Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microsoft interview (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. No arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft interview

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This appears to contravene policy with both copyvio issues with regard to Microsoft's intellectual property and also OR. There is also inadequate secondary sources. Delete. Bridgeplayer (talk) 02:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC) (categories)[reply]

I agree in part, the long lists of dubious origin must go. However, WP:BEFORE says clearly "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD." There's plenty of secondary and tertiary sources, so keep. I'd be more than happy to fix it myself, but it won't happen till this weekend. P.S. Some dumbhead personnel clerks even use it even for jobs in retail and accounting. NVO (talk) 05:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There are too many companies parroting this technique, taking the attitude "well, Microsoft does this, so should we" or "we want to be as successful as Microsoft, so we better do what they do, too." Furthermore, there are several books on the subject, such as How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, Slashdot Review from 2003. If the list of questions offend you, then you need to also be offended at Fermi problem, because the silly questions they ask are more properly called Fermi Questions, or Fermi Problems. One police department I interviewed for back in the early 1980s asked some of these same sorts of questions, including why are manhole covers round? I strongly disagree with the statement The Microsoft Interview is intended to seek out creative thinkers and those who can adapt their solutions to rapidly changing and dynamic scenarios as the question part of the interview is only good at selecting candidates who are good at trivia and Fermi questions; and leads to Microsoft claiming that they cannot get enough software engineers. Tangurena (talk) 12:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is the manhole Q also a Microsoft regular? oh really? shame on them. Most of these things in my town are actually rectangular but very few of them twenty-two-year-old-recruitment-stars ever look under their feet. NVO (talk) 13:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The book How Would You Move Mount Fuji claimed that Microsoft stopped asking that particular question back in the 1990s, but was still hooked on a cargo cult of Fermi questions. The PD (which was in the Los Angeles metro area) who asked the question was mostly trying to figure out if the interviewee (me) had any common sense (apparently, they had trouble with some candidates being as sharp as a bag of bowling balls), as police could reasonably guess that we'd be out in bad weather, and that we might be encountering lots of stupid and crazy things (people trying to steal them to sell for money for drugs) as well as quite boring things like electrical workers trying to restore power during a storm, or at night. Or more likely broken water mains flooding streets (optionally, after an earthquake). I've had many interviews in my long life, but that particular one stands out very clearly 26 years later. And you're right, some manhole covers are square, and some are triangular. Tangurena (talk) 02:04, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as per NVO. The article needs love but deletion is not a solution. --Cyclopia (talk) 12:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep many sources, notable. Ikip (talk) 01:01, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Ikip. Varks Spira (talk) 02:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep This has only one source independent of the topic, using Microsoft itself to support most of its content. If more secondary sources are not found by the next AfD then I will likely side with deletion. Chillum 03:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a reasonably notable phenomenon. Easily verifiable and supported by WP:RS, including even a few "scholarly" results. Eusebeus (talk) 20:25, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.