I’m just here to learn something.
I’ve never seen this tactic before and cannot find anything about it online. What was the point of me organizing the deck of cards other that to just see if I could? There was a 6 missing also.
I’m just here to learn something.
I’ve never seen this tactic before and cannot find anything about it online. What was the point of me organizing the deck of cards other that to just see if I could? There was a 6 missing also.
Comments
Who knows, I’m sure there is something he was looking for. Probably wanted to see your problems solving technique and how you would handle a problem (6 missing). The test might have been something as simple as “Do you tell him the 6 is missing (report the problem to authorities) or just ignore the problem and keep going.”
Most likely to see how you respond to the fact that 6 are missing.
Gimmicky questions have come into and gone out of fashion at tech companies, such as Microsoft’s infamous “why are manhole covers round” (which may or may not have been actually used).
In this case, I honestly don’t know. It’s a weird question. But I would suspect two possible motives:
It’s an ambiguous task. I have used this type of question (in design or coding) as a bit of a test to see how the applicant will get enough information to actually solve the problem. Here they may have expected you to ask “How would you like them organized?” or “Does it matter what algorithm I use to organize them?” This is actually not a bad motivation IMO. Trying to solve a problem without fully understanding the parameters is not good.
It may also have been a test if you spot the missing card, which honestly is stupid. I don’t think that would give any useful information. It falls into the category of cutesy trick questions that are mostly regarded as bad these days. If someone gets the answer, it may be they’ve seen it before. You have no idea as the interviewer.
Lastly: At the end of the interview you should have asked why he did that. It shows maturity on your part. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Just say “I’m curious, why did you ask me to organize the cards and how did I do?”
Did you ask if he had a preference in how they were sorted? My instinct would be by suit in numeric order. But it could have been by number in suit order.
Its a test to see how you work under pressure.
If you calmy organize them while talking and then let him know 6 are missing during the interview you pass.
If you freak out and say its too much to do all at once and its not fair because the deck is rigged you fail.
So you shuffled them several times, and then you dealt.
But, what game did you deal, hmm?
Why didn’t you just ask him why?
Haven’t heard that gimmick before. What instructions did he give you? Just “organize these.. I’ll be back in 10 minutes”, then leave you in an empty room? Or like “hey while we chat, here’s some cards… figure out what to do with them”
One potential solution here might be that he expected you to ask him why or for more details. Does he want you to organize them by suit or by rank, etc?. A small startup involves a lot of chaos and the need to pick up ambiguous tasks that aren’t in your normal job description. He might be trying to simulate that, and somebody who just does the task they’re told to do without further introspection, isn’t a good fit.
Cuts both ways though. If you ask too many questions it looks like you need too much direction. You need to communicate that you’re trying to understand the root problem you’re solving, to make sure the solution will meet the stakeholder’s needs, not that you need guidance on how to do the task.
Stupid interview games like that are ridiculous
Hmm. Play high card low card. High card, you get $400,000 a year. Low card you walk.
It’s a silly tactic to see how easily you’re distracted.
You should have shuffled them and make them go all over the place then curse and storm out
You should have dealt a game of poker and gambled on how much your salary would be. Go out a legend man.
I always ask my prospective hires to hold, in one hand, a King Cobra during the interview. I want to see how good they are at following directions.
He probably was waiting the whole interview for you to ask about it.
If he just said organize them and you did not ask any follow up questions that shows that you may do that in your work.. something ambiguous you are tasked with they expect you to ask questions so things are clear and you do not waste time doing something you though vs something that they want you to do.
I had an interview where they asked me to tell them what the angle between the two hands of a clock were when the clock said 3:30. They wanted to see how I think about something that I had no experience in.. this was years ago and I do not remember how I answered but they told me to show my thinking by drawing it on a white board. (PS the answer is not 90 degrees)
Gimmicky, but better than being judged on what animal you’d like to be.
Just a way to see how you organize, solve problems, act with minimal instructions, and see if you spot something missing.
I can see how this isn’t a right/wrong (except for the missing card) but a diagnostic tool on your process. See if you methodically sort them into suits, then numerically. If you can glance through the entire deck and spot the missing card. If you start by counting the cards to see if they are all present. Or if you freak out over a new task even though a deck of cards is very predictable.
I’d have made him watch me play solitaire. If we’re gonna waste time, let’s make sure we’re doing it equally.
Ask if they want to play 52 card pickup
They are checking your sort algorithm I suppose.
What position were applying for? Given that it was a tech company my first guess would be that they wanted to test you and see if youre just gonne go card by card or something or if youd try to apply a sorting algorithm?
The other guesses like them wanting to see how you work under pressure and checking how youd report issues could also be likely. Interesting tactic nonetheless
Sometimes it’s not the task but how you approach the task. I’m of the age where when I go to the doctor they ask me some questions to evaluate how I am thinking. I’ve also participated in some medical studies. So, I know that when asked to draw a clock and then place the hands for a particular time it’s as much as how I approach the task as it is the final result.
