If You Can Solve This Riddle, You Can Get Hired at Google!

Pet-friendly workplace. Free gourmet food everyday. Massage services. These are only some of the awesome perks that Google employees get from their company so it’s no surprise that web-based workers would love to work there. Of course, you have to be really smart, among other things, to get your foot in the door.

Rumor has it that Google uses a particular riddle when interviewing candidates. If you can solve this brain teaser, you may just have a chance to be a Noogler – that’s what Google affectionately calls their new hires.

You don’t need to have the brain of a nuclear physicist to solve this, but you do have to be creative. This tests one’s problem-solving skills. So here it is.

You are standing outside a closed and windowless room. In front are three light switches.

Each switch controls a different light bulb in the room. The thing is, you can’t see inside the room, so you don’t have an idea which switch controls which bulb. What you are sure of is that each switch controls only one light.

There are no dimmer switches here and you can’t touch the switches again once you open the room’s door. So how can you find out which switch controls which bulb when you go inside the room?

Remember, there are no loopholes to this riddle. The answer is actually easier than you think.

If you’re done thinking, here’s the answer:

You just need to turn on two of the lights. Wait a couple of minutes and then turn one of the two lights off. When you go inside the room, the bulb that is on is obviously controlled by the switch that is turned on. So what about the two bulbs that are off? Touch the light bulbs. The warm one is controlled by the switch that was on and switched off. The cold bulb is controlled by the switch that didn’t flick on.

So do you have what it takes to work at Google?