the one gallon
6) fill the three gallon bucket and pour it into the five...
1+3 = 4 gallons

He CAN just empty one gallon from the 5 to the 3, because the 3 only has 2 gallons in it.

I think every interviewer has their own style and only a small percentage really tries to mess with the candidate. When I interview people I just try and get them to be more specific so I ask lots of follow up questions.

an interviewer at GS basically lay into me with sort of the "what makes you think you can do this? I am not sure your qualified. ect." He never let up but I found out the next day that he thought I nailed it because i staid confident the whole time and didnt let it get to me.

would you need to paint a 747

watch Die Hard with a Vengence for solution

Goldman full-time: interviewed in Chinese and French, because I put "low proficiency" in both on the online app.

Morgan Stanley summer internship: capital of Mongolia. But that was just for shits and giggles.

Is that even legal i.e. hey try to hypnotize someone at the interview. I've never heard of that one before.

what the fuck? how dense are you people? i was joking, dude. of course i didn't hypnotize an undergrad and "hvae my way with him." i find it hard to believe anyway that the poster above was actually hypnotized during an interview. nothing to worry about regardless, because you can't be hypnotized if you don't WANT to be put under.

Had an MD drop a Coke can on the desk, say, "memorize this", then leave the room. 15 minutes later, came back and asked me to list random things off of it - ingredients, etc.

Good fun.

Coke can - that's gold.

Generally it's not the answer that is most important, but the way you reasoned your solution and remained calm and confident even when you don't know what is going on.

BTW manholes are round so that the lids can't fall in to the holes.

Most of these questions aren't aimed to get to answers but to see your reasoning. Some of these interviews are just plain entertaining. Just like they have movies/tv series with cops plays good cop/bad cop, they should have a show called ibanking where they show the life of people working 100 hours weeks and going through weird interviews. They have that comedy Scrubs about med students so why not have IBankers? I would watch.

Wow guys! Some of this stuff is nerve racking. What can one really do if asked "Do something shocking"?

I have interviewed with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns (both IBD), and thankfully my interviewers were very professional.

Shocking? Well then, I would show them the shocker.

"Shocking? Well then, I would show them the shocker."

*crickets chirping*

I just had an interview and it was abit of good cop bad cop theme.
both were lawyers and one was encourgaging, the other one had a disengaged face, no smiles, sort of attitude and said: "I can see that you definately have improvement areas etc etc"

I hope in real life the guys are going to be nicer..... considering it will be 16hour days working with them....

I will be seeing 2 more people from this firm this week.... :)

Getting a cup of coffee and then he proceeded to dip biscuits in his coffee - his second biscuit breaking just before reaching his mouth and splashing straight into his coffee cup - the desk and his shirt now had coffee on them. I had to hold my breath for 10 seconds to not laugh at him and tell him what an idiot he was......

Being incredibly short. The top of his head came up to my shoulders. I had to hold my breath for 10 seconds not to laugh at him and tell him how short he was......

Great post. I can't believe you were able to contain yourself.

It was a joke, you sad little faggot. REad the post above mine and connect the dots.

Go look it up...

by MikesMess (Chimp, 4) on Wed, 2006-08-30 15:34 reply | quote

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1. # of pennies you could fit in this room (some bond desk in Chicago)
2. # of ping pong balls you could fit on a 747 (BofA)
3. Measure 4 exact gallons using a 3 and 5 gallon jug (BofA - yes, they really did)
3. Precise angle formed by the hands of a clock at 5:45 (GS)
4. You have 9 identical billiard balls -one being lighter than the rest- and a justice scale; in two moves, how do you determine which ball is the lightest? (Credit Suisse)

Just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

these are all problems from the Vault Interview Guide to Finance

There are tons of those problems on the online IQ tests. Just take one for fun, they're good logic practice.

Jane Street Capital Interviews are fun. Everyone should signup for one just for the experience.

details on how they are "fun"?

Not too many people interested in them at career fair.

At my superday an M&A MD started with, "Alright, why don't you ask yourself your own questions ... and then answer them. I'll just listen."

Now there's some fun.