How long should you search before committing?
A stopping rule trades learning about the field against the risk of letting the best option go.
Inside this model
Twenty candidate qualities are shuffled without replacement. Observe the first skip candidates, then accept the first later candidate better than all observed; if none appears, accept the last. The plotted exact success rate enumerates each possible location of the best candidate and the best earlier rank.
Out in the world
A practical use
Interviewing applicants one by one when rejected applicants cannot be recalled.
A useful lens. Not a universal law.
- The classic rule assumes random order, independent rankings and no recall; real hiring seldom does.
Associated thinkers
Further reading
Explore the original research or the teaching reference behind this experiment.
Martin Gardner — Mathematical Games: the secretary problem ↗