No matter what age you are, going for an interview is one of the most nerve-racking experiences of our lives. Whether it be your first job at McDonald's or going for that VP of Sales position, sweaty palms and nail-biting waits are all part of it.
How do you fill those award silences, did you miss that comma from your CV, what questions should you ask at the end?
It takes an average of just seven seconds to make a first impression, and with that, you could've just seen your dream job walk out of the door. Seven seconds doesn't seem like long, but don't worry, it's over double the time one CEO gives some candidates to decide whether he's going to give them the job.
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Dino Dionne is the CEO and president of Genesis Capital Group - an investment management firm. Dionne's methods have gone viral, with him saying he gives his interviewees just three seconds to solve a brain teaser. And you thought Elon Musk's interview techniques were rough.
Whether you love or loathe brain teasers, most of us would still be trying to compute what's written down in three seconds, let alone solve a brain teaser. Dionne originally shared his brain teaser to LinkedIn, and as you can imagine, the corporate bros swarmed all over it.
Dionne wrote: "I give this test to everyone I interview. If you want the #Job, you have three seconds to provide the correct answer.
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"You'd be surprised to hear all the ridiculous excuses I've heard from people who either gave me the wrong answer, or couldn't provide one!
"My six-year-old solved in 30 seconds." Well, good for them.
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When Dionne's brain teaser went viral on the LinkedinLunatics subreddit, people were firmly split into two camps on whether this was a brilliant interview technique or a cruel prank.
One unimpressed worker said: "This moron is the exact reason why Brackets/Parentheses were introduced in Maths."
Another laughed: "Adds the 'my 6 year old can solve it in 30 seconds' as a kicker... but gives said child 10-times longer to solve the equation."
There were plenty that agreed with the idea of just walking out of the door: "The correct answer is to end the interview and find a boss that isn’t a tool."
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Annoyingly, there no definitive answer, with Dionne himself arguing with people online that it's 1. Still, most have settled on it being 11. Someone in the replies getting extra marks for showing their methodology: "He and other people keep saying the answer is 1, but I get 11 when following PEMDAS [Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, and Addition and Subtraction] (multiplication and division first as a single step, so it's 3x3=9 and 3÷3=1, then addition and subtraction next as a single step, so it's 9-1+3 = 11), and 5 when I go straight across (3x3=9, 9-3=6, 6÷3=2, and 2+3=5)."
We'll be honest, this one hurt our brains, and we imagine our old math teacher is furious right now. For starters, where are the brackets? Also, the phrasing 'Only for Genius' seems like pretty poor English to us. Sorry Mr. Dionne, you can keep your job at Genesis Capital Group.