The bizarre Google interview question that apparently nobody answers correctly

There’s a Google interview question that almost all candidates get wrong, and now, experts are weighing in on how they’d approach the puzzle.

According to statistics from March 2024, Google employs over 182,000 employees across more than 70 countries worldwide.

However, it’s understood around three million people actually apply to work at the tech giant each year, which is the cause behind its notorious 0.2 percent acceptance rate.

So if you want to work at Google, it’s going to be tough work, and you need to show you’re dedicated to the cause.

One way to do this? Absolutely smash your interviews.

Strange questions posed to prospective Google employees

Previously, the business has been known to ask some prospective employees some mind-boggling questions.

These include ‘How many golf clubs can fit in a 747?’, ‘How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?,’ and ‘You're shrunken down to the size of a nickel and dropped into a blender, what do you do?’

The latter was posed to Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s characters in the 2013 film, The Internship, and saw them shouting out all sorts of elaborate answers.

After the session, the movie duo do actually get the job.

However, most people bomb this question when asked it in real life, apparently

According to experts, one of the answers Google interviewers hear when they ask this question is: just jump.

For those who came to this conclusion immediately, Professor Gregory Sutton, an expert on insect motion from the University of Lincoln, wants you to think about it like this.

"One grasshopper can jump about a metre high,” he told MailOnline.

"Two grasshoppers holding hands - twice as much mass, twice as much muscle - can jump a metre high.

"A million grasshoppers holding hands - a million times as much mass, a million times as much muscle - can jump a metre high.”

The specialist said that it is just as easy for us to move our centre of mass one metre off the ground as it is for a grasshopper.

An expert used grasshoppers to explain a common approach to the interview question (Getty Stock Image)

So, if you were shrunk down to the size of the coin, you would essentially be able to leap out of the blender, right?

Wrong.

If you suddenly shrunk down to the size of a penny, you wouldn’t have enough time to extend as you jumped, thus transferring way less energy to the ground than you would need to hoist yourself out of the kitchen appliance.

According to Professor Sutton, a coin-sized human could probably jump around 10-15cm, which is nowhere high enough.

This means the idea of ‘jumping’ out of the blender is pretty impossible

Another way to answer the blender question

So, how else could you answer the question if it was put to you?

“If I were shrunk down and put in a blender, I'd use a small rubber band to fling myself out,” the animal expert revealed.

“The catapult system would work great at that size because your strength-to-mass ratio is very beneficial even if your jumping mechanisms don't work so well.”

Meanwhile, Professor Jim Usherwood, an expert on the mechanics of motion from the Royal Veterinary College, told the publication that if he could wind up a spring over a suitable time he could use it to ‘ping’ himself out of the blender ‘like a flea’.

So basically, if you happen to have a rubber band or a spring in your back pocket, you’re good to go.

If not, then it looks like you’re never getting out of the glass chamber of doom.

So, how would you get out of the blender? (Getty Stock Image)

What was the purpose of these interview questions?

Gayle McDowell, a former Google software engineer, revealed that the goal of these questions was to see how people approached problem-solving, not whether they got the answer right.

“Sometimes there are people who make everything more complex than it needs to be, and that can be problematic," she explained.

However, in an interview with IFL Science, McDowell also said that interviewers at Google have moved away from these brain-teasers.

"If an interview were to ask a candidate a brain teaser, despite the policy, the hiring committee would likely disregard the interviewer's feedback and send a note back telling the interviewer not to ask such silly questions,” she told the publication.

Advice on nabbing a job at Google

Google Careers has also uploaded a best practices guide for those hoping to score a job at the tech giant.

These include finding connections between the job listing and your resume, focusing on providing data alongside your achievements and coming to the interview with questions.

“If you do these things we think you’ll be prepared to talk about yourself and about the position,” the cheat sheet reads.

“We also believe it will set you up for success by minimizing external confusion. We want you clear and calm so you can really explore your experience, your desires, the position, and how we connect.”

Good luck!