how many piano tuners are there ?

growler

"How many piano tuners are there in the world?" was a question asked of me a few month back in an interview for my current job, I think its a great question and I now use it when interviewing for reasonably senior roles.

I think the benefits of seeing how people respond are pretty clear.

Any one else been thrown such questions and how did ye get on?

Jvizzle

Sounds like an abstract Microsoft question ...

I would ask for a Golden Pages and find out how many in Dublin or where ever the interview was undertaken. Take this as a basis and multiply it by a factor of the world population.

Then you would have to taken into account that the fact that alot of the world isnt as developed as Dublin and factor this in. What I would end up with would be a very rough guestimate at how many Piano tuners there are in the world.

and a job as I would have wowed the interviewer

ToxicPaddy

growler wrote:

"How many piano tuners are there in the world?" was a question asked of me a few month back in an interview for my current job, I think its a great question and I now use it when interviewing for reasonably senior roles.

I think the benefits of seeing how people respond are pretty clear.

Any one else been thrown such questions and how did ye get on?

So what exactly is the expected response to this???

Dont think I'll be getting a senior role anytime soon judging by my confusion on reading this..

BossArky

I did an M.Sc in Music Technology a few years ago in U.L. I remember it was the goal of a few people to go off and get the job of organ tuner. There is only 1 to a handful in the whole country. Of course I made the wise decision to stick with IT :rolleyes:

petes

http://www.acetheinterview.com/questions/cats/index.php/microsoft_google/2006/10/10/piano-tuners-by-pka

As good as any answer I'd imagine.

BossArky

I doubt the USA has 1/3 the worlds pianos.

Civilian_Target

One of the most akward interview questions I've been asked was "Why are manhole covers round?"

Interestingly, I've been reading a book called Deep Simplicity which tells you where the maths we see today originated, and how many of the mathematical functions we still use every day were developed with a specific and completely obselete problem in mind and just happened to be very applicable in other fields. Could create some tricky interview questions for us scientists.

Sam Vimes

Civilian_Target wrote:

One of the most akward interview questions I've been asked was "Why are manhole covers round?"

to be honest that's not really awkward. a round manhole cover can't fall into the hole

Jvizzle

Commander, Thats the exact answer

Jail8ird

While interviewing a guy for a training position in our company a few years, my boss asked the guys, "How would you describe an elephant to a blind man?". Silly show-off cow!

Jail8ird

I don't know was she suddenly inspired by the fact the guy was from India or not but yer man didn't see that coming and failed miserably.

Jvizzle

I believe you drop these questions in to see how people think on thier feet and approach a problem logically.

BossArky

I don't see what is so difficult about the manhole cover or elephant questions. Manhole's are round so that a person when half emersed in one can turn any which way and still be the same distance from the edge. Describing an elephant to a blind man is just testing if you can describe something to someone who cannot see what you are looking at, i.e. over the phone, or an issue where not all the data is available.

Sam Vimes

BossArky wrote:

Manhole's are round so that a person when half emersed in one can turn any which way and still be the same distance from the edge.

Commander Vimes wrote:

to be honest that's not really awkward. a round manhole cover can't fall into the hole

a much more likely answer i think and the one they were looking for.

BossArky

Which one, your or mine?

edit - To answer my own questions:

http://www.improvedconstructionmethods.com/why_are_manholes_round.htm

growler

hmmm, a manhole cover usually has a ladder on one side of it to allow easy access / egress, if you did a 360 while sticking half your body out of the ground, you'd either snap your spine or fall down the hole (or both).

Creative though!

ToxicPaddy

Jail8ird wrote:

While interviewing a guy for a training position in our company a few years, my boss asked the guys, "How would you describe an elephant to a blind man?". Silly show-off cow!

Actually my first reply would be to ask was the man blind all his life?

If not, then chances are he knows what an elephant looks like..

Another thing is not to make assumptions. Got asked something like this before and asked a question back to the interviewer and they ended up getting all tonhue tied as they couldnt think, then got very embarrassed and decided to move on.. was very funny, but I couldnt show it..

Tox

FlutterinBantam

When were all these interviews??

Around 1966 ish?

I think we have moved on.

Supercell

A manager in a company I used to work for asked the question "how would you describe to someone how to tie their shoelaces if they never wore shoes before?".

I was the one doing the techie questions later on and had to suffer this bullshít leading up to it.

Most people would go one about laces yadda yadda..at which point the manager would look smug and say but you don't know if they have their shoe on yet.

TBH these questions just annoy me, who gives a fup about how piano tuners there are..what is more releveant is wtf you would do if situation xyz happened in the role you are applying for.

When I was doing my business degree in Uni one of the interesting things imho we learned was that most interviews and psychometric testing are barely above random in predicting ability of the candidate to do the role well - the point was made experience more than anything else should be used, all else is little more than conjecture (all else being equal of course).

I bet most HR ppl would disaggree though!

Alun

Agree 100%. Does anybody really believe that these "Dummy's guide to HR" type questions actually result in better personnel selection? I don't. All it does is annoy and irritate genuine potential candidates and turns interviews into silly games that can be swotted up on in books and on the net, rather than an opportunity for both sides to properly get to know each other and assess each other and their qualities.

I've done a fair bit of interviewing in my time and found the best way was to put the interviewees at their ease, not piss them off. The more at ease they are, the more likely they are to drop their guard and (possibly unwittingly) reveal their true natures.

growler

sorry but asking questions like this is a good way to test if (a) someone can answer questions under pressure and (b) if they approach problems in a logical way.

if you can't provide an answer by going through a logical process then you're not right for the positions i'm hiring for.

Supercell

Hmm, think this crap gets asked at really senior levals ? , if not then ask yourself why.