Problem Solving Interview Questions and Answers
Ques:- What would you do if you were the one survivor in an earthquake?
Ques:- If you woke up and had 1,000 unread emails and you allowed to answer only 300 of them, how would you choose which ones to answer?
Ques:- If I gave you a billion dollars, what would you do with it?
Ques:- How will you sell a fridge to an Eskimo?
Ques:- What will you do when client is asking you to provide something which has no meaning?
Ques:- Explain a time when you did not get along with something higher management wanted to implement. How did you handle that?
Ques:- Please estimate the total revenue of [a particular juice brand] from the Swedish market who has a 10% market share. You have 5 minutes?
Ques:- You’re consulting with a large pharmacy with stores in multiple states. This company has improved sales but experienced a decrease in revenue. As a result, it is contemplating store closings. Explain how you’d advise this client?
Ques:- The firm has assigned you to consult a company intending to drop a product or expand into new markets in order to increase revenue. What steps would you take to help this company achieve its objective?
Ques:- What is the weight of a Euro-star locomotive?
Ques:- Your client is a ski resort. Global warming has made it such that natural snowfall has been reduced by 50%. They client is concerned. What should they do and why?
Ques:- Estimate costs of building a metro?
Ques:- How would you determine a pricing strategy for a hotel chain?
Ques:- I was sitting in one of Chicago’s new specialty ‘Cigar Bars’ around the end of August with a friend. It was a Saturday night and the weather was fair. While enjoying one of the bar’s finest stogies and sipping a cognac, I asked my friend how much he thought the bar was worth. On the back of the envelope, how would you go about determining the value of this bar?
Ques:- An asteroid is going to hit the earth and destroy 100% of it. You have several options: create a missile to destroy it (blowing it into several particles which will still impact the earth but destroy only 50%), or create a missile to push it out of the way (this only has a 50% chance of working though). Which alternative do you pick?
Ques:- Supplies Mate, a distributor of office supplies in Central London, has experienced declining profitability over the past five years. How can the distributor address this profitability trend?
Ques:- The general manager of a popular ski resort has called on you to help her figure out why her resort has been experiencing declining profits over the past three years. How would you help her?
Ques:- My grandfather had just died and left me an oil tanker. I need a valuation for tax purposes, and I have hired you to tell me what it’s worth.
Ques:- You have been retained joint by a disposable diaper company and a federal commission on waste management. Estimate the volume percentage of disposable diapers in the total U.S. household garbage.
Ques:- Your client is a large electric utility company. Consolidation has been widespread in the utilities industry and your client wants to know if they should be jumping on board this trend. What advice would you give them?
Ques:- I am a manufacturer of railroad cars in a declining market. My firm is losing market share and money but I think the industry may rebound in the near future. What should I do?
Ques:- You have been called in by an accounting firm that is experiencing declining profitability in its auditing operation. What levers would you push to help improve profitability?
Ques:- The total widget market is $170MM and our sales are $30MM. What % of the market share do we hold?
Ques:- Your client is a retail bank in the U.S. There has been no growth over the last couple of years in the domestic market so you are considering pursuing growth overseas in emerging markets. How would you evaluate whether or not you should enter a given country? What is the potential market in the US? How would you estimate the percent of market to install the device?
Ques:- Your client is a financial services firm, specifically the Treasury services department. This division has its own software/IT group that created a breakthrough Web case management system that has netted awards and new clients. Your firm recently merged with larger firm that made this platform the enterprise standard. All current clients must migrate to this system while requirements from older clients form a serious backlog. Finally, the new firm is losing market share in its ForEx currency trading operations due to technology-based issues and has fallen from 1st place to 4th worldwide. How do you prioritize these demands and how do you restructure to successfully meet demand? What impact will your recommendations have on the Treasury Services department and on clients?
Ques:- A leverage buyout firm is considering buying a company that owns proprietary database of real time Federal Aviation Administration database on every commercial flight in America and its current flight status. Should they buy the company?
Ques:- The year is 1980, your client has invented a new piece of office equipment called a fax machine. They are debating whether or not to invest in manufacturing and marketing this product. What factors should they consider and should the launch it or not launch it and why?
Ques:- Your client is a car manufacturer, and it’s revenues are declining. What is the problem, and how would increase revenues?
Ques:- A travel agency makes a 10% commission on all of its travel bookings. Their current profit before taxes is $1MM, while the industry average ranges from $2MM to $3.5MM. Why are they making less than the industry average?
Ques:- A major US beer company, Beer Brew, recently entered the UK market. Two years after entry, the company is still losing money. Despite a high per capita consumption of beer in the UK market, sales have been very disappointing. What explains this phenomenon?