Post:
You have three switches in one room and a single light bulb in another room. You are allowed to visit the room with the light bulb only once. How do you figure out which switch controls the bulb? Write your answer in the comments before looking at other answers.
Comment:
If this were an interview question, the correct response would be "Do you have any relevant questions for me? Because have a long list of things that more deserving of my precious time than to think about this!
The “correct” answer doesnt work for led bulbs. A more modern answer would be why the hell can i only go to the room once!? Or you could get a friend/coworker to go to the room and just observe the bulb. One blink switch one, two blinks switch two etc. Lastly if you know a random switch is controlling a light in another room, why the hell is that switch not labeled if you already knew about it. Like how did this problem even arise in the first place. Also if you just want light in the room right now just turn all 3 on and go to the room.
There is no correct answer. The interviewer wants to see how you approach the problem. You can have the correct answer but still make a bad impression, or you can fail to find the standard solution and still ace this test.
I think of the interviewer ask this specific question they aren’t sophisticated enough to expect anything else than the “correct” answer. The question is so old, stupid, and irrelevant that anyone smart enough to ask actual good interview questions would never lead with this.
IMO questions like this only make sense if you slightly modify them to make the “standard” answer impossible.
Then you see how the candidate reacts to curveballs.
I still think it’s more useful to ask the candidate for a problem they’ve solved in a creative way.
i just look through the keyhole and go ham on the switches