[er35826]

I'm an electrical engineer who has pared my skill list down to 'troubleshooting.' For my equivalent of a fizzbuzz, the exercise is to present someone with a potential failure (the light in the room is off) and ask them how they'd go about investigating the problem.

I like to see all kinds of answers, but particularly more theories are better, especially when justified at least loosely. Things like "change the light bulb", "flick the switch", and "check the circuit breakers" are evidence that they have the right mind for breaking a situation out into many different causes.

edit: I absolutely loathe 'out of the box' as a meme, but I love hearing responses like "is anything else in the room turned on?" as it shows a simpler, more direct way of assessment.

[Piskvorrr]

I have misread the last quote as "is anyone else in the room turned on" and wondered whether that's not a bit far out of the box ;)

[aaronem]

That's not a question I've ever had cause to ask on either side of an interview, to say the least.