Probably wants to see which sorting algorithm you prefer to use and if it has the best time and space complexity compared to other options.
Sounds like a test to see if you can hold a conversation while doing something tedious. A lot of people have to stop working in order to have a conversation. I once worked at a place that had a no talking policy because some people couldn’t hold a conversation and do their work at the same time. For me, it’s easier to work if I’ve got someone to talk to. It wasn’t even that difficult of a job.
Assuming this is a test, what would be inferred if I started playing solitaire while we talked, got them mostly solved but couldn’t progress, then finished the sorting as I cleaned up?
Sounds like bullshit. The CEO read something about this and thinks it means something. You should have 52 card picked up him.
The worst adopted interview question of all time – that I’ve been asked at least 20 times is the infamous “Sell me this pen.”
I am going through Speech Therapy right now due to a traumatic brain injury. I am a tax Attorney by trade. My Speech Therapist has me arrange a deck of cards while asking me estate planning and tax questions. It is a multitasking drill.
I use something similar to this in interviews. It’s a way to see how you handle task switching. Multitasking isn’t really possible, our brains just switch from one task to another, so while you’re answering questions that small repetitive task forces you to switch back-and-forth. As an interviewer what I’m looking at is how you prioritize and quickly reengage after being interrupted and whether you can stay composed under the pressure of performing an unexpected task under a spotlight.
It’s not a big thing, just another piece of the puzzle on evaluating a bunch of candidates.
Sorting algorithms.
He was seeing if you could say no to pointless work
You were supposed to ask what the product requirements and use case are. If you are allowed to organize the cards before the deal and know what game will be played, you would stack the deck in your favor and win every time. Bonus points if you ask whether the goal is to win the game yourself or make your boss win. I once had a VP of engineering announce that any engineer caught writing code without approved specifications would be fired immediately. Don’t touch the cards until you know what the goal is.
Correct answer: “Nah I’m not gonna do that.”
I would have played solitaire to organize the cards. I wonder if that would be impressive to him or not.
My guess is that it’s easier to pull truthfull less bs answers out of you if you are preoccupied with completing the task, assuming that you are talking while sorting
After challenging my partner to this question who is an exec at a worldwide household name tech company, he has no answers, but I’ve decided that you should have shuffled the cards, doled some out to both of you and told the CEO to “go fish”.
“How do you want them organized?”
“I organised the 46 cards you gave me, there’s 6 missing, and you two are the jokers.”
I think you should have pulled out your traveling cribbage board, asked him if he counts muggins, and said thank you and dealt him 6 cards.
He said make like ur a computer and do a sorting algorithm, to each their own but that strikes me as misguided especially if that wasn’t explained to you and they just interpret the right answer as being a computer like person seems odd to me.
Are you a coder? Did he maybe want to see you apply an efficient sorting algorithm?
This is where I would shuffle the deck and ask him to cut it.
And when he says what is that?
You tell him you deal with any deck your given regardless of the situation. And point out the missing 6 cards.
So I can sort of see a point to it maybe.
One of the problems I constantly deal with is people will ask for something, and they have a vision of what they want, but what they describe doesn’t match is in their mind.
One example of this a long time ago (before 2000 to give you an idea) someone in marketing asked me to make a recommendation engine for a bunch of products since it was near the holidays. So I went away and did some coding and came up with something where you could weight the products based on criteria, and then ask questions to rank the criteria and come up with a best fit.
What I later found out what he wanted was a bunch of static pages. The first page would ask a question with 4 answers. Depending on what you answered you would get another static page, which asked another question and each answer led to another static page. After 3 questions there would be a page of products, which would be based on products for whom we had sold advertising space to.
That was his idea of a recommendation engine.
So there a bunch of ways to organize. Not only by something like suit, but did you want it bridge sort (SHDC) or by color or something else, and for numerics, are aces high or low?
So maybe the interviewer was fishing for someone who would ask enough questions to make sure there wasn’t wasted effort.
Just a guess though!
Unless I’m applying to a job at a casino, it’s not my job or my interest to organize a deck of cards. It’s a completely insulting “interview” task, it tells you a lot more about the poor management style and shit attitude in the company if they give you this for an interview. Unless you’re expected to work with cards everyday, it’s a ridiculous and silly task to be tedious because they can’t actually interview you well for the job.
Imagine you were one of those card guys on the internet and you like shuffled them face down and then flipped them over and they were all organized and he was like ha you didn’t catch the missing card and you were like check in your pocket.
Play solitaire to organise it 🤣
I hate gimmick interview shit like this…I was interviewing for a tech support role years and years ago and the hiring mgr actually asked me to “sell him the pen he’s holding”
I’m like…I’m not interviewing for a sales job. I’ve NEVER had a sales job. How TF is this relevant?
