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 companies -- and 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 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
For managers and job-seekers everywhere: how the world's most innovative corporation uses top secret riddles, logic puzzles, and bizarre hypothetical questions to single out truly creative individuals.
Reviews
GREAT