maths help please

[whalebfooked]

hi went for a job interview today and got asked to work out the following:


In a large company, of the total % of men working in the company 7% worked in the finance department, and of all the women in the company 34% worked in the finance department.
If the company increased the % of men working in finance by 5% each year how many years would it take until there was 34% of men and women working in the finance department?

please help as i think i fucked it up

[whalebfooked]

by the way i tried to apply the formula for compound interest

[bunnyscfc]

bloody hell, McDonalds have gone a bit Apprentice/upmarket.

[Orbs]

i hope you are taking the piss here Whale!!!!!!!!!!

[arnoldlayne]

6 years ???

[miltonstokie]

I think the answer is 1994

[Deleted]

The shortest distance between any 2 points is a straight line. If you apply this theorom with Pythagoras and Triganomatry I think the answer works out at 4.76 banana's.

[Miniman]

The answer is most certainly League 2 football next season

[nwobhmfan]

I think its 33yrs, or there abouts. is that what you got? ???

[beagriestache]

Compound interest sounds right. So you shouldn't have fecked it up. Don't ask me to work it out though.

Remember you get points for showing working and putting your name at the top of the paper and bonus for blowing off loudly in the exam room, then looking round quizzically and saying "Must be a barge coming through..."

[powchirper]

I get it to just under 33 years, but i am not very good at maths.

[whalebfooked]

see this where i got confused, because it seems quite easy but do you just add 5% to 7% making 12% and so on

or

Do you add 5% of 7% to 7% making 7.35%

?????
???

[nwobhmfan]

I added 5% of 7% = 7.35% for year one, 5%of 7.35% = 7.71% year 2, etc etc, giving 34% after 32 years and a few months. Hey, this is a great way of taking your mind off the game tomorrow. Anyone got any more??!!

[powchirper]

By adding 5% to the original 7%= 7.35% then add 7.35% to5% of 99.65% of the remaining men, etc etc, I think. So the answer is not 33 years.

[tony harrison]

As you say increasing the % of men working in finance by 5% each year then I would imagine it is the 7.35% and so on.

Did you have a calculator for this ?

The next number would be 0.3675 added to the 7.35%

This would take many many years so I think they must mean 5% of the workforce ?

What job was this for ?

[whalebfooked]

yeah i was allowed a calculator

the job was for a bank.


WAS was the key word in the sentence.

[tony harrison]

Oh well, the way the banks are working these days with the credit crisis, I think they may not have known the answer either.

They're just hoping you could help them out, just like the shareholders ?

[whalebfooked]

;D

[Orbs]

The question is ethically unsound as surely it's best PERSON for the job rather than trying to increase the male population in a designated area of the organisation? ;D ;D ;D

[wizzardofdribble]

24, 176

[expectedtoulouse]

another problem to take your minds off tommorrows game:

y is proportional to the square of x.
Find the ratio of the values of x when
y = 8 and y = 15.625.
Put the ratio in its simplest form.

[whalebfooked]

yeah it does:

eventually out of the whole company 34% of the men will work in the finance department and the same with the women.

so

in the finance department (not the company as a whole) 50% will be men and 50% will be women

[rhodesy]

I got 6