Just to see what you’d do.
I would have pretended they were a tarot set and predicted them hiring me.
I would’ve asked – Organize in what way
In 2001, I was interviewing at a place while I was fresh out of college with a degree in computer science that I received about 6 months after the Dot Com Burst. The first round of the day-long interview process was a very long written exam. I don’t remember how many pages, but it was a lot. It took me a couple of hours to get through the thing, by which time I was tired, as well as just tired of all of it.
I got to the last page, and the last question, with quite a lot of space to write below it, was, “Why do clocks turn clockwise?”
I was so over it at that point. I didn’t even try to write anything about solar procession in the northern hemisphere and the evolution from sundials. No, I just wrote, “Because otherwise they’d be counter-clocks,” and turned it in.
I was invited to stay for the next round.
Did you bubble sort or quick sort the cards?
“Why didn’t we extend a job offer to /u/FantasticCat4903?”
“That guy wasn’t playing with a full deck.”
Omg, I HATE when they ask how you would escape a blender or some shit. They want you to say that you would use the measuring lines as like steps.
Bullshit. These people have obviously never used an actual blender. Those markings are not on the inside. Otherwise it would be much harder to clean.
Fuck your weird hypothetical questions. Let me tell you my social interaction limits, offer me money, and we can all move on with our days.
So he can.have your fingerprints and clone you
It also kinda breaks the ice of a flat interview.
It distracts a bit from the question at hand and makes you give more real answers instead of scripted ones.
Also multi tasking
He wanted to check out your multitasking?
Is it a distraction tactic? To see how you work with two things to do?
Oh! If this is to do during the interview, hes forcing you to multitask. People dont think about what theyre saying. You speak more freely… alnost like your drunk. This can make you give them damning information without even realising.
Stupid gimmick that shows they don’t know what they’re doing. Shall we judge the applicants on their record, experience and achievements? No, let’s have them organise some cards during the interview. I’d regard it as a noticeable red flag about the company, especially as they’re a “small tech company”. Makes me think they’re not going to last long if they don’t know how to hire and do interviews.
sorts card in seemingly random order “its sorted by how much I like them”
When I interviewed for a 911 position, they had me sort a deck of cards by suit as they continued to ask me questions. The point of the task was to see if I could perform one task, while listening and answering questions. If you can’t multitask, you can’t be a dispatcher. Perhaps they were looking for your ability to multitask. Another possibility is to see how your mind works. How did you sort them? What method did you choose? How much pause and indecision did you make? That kind of thing.
I attended the RAF officer and aircrew selection panel back in the day.
The interview towards the end always has a killer question. Mine was, the country is at war, you are in charge of a section of RAF regiment protecting the airbase, peace protesters have broken in and are encroaching on the runway in an attempt to prevent flight operations. What do you do?
Maybe this wasn’t the aim, but an interview technique used in deception detection is to increase cognitive load on a suspect by making them, for example, recite what happened backwards. Because telling anything other than the truth is a lot harder when your brain is occupied with something else.
Asking you to organize a deck of cards would increase cognitive load and could make it more likely that you’d blurt out the unvarnished truth about something, or at least stumble in such a way that would make it easier to ask targeted follow up questions.
It’s a way to find your Reddit account by waiting for someone to ask about this.
It is a simple test to see if you think systematically. I would take the deck and split by type, then sort each stack numerical alphabetical, then stick the four stack leaving aces on top, first set is hearts.
I would then shuffle them and deal them evenly to people on the room, invite them to play slap-jack.
It’s the Technical interview Sorting Hat
Groups them into colours: UI Dev
Groups them by value/number: DBA
Groups them by suit but doesn’t realise 6 is missing and doesn’t understand why interviewer writes down 500: Back End Dev
Groups them by suit, realises 6 is missing, repacks deck into box, throws box away and asks for new deck: Operations
Examines deck and declares that they will never fit in the box and they need a bigger container, which they guarantee will cost less: Cloud Engineer
Declares that there are only 25 cards in a deck so this won’t take long: Project Manager
It’s a technique to prevent you from lying to them. It’s gimmicky and barely supported by science, but the idea is that if you are given a task that requires some of your cognitive resources, you can’t put as much effort into lying and it’s thus easier to detect.
The thing is, anyone is going to speak haltingly when multitasking in this way, so there’s a danger of misattributing awkward speech as deception rather than just a processing overload. It’s not a great technique and I wouldn’t recommend it for interviews.
Please tell me you said wait you have something behind your ear, and then you proceeded to pull the 6 out.
I would do the magic trick I know to throw him off his game. lol
I would riffle shuffle and hand them back.
Unless you reeeeealy want the job, the only answer would be to slowly walk away