Google interview tips: Blender tricky question ANSWERED!

There’s a Google interview question that almost all candidates get wrong, and now, experts are weighing in on how they’d approach the puzzle. Google has more than 182,000 workers in more than 70 countries, according to data from March 2024. But it's estimated that three million people apply to work at the internet behemoth annually, which accounts for its infamous 0.2 percent acceptance rate. It will be difficult work, therefore you must demonstrate your commitment to the cause if you want to work at Google.

In the past, the company has been known to pose some really difficult questions to potential hires.

"How many golf clubs can fit in a 747?" and "How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?" are a couple examples. and "What would you do if you were reduced to the size of a nickel and put in a blender?"

In the 2013 movie The Internship, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn's characters were asked the latter question, and they yelled out a variety of complex responses. The film team does, in fact, land the assignment after the session. But when given this question in real life, most individuals seem to falter.

Experts claim that when Google interviewers pose this question, one response they get is, "Just jump."

While you would have a much smaller muscle mass, you'd also weigh a hell of a lot less - the two effectively cancelling each other out to allow you to jump to roughly the same height as you would be able to at full size.

Professor Gregory Sutton told MailOnline to think about it like this: "One grasshopper can jump about a metre high."

For those who jumped to this conclusion right away, University of Lincoln insect motion specialist Professor Gregory Sutton would want you to consider it this way. He told MailOnline, "A grasshopper can jump about a meter high." "Two grasshoppers can jump a meter high while holding hands because they have twice as much bulk and muscle. A million grasshoppers can jump a meter high while holding hands because they have a million times the mass and muscle of a single person," he added.

According to the expert, moving our center of mass one meter off the ground is as simple for us as it is for a grasshopper.

If you suddenly shrunk down to the size of a penny, you wouldn’t have enough time to extend as you jumped, thus transferring way less energy to the ground than you would need to hoist yourself out of the kitchen appliance. 

According to Professor Sutton, a coin-sized human could probably jump around 10-15cm, which is nowhere high enough. This means the idea of ‘jumping’ out of the blender is pretty impossible

Why does Google ask such question?

The purpose of these questions, according to former Google software developer Gayle McDowell, was to observe how individuals approached problem-solving rather than whether they correctly answered the topic.

"There are people who sometimes complicate things more than they need to be, and that can be problematic," she said. However, McDowell also stated in an interview with IFL Science that Google interviewers no longer use these brainteasers.

Google on getting a job at tech giant

A best practices guide has also been posted by Google Careers for anyone looking to work with the digital behemoth. These include making links between your CV and the job posting, emphasizing the inclusion of statistics alongside your accomplishments, and preparing questions for the interview. The cheat sheet states, "We believe you'll be ready to talk about yourself and the position if you do these things."