Comment by jeffool | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeffool | Hacker News Reader

Ahhh, I failed (flailed) one of these once! I spent minutes trying to figure out "You have a business card in Japanese, how do you figure out what it says?"

I asked if it had the phone number, they said yes, and I said the numbers are the same as in English... They said "okay, what next?" ... I was stuck. Next? Well, I suppose I could take a photo of it and ask for someone to translate it online... Or find someone in real life to translate it for me...

After a couple of minutes, they were ready to move on, disappointed, when I said "Well, short of asking for help, or Googling the phone number, I have no idea off hand how to find it."

"Oh, well, searching the number, that's what we thought you were going for initially."

It was. I'd thought they meant "next" as in "other than that method". Having the number was so evidently "problem solved" for me, that I didn't explicitly say "search out online". ... I suddenly felt like I was in grade school again, and my teacher had failed me for not showing the work in math class. I had the right answer, but would never get credit. I went on to flop the next question or two, as I vaguely recall.

The interviewer cannot guess what's in your brain. Part of being a good communicator is being able to actually spell out your thoughts when necessary.

Besides, if you had said "then I search the number online" then it's plausible the interviewer would ask what would you do if you didn't find anything relevant right away. For instance, if you search for my cell phone number, you get 0 results connected with me.

> The interviewer cannot guess what's in your brain. Part of being a good communicator is being able to actually spell out your thoughts when necessary

The flip side is when the interviewer doesn't communicate well. Or asks a specific question, but means something slightly different.

I've dealt with that before. Assumed they meant what they said, when the reality was, they were being more precise than intended. My fault for assuming I guess. I now try to clarify the intent, and make clear the precision.

Why is the answer of asking a friend not acceptable? Since it's an open ended question, any reasonably open ended answer would do.

I'm guessing many people's first response to this situation in real life would be to call out to coworkers - hey can anyone read this?, yet most of us would stick to the solo problem solving mechanics in our answer - search the # online, ocr + babelfish, call the number cold, whatever.

I understand fermi tests are intended to show broad problem solving abilities, but imho, these tests are for lazy people. Talk to a candidate for 20 minutes. If you can't tell if he/she is suited for the role, or at least for a follow up interview, one of you is not qualified.

Slightly pedantic, but this question was not a Fermi problem - Fermi problems are numerical approximation problems, and this one is more behavioral.

That said, I don't think they're lazy questions necessarily. However, I'm a physicist, enjoy Fermi problems (actually compulsively do the calculations when I hear a new one - a million golf balls!), and do think that order of magnitude approximations and quick unit changes are important skills to have developed.

I do think it's very lazy when they come out of a book or are riddles, because there are so many short approximations we can do at any moment. How much will the electric bill be for this office when it's August? or I just made a pot of coffee and forgot to place it back on the burner - when will it be too cold to enjoy? No accurate answer is needed or cared about, but the ability to predict important factors and come up with a list of contributing components is important.

Once an interviewer asked me, how would you design a telephone for blind people and is there something already on our phones today for it. My answer was short, i said "Braille". He turned the landline phone towards me and asked to take a look. The middle keys sometimes have this bevel shape(just like a keyboard). Since i'd already said braille, i thought he meant something else now. I said i don't know.

He's like 'notice the small bevel at the bottom of the center key". Apparently he didn't know what it was called and that it was named after the inventor. Well, technically it's not proper Braille, but i would have taken that as a correct answer.

Is it Braille? Isn't it just designating the center key in a number pad (the '5'), from which it is evident to the user what the key around are? There is a slight bump on my '5' key, but one bump is certainly not Braille for '5'. Braille is like Morse code, it refers to a specific 'code', not just "any bumps meant to be felt for".

>Well, technically it's not proper Braille, but i would have taken that as a correct answer.

I just wanted to highlight that even though the candidate/me was aware of the basic concept. The answer just wasn't the exact thing the interviewer was looking for, hence it was wrong according to him.

I can't tell what your interviewer knew or intended, but the point of the question it seems to me is the "one non-Braille bump on the '5'" solution is actually better and simpler than using actual Braille. So answering Braille actually does seem wrong to me, and insisting it's not wrong seems like missing the point. You had generalized Braille to mean any bumps, so maybe your interviewer knew what Braille was, and that this was not Braille, and thought the point of the question was specifically that it was not Braille.

Sorry if it's just my tired brain not getting it. What was the solution they were looking for?

Edited for clarity, sorry. I didn't explicitly say "okay, then I call the number," or "search it online". As far as they were concerned I stopped at "okay. I found a phone number... Then I take a picture of it."

It boils down to me not being perfectly clear, I guess. No hard feelings or anything, of course. Like I said, I threw myself off my game anyway.

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