A job interview is never a very pleasant step:you can quickly lose your means after an unexpected question. And the stress can go up a level even more when the targeted company is a multinational that handpicks its employees in order to maintain a brand image, like Google. And to ensure effective filtering among the many applicants, the Californian company has developed questions that are as surprising as they are confusing. Among them:“How many golf balls can a school bus hold? or “Why are manhole covers circular ? ". But there is one that has been particularly highlighted, for the simple and good reason that the former CEO of Google himself could not find the answer!
Eric Schmidt, now executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, did not really shine a few days ago at the Sea Summit which brings together the biggest businessmen. A riddle, which was frequently posed to candidates for positions at Google while Schmidt was CEO, was posed to him:
“You are the captain of a pirate ship and you find a chest full of gold. Your crew must vote to decide how the gold will be shared. If less than half of the pirates accept your proposal, you die. How would you divide the gold so that the split is fair and you can survive? »
The entrepreneur stalled, asking for the question to be repeated and then clarified, before concluding, “That’s a really bad question ". He nevertheless attempted an answer, which did not completely convince:"I propose that we offer 49% of pirates shares in Internet-related companies, and that the remaining 51% take the gold ". Yeah… The man still clarified that he never approved of these tricky practices, which have been removed from job interviews for several years now, according to the site Quartz . Phew, honor is (almost) safe!
