This is ostensibly a yes or no question, but it also allows you to highlight a key experience you have had working in a team. For example, you led a team in a prior role to complete a project that exceeded expectations. Maybe you organized and led a club as a student.

Whatever experience you may have had in a team environment, try to focus your answer on offering the interviewer a situation where you worked in a team, the role you played, and the notable achievement that resulted.

If you are unprepared to hear a question like this, it may be challenging to deal with on the spot, as it deals with a personal struggle you must have navigated.

However, if you understand that this question is an opportunity to showcase your mettle and highlight positive attributes, this question can be one you bravely address.

-First, ensure you have an example you can elaborate upon.

-Next, put your interviewer in the situation with you. Let them know that the setback may have been difficult, but you doubled down. Tell them about the specific goal and plans you set at that point.

-Take them through the process. Tell them about when you carried out your plan and how the desired results were realized through your concerted effort.

-You can finish your response by telling the interviewer about a principle you learned from the experience. Then, let them know how you are now a better person or employee in a specific way because of this setback.

In this question, you can see some of the common hallmarks of a brain teaser question, which play upon conventional logic to lull you into an incorrect answer.

Dealing with fractions this way may make you quickly assume this is about proportions. This may lead you to conclude incorrectly that the answer is 12 hours.

Notice that the inclusion of the word “just” in the question may be strategically added to coax you into assuming that a quarter of the pond must be covered quite rapidly.

In reality, though, this brain teaser reveals a relatively simple answer when you approach the problem from another angle. Instead of trying to tabulate the growth of the lily pad from hour 1 to hour 48, work it backward--

You know the pad takes one hour to double in size and covers the entire pond in 48 hours. This means that just one hour prior, the pad was half the size and thus covered half of the pond.

Traveling backward just one more hour, you arrive at the desired destination of a pad that covers a quarter of the pond. So 48 hours-2 hours is 46 hours.

Finding this string of logic may take some time. However, part of the purpose of a brain teaser question is to measure your critical thinking skills, and as such, it is ok not to have an immediate answer.

Ensure you understand every part of this question and ask clarifying questions of the interviewer if you missed something. Then take a moment to think through the problem. This way, you can deliver a sound answer with cogent logic to support your thought process.

This brain teaser is likely to lead you to an incorrect answer--that the bat is $1 and the ball $.10--because humans intuitively replace more complex questions with simpler ones to solve them quickly.

An interviewer posing this question is assessing whether you will fall into the same trap and if you have the critical thinking skills to address the question with full attention before answering.

When you hear that the bat is $1 more than the ball, the natural reaction is to ascribe the $1 price tag to the bat. This gives you a simple remaining balance of $.10 for the ball. However, this leaves just a $.90 difference between the bat and the ball, not the stated $1 difference.

The correct answer is that the ball costs $.05, and the bat costs $1.05. This fulfills the requirements of a difference of $1 and a grand total of $1.10.

Knowing that you will be asked brain teaser-type questions beforehand can go a long way in preparing you for this question and others like it.

When a solution seems immediately apparent, rather than blurt out your answer immediately, consider that you may have fallen into the exact trap laid by the question and take the time to analyze it.

This question allows you to demonstrate your decision-making skills as influenced by basic financial concepts. You will find that many brain teaser questions either directly or indirectly deal with exponential growth and compounding interest (like our lily pad from earlier).

This question is also one of those.

On the one hand, you can select the consistent daily payout of $1, which allows you to eventually reach and surpass the $5000 option.

Using quick rough calculations, you can conclude that this would take around 15 years (365 days x 10 years = $3650 in 10 years, 365 days x 5 years= ~$1800 in 5 years, so in 15 years, you could have >$5000).

You might then logically submit that you plan to live two or three times as long as that, so $1 a day for the rest of your life would be the best option to maximize your lottery returns.

This answer, however, neglects the financial concepts of the time value of money and compounding interest. Though you may still be collecting $1 a day decades from now, that future $1 is worth a fraction of $1 today.

As a result, you may finally have more than $5000 15 years from now, but you also missed out on 15 years of growth opportunity. Instead, you can take $5000 today and put that money into an investment account that offers, say, for the sake of conservatism and mental math ease, 5% returns.

