My dad wrote me:

Recently a recruiter for a major firm visited several prominent business schools to interview the best candidates. As is common in interviewing today, she asked a number of behavioral questions to asses the candidates potential. “You are driving in a rental car to a client’ s job site in the Arizona desert. The car hits a nail and one of your tires blows out. The rental car company has forgotten to put the spare tire in the car’s trunk and your cell phone is out of range. You are several miles from the nearest public phone and there isn’t a lot of traffic on the highway. What do you do?”

Here’s how the candidates responded at various schools:

HARVARD: “I’m so important to my client; he’ll come looking for me.”
CHICAGO: “The present value of a tire and wheel is less than the future value of a client contract. Therefore, drive as many miles as necessary on the flat.”
STANFORD: “I’d drive on the flat tire; however I’d let the air out of the other three tires first so that the car rides better.”
MIT: “I’d remove the tires and install rocket pods.”
MICHIGAN: “This would never happen to me. I only rent Japanese cars that don’t get flat tires.”
COLUMBIA: “The desert and the middle of nowhere without any people? You must be thinking about New Jersey.”
WHARTON: “There are so many Wharton people; it will only be a couple minutes before an alum drives by.”
CORNELL: “You must be mistaken; Arizona is not the middle of nowhere. Ithaca is the middle of nowhere.”
UNC-CHAPEL HILL: “I’d do whatever the NASCAR guys do in a flat tire situation.”
WISCONSIN: “Start drinking. Repeat as often as necessary.”
USC: “The first thing you need to do in this situation is to call a lawyer.”
UT-AUSTIN: “Burn the tires for a smoke signal.”
PENN STATE: “Pop the hood and see if the spare tire is in there.”

She hired the Penn State grad.

Personally, I love the Cornell response. I’m from AZ and *I* happen to attend school in Ithaca, which I can testify is in the middle of nowhere. Even if you’re in the middle of the Sonoran desert, there’s still more traffic than the busiest streets of Ithaca! But I’ve got a better angle:

Wait. Illegal mexican immigrants will eventually come across your car.

4 Responses to “Interview Question”

1. Jeff says:

   5/9/2005 at 5:03 pm

   Do they drive a lot of Subaru’s at Penn State?

   That’s the only car I’ve ever owned with a spare tire under the hood rather than in the trunk.

   Reply
2. Stevio says:

   8/25/2005 at 6:14 pm

   How about the VW Beetle?
   USC Marshall alum

   Reply
3. sundew says:

   11/9/2005 at 3:51 am

   that UT-AUSTIN guy doesn’t sound like one of us.
   we never burn things for such reason.
   do it only for barbeque..

   a longhorn

   Reply
4. Yves says:

   12/22/2005 at 5:43 pm

   WE ARE !!!

   Reply