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Comment by wglb | Hacker News Reader

In engineering school, we got pretty familiar with BOEC (back of the envelope calculations), in some part to give a double check on calculations, and in other part (ahem) to double-check on slide rule calculations and exponent correction.

But that is a useful skill, particularly in conjunction with a problem-solving attitude which they repeatedly emphasized us to do.

And the book Innumeracy by Paulos gives examples of good problems to check with: "Is there a cubic mile of human blood in the world" and "How long would it take to move Mount Fuji" as a couple of examples.

It doesn't sound like a good sign if your latest math was as a freshman if you are looking for a software career.

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This was for a marketing position though, not an engineering position. I wouldn't expect someone trained in marketing to be good at BOEC or be as analytical as an engineer.

She also bombed a middle school level math problem.

One question (paraphrased): $0.10 cpc, with a 20% of visits resulting in a click. How many visits needed to make $20?

After five painful minutes the annoyed interviewer gave me the answer...She made it sound so easy; I felt like a moron.

She is innumerate.

If I were illiterate, I'd probably describe an interview at McGraw Hill as nightmarish. "After five painful minutes of trying to sound out the words the annoyed interviewer read the sentence to me...She made it sound so easy; I felt like a moron."

Or she was just very nervous. Your cognitive abilities decline if you're put on the spot. Have you ever said something stupid while speaking in front of a group?

The girl goes to Syracuse, which is a somewhat selective University. She would not have gotten in if she couldn't do the math (her SAT scores simply wouldn't be high enough.)

This question would have been easy for me and actually would have probably boosted my confidence during the interview. But that's because I'm a quantitative person. Throw a question I was completely unexpecting though and I could be stuttering and saying stupid things. I'm sure there would be some questions or exercises the author could complete far more smoothly than I could.

Calling her innumerate (and making the analogy of her being illiterate and thus incompetent) for this slip makes me think you haven't been on many interviews yet.

Who cares about her SAT score (which someone can spend months preparing for) if she can not perform under pressure? It's not Google's job to make sure she can withstand the pressure of a stressful job (interview).

I would tend to agree, and for those interested in this type of skill I think its worth checking out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem

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