Imagine that you are about to get the position of your dreams. The interview takes place wonderfully, you are confident, until the boss gives you a completely unexpected question. Well that’s what this famous business owner does with international renown!
The business world is constantly evolving, with actors who are distinguished by their ability to innovate, especially on the social level. Among these innovations, certain practices surprise by their originality, such as the way in which interviews are conducted. For example, some employers offer their candidates to participate in an escape game! These offbeat practices bear witness to a change of perspective: maintenance becomes an experimentation field, where we are above all trying to assess the skills to solve complex problems. Moreover, some business leaders can ask their candidates to resolve a puzzle or an enigma during the job interview …
One of the most famous bosses in the world, the media Elon Musk, had the usual to convey the job interviews to his future recruits himself. But what truly distinguishes his method is the particular question he asked each candidate. Apart from technical questions about aerospace or engineering, the boss of the Tesla automotive construction company, liked to question his candidates about subjects who asked for a real reflection. This question, often destabilizing, aimed to assess critical thinking and problem solving capacity, essential qualities to integrate an exceptional team into such a demanding field.
The famous American-Canadian billionaire used to pose a mathematical problem for people who want to join his space transport company SpaceX. This question was also reported by Ashlee Vance, the official biographer of Elon Musk. “”You are somewhere on the surface of the earth. You walk a mile (1.6 km) towards the south, a mile towards the west, and a mile towards the north. You arrive at the exact point where you started walking. Where do you find yourself?“A clear question but which does not have the merit of being simple to answer! However, there is only one good answer to bring to this enigma and here it is: the North Pole.
But it is not only enough to be able to provide this answer, you have to be able to present your reasoning. Here it is! The North Pole has a geographical particularity: its circumference is very small. Imagine that your starting point, position A is the North Pole. You decide to walk for a distance of 1.6 kilometer to the south, you then reach position B. This second position places you at a point where the circumference of the latitude circle is 1.6 kilometer. Therefore, if you walk 1.6 kilometers to the east, then you will find yourself again in position B. You just need to go north while traveling 1.6 kilometers and you will find yourself in position A, that is to say to the North Pole!
