Post:
You have three switches in one room and a single light bulb in another room. You are allowed to visit the room with the light bulb only once. How do you figure out which switch controls the bulb? Write your answer in the comments before looking at other answers.
Comment:
If this were an interview question, the correct response would be "Do you have any relevant questions for me? Because have a long list of things that more deserving of my precious time than to think about this!
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Whoosh.
There are (at least) two layers of joke here. One is indeed referential of the self importance that is prevalent in professional settings, and that LinkedIn users are especially known for, where the joke pokes fun at this stereotype.
The other layer is that this is a meta joke, actually showing that they understand the premise of the question, but apply the lateral thinking to the situation (rather than question) and at the same time question the practice of lateral thinking interview questions that are trendy, but typically pointless for any hiring decision.
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Your edit adds the missing part, this is indeed a twist based off of a joke the reader is expected to already know.
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Tbh, I quite enjoy the question / challenge. But on the other hand I’ve been a dev for awhile so could also easily give a long list of real world examples of clients asking me ridiculous (and sometimes interesting) questions.
Well…
case 1: I know beforehand that this is going to be an interview to look at how good I am at reasoning. No problem, give me the question about bus to fill with balls
case 2: this is going to be a more informal interview, question goes in the same list as “your name, what were you doing at your previous job, did you work with X… by the way, what about switches and bulbs” - nope. That means interviewer did a lousy job at preparing for interview, so who is wasting whose time - up to me to decide on the spot