Statistica Sinica 10(2000), 639-646

A NATURAL VARIATION OF THE STANDARD

SECRETARY PROBLEM

Shoou-Ren Hsiau and Jiing-Ru Yang

National Changhua University of Education

Abstract: We consider a natural variation of the standard secretary problem: groups of applicants are to be interviewed sequentially (in groups) by a manager and the manager wants to find a strategy which maximizes the probability of selecting the best applicant. We use the usual backward induction method to find the optimal strategy, which can be easily described and is a natural extension of the solution for the standard secretary problem.

Key words and phrases: Key words and phrases: Backward induction, optimal stopping, secretary problem.