Types of Guesstimates

In this segment, you will get familiar with the basic types of guesstimates and how to tackle each of them. Let's watch the video as the SME explains each of the type in detail:

In the video earlier, Soumya discussed the different types of guesstimates. Let’s revise them:
    

Guesstimates are of three major types:

Geometry or Shape Related

These types of guesstimates are often used in case of competitions and regular job interviews wherein the main aim is to simply check the problem-solving ability of the candidates and no deep knowledge whatsoever of any management or business field is required. Some common examples of these types of guesstimates are as follows:

• How many tennis balls can you fit in your car?
• How much paint would you require to paint the White House?
• How many litres of crude oil is there inside the Earth?
• How many people can you fit in a stadium?

Market Sizing 
        
Market Sizing guesstimate is the most famous type of question asked in the interviews of consulting or marketing firms. These can be basically solved either from the demand or the supply perspective. A few examples should help you understand this better:  

• How many washing machines are sold in India in a year?
• What will be the market for electric cars in India in 2025?
• How many customers enter a typical shopping mall in a day?
• How much does a typical barber shop earn in a month?

Abstract 

These types of guesstimate are those that fall in neither of the above-mentioned categories. They do not require any pre-reads or above-average knowledge, but they are a bit tricky to solve. Hence, the general approach when you encounter these is to break the guesstimate down until you reach either of the above types of guesstimates and then start solving it from there and eventually combine all the answers. Some common examples of these types of guesstimates are as follows:

• How many trees are there in your city?
• How many marriages happen in India in a year?
• How many people divorce in India in a year?
• How many engineers leave India for further studies in a year?

       
So, this was all about the different types of guesstimates which you can be asked in an interview. These interview questions can be of three main types. 

1. Pre-decided - This is when the interviewer asks you the same guesstimate questions they ask everyone from a template provided by the company. 
2. Using their experience - This is when the interviewer leverages on their professional experiences and projects to conjure up questions. These usually happen in consulting interviews.
3. Using your experience - This is when the interviewer asks you questions based on your hobbies or interests in order to make the guesstimate fun as well as get a deeper understanding of how well you are able to perform based on your own skills.

Let’s now move on to the next session where you will learn about the approaches taken for solving guesstimates. You can also see some tricks you can use to get a better grip of the interview process.