You can quickly calculate that you will have made an additional $250 on top of your $5000 in the first year.

Knowing that you can then earn 5% on the 5% you already made in year 2, it is clear that your returns per year will quickly approach the $365 returns from the daily payout option simply because of compounding interest.

To sum up, this interview question will allow you to boost your knowledge and respect for financial concepts such as the time value of money and compounding interest by selecting the $5000 lump sum payment.

This question can be another chance to express to the interviewer how you have the qualities they are looking for. Personal values are often created through trying circumstances, and you can share some of these experiences during this question.

“Growing up, I learned that integrity and commitment amounted to the eventual legacy of a person. I carried these values with me when I navigated my college career. I believe that I now exemplify these traits and that they make me a valuable member of any team.”

The answer to the first part of the question can easily be addressed, but the interviewer's inclusion of the second part is an invitation for you to show proof of your stamina.

Addressing this question with an example from your past, detailing the different responsibilities you held simultaneously, will be an effective way to answer. This can also allow you to explain your tenacity in extracurricular activities that have set you apart in the past.

“Yes, I can. In my junior year of school, I was the president of a club, took a full course load, and had an internship. I managed to excel in each of these endeavors by being disciplined in my goal-setting and planning. This is a skill I still use today.”

Your answer here will help the interviewer see that you have the commitment necessary to work in a demanding role and have taken the time to fully consider the reality of the workload.

“I learned early on that I feel most fulfilled when I am working. I want to devote myself fully to my work because I know that I can produce great returns when I do that. I really wouldn’t want to work in a position with a smaller workload.”

Many applicants who have completed interviews with the Group have reported questions like this and, more specifically, about Macquarie’s recent deals. So an interviewer is measuring your diligence in following information pertinent to your career.

Even if staying up to date on current events comes naturally already, go into your interview with an example or two teed up. This can help you be prepared to synthesize information clearly and show the interviewer your ability to find the most important piece in a mass of information.

An interviewer posing this question is assessing your familiarity with financial statements and whether or not you can explain the logic behind your answer using sound reason that the study of the financial statements has clearly shaped.

“I would pick the Statement of Cash Flows. This statement is helpful because it will tell you about the health of a business and how capable they are of paying off debts.

A balance sheet will not show you how profitable a business is over an extended period, and an income statement will not show you the assets and liabilities needed to get that profit.” 

You can use this question as a tee-up to discuss what makes Macquarie unique and why you are drawn to those things. This will convince the interviewer that your passion will play well in the organization.

“I would choose you because I feel at home in the entrepreneurial culture here. I have enjoyed my time with different people here and would love to belong to an organization with such strong growth prospects.”

This question revisits your earlier math education and your ability to explain your mental math process.

“It is 9801. 99x99 can also be expressed as (100-1)^2. Then you can work that out to be shown as 10000-200+1, which, when summed, is 9801.”

Like other technical questions, this one will key into your foundational understanding of financial statements and the effects of specific hypotheticals.

“Let’s assume a 40% tax rate. Pre-tax income will drop by $10, and net income will drop by $6. Depreciation will be a non-cash charge on the Income Statement.

On the Cash Flow Statement, the net income is down $6, but the $10 of depreciation is a non-cash expense, so you add it up, and the cash at the bottom is up $4.

On the Balance Sheet, cash is up $4, but PPE has declined by $10 due to the added depreciation, so assets are down by $6.

Additionally, retained earnings are down $6 due to the reduced net income on the income statement.”

As companies add more debt, they assume financial risk beyond the market risk that beta tries to capture. Unlevering beta compensates for this added risk that makes levered beta misleading. Explain to your interviewer that you understand this formula.

“To unlever beta, you want to have a levered beta in the numerator. In the denominator, you want to divide total debt by total equity, multiply that by 1 minus the tax rate, and then add that to one. Complete the solution.”

You can use this opportunity to highlight skills you already excel at. Then, emphasizing this, you can say that you’d like to improve further to become an even stronger professional.

“I’ve worked to develop my Excel keyboard shortcut abilities while completing assignments in school. However, I know I can learn more of these shortcuts, which would help me work more efficiently. Therefore, I would like to improve on this.”