Synopses & Reviews
Why are beer cans tapered on the ends? How many piano tuners are there in the world? Why does a mirror reverse right and left instead of up and down?
For years, Microsoft and other high-tech companies have been posing riddles and logic puzzles like these in their notoriously grueling job interviews. Now "puzzle interviews" have become a hot new trend in hiring. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, employers are using tough and tricky questions to gauge job candidates' intelligence, imagination, and problem-solving ability-qualities needed to survive in today's hypercompetitive global marketplace.
For the first time, William Poundstone reveals the toughest questions used at Microsoft and other Fortune 500 companiesand supplies the answers. He traces the rise and controversial fall of employer-mandated IQ tests, the peculiar obsessions of Bill Gates (who plays jigsaw puzzles as a competitive sport), the sadistic mind games of Wall Street (which reportedly led one job seeker to smash a forty-third-story window), and the bizarre excesses of today's hiring managers (who may start off your interview with a box of Legos or a game of virtual Russian roulette).
How Would You Move Mount Fuji? is an indispensable book for anyone in business. Managers seeking the most talented employees will learn to incorporate puzzle interviews in their search for the top candidates. Job seekers competing in today's tight market will discover how to tackle even the most brain-busting questions, and gain the advantage that could win the job of a lifetime.
And anyone who has ever dreamed of going up against the best minds in business may discover that these puzzles are simply a lot of fun. Why are beer cans tapered on the end, anyway?
Synopsis
Microsoft's interview process is a notoriously grueling sequence of questions that separate creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. This book reveals for the first time more than 35 of Microsoft's puzzles and riddles, and supplies answers and approaches using creative analytical thinking that works.
Synopsis
Microsoft's interview process is a notoriously grueling sequence of brain-busting questions that separate the most creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. So effective is their technique that other leading corporations-from the high-tech industry to consulting and financial services-are modeling their own hiring practices on Bill Gates's unique approach.
How Would You Move Mount Fuji? reveals for the first time more than 35 of Microsoft's puzzles and riddles, such as:
- Why does a mirror reverse right and left but not up and down?
- If you could eliminate one U.S. state, which would it be?
- How would you make an M&M?
- How many piano tuners are there in the world?
And for the first time, this book supplies answers and approaches using creative analytical thinking that works. Anyone in business, and everyone who wants to be, will find here a valuable new approach to hiring, identifying talent in an organization, and getting the job of a lifetime.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-262) and index.
Table of Contents
The impossible question -- The Termans and Silicon Valley -- Bill Gates and the Culture of Puzzles -- The Microsoft interview puzzles -- Embracing cluelessness -- Wall Street and the stress interview -- The hardest interview puzzles -- How to outsmart the puzzle interview -- How innovative companies ought to interview.