Interview questions in Cincinnati, OH, US

Before I answer this question I would like to give more informations: 1. The size of the room 2. Is it empty or not? 3. If not the size of the furnitures 4. The basketballs would be inflated or not 5. The size of the basketballs in bothcases

Since the position is for a revenue management position, the interviewer will want to see that you can think through the math in a practical way. Don't guess. Instead, think aloud as you work out the answer. Here's a simple way to get a rough estimate of the number of basketballs that will fit in the room. Estimate the size of the room. Let's say it is about 10' x 10', with an 8' ceiling. Now, estimate the volume required for one basketball. To get a rough answer, don't get fancy with equations and dealing with the shape of the basketball. You may not be sure of the diameter of a basketball, but you have a rough idea. To make the math simple, figure that the ball is about 1' in diameter. The ball is the same width in all directions, so it takes up roughly 1 cubic foot of volume. How many cubic feet in the room? 10 time 10 time 8, or 800. So, there's room for approximately 800 basketballs. If I were interviewing a candidate for this type of position, I'd be very pleased if the candidate could think through that answer. But if this were a position for a role that involved more sophisticated math, such as a data analyst or engineering position, I would expect the candidate to go further and discuss how the estimate could be improved. The next step would be accounting for the exact dimensions of the room and basketballs. And an engineer should be aware of dense packing arrangements that could fit more basketballs into the room.

Are they NBA, WNBA, or youth sized?

PS. I do love the point made in the other answers here - are the balls inflated, is the room empty, etc. All good thinking, good questions, but still your interviewer will want you to actually answer the question.

if the room is empty, exactly its volume multiplied by 9. If you ask why 9, give it some thought, you'll find the answer in the end ;)

Bad information is worse than no information. Answer for question like that requires some effort. What resoureces can i have and how much time to perform some data collection?

With or w/o air?

All of them

The valuable real-estate is in my head, not this room. And I look forward to using that real-estate to increase Delta Air Lines' bottom line ;). But, that's a fun question... this room is 10 ft x 10 ft x 9 ft ceiling height. 900 cubic feet. The average diameter of an NBA Mens basketball is between 9.5" to 9.85". For the sake of calculation, lets say 9.7". Using these figures, we could fit 12.37 (or 12 balls) width wise and length wise in this room, stacking 11.13 (or 11 balls) high. 12x12x11. So, per my calculations, we can fit 1,584 balls in this room.

How many need to fit?

I have totally sure that at least one Ball!

I can produce as many basketballs as the room needs, so I don't need to know how many. You just need to know that it will be done.

What benefit to this organization is it to know how many basketballs will fill it? How many basketballs do you want to fit in this room? I see this as more of a challenge to understand the logic of this being a relative task to the position.

Filled with air or deflated? Details matter.

i'D SAY THAT'S A REALLY STUPID QUESTION!

cannot answer question, if the room was filled with balls, you could not open door to count

A regulation size basketball has a volume of 455.9 cubic inches. I would then get the width, length and height of the room. Put these dimension in a rectangle cube and calculate the volume. Divide the room volume by the basketball volume then you get the number of basketballs need to fill the room.

Enough to break the ice lol

Depends on the size of the basketball. Is it marble sized? or one really BIG basketball?

Let's find out!

A basketball takes up roughly one square foot of space. So, estimate the length, width and height of the room, multiply to get the square footage of the room, and that's (approx) how many basketballs would fit in the room!

Best answer has been to estimate and multiply - 10'x10'x8' and a 1' ball gives 800.. You have to be able to deal with uncertainty and unknowns. Sometimes an educated, fast guess is better than a drawn out answer. Of course you can always improve the answer but knowing that its around 800 is about as good as knowing that its 1200.

Why would I fit basketballs in any room?

Whats the budget? do we need to fill the room?

(Volume of the room / Volume of basketball) */ Packing Factor (depending on form of packing factor ratio)

It depends upon the ratio of leprechauns to unicorns.

I can fit a lot of basketballs in here but the question is how fast do you want it done?

One

A basketball is about 25 cm in diameter. That means it has a nominal volume of 4/3*pi*(0.125) m^3, which is about 0.004 m^3. The packing efficiency of sphere is about 0.72, meaning that each ball takes up about 0.005 m^3. I just looked around my apartment and I think its about 4m x 7m x 3m. or 96 m^3. Divide the two numbers and you get about 4,500 basketballs in my apartment.

a lot, stop wasting my time

As many as my present bank balance would allow me to buy

One less than what would fit into the room

If you filled the room with basketballs, what further use would the room be?

As many as we can make room for...considering the items currently in the room and the possibility of rearranging those items for maximum displacement...assuming a 10 inch ball...do the balls have to be inflated? Are the balls packaged in some way that we need to take into consideration? Are there items in this room that we can room without negative impact?

Are they inflated or deflated - So as many necessary to fill up the room.

And... why would you be wondering about this? ... March Madness???? 8-)

If knowing the correct answer to this question is needed for this job, then I am not your candidate as I draw pictures for a living.

All of them!

As many as it takes!

I don't even know how wide or empty the room is heh

That depends, are they inflated or deflated?

roof or no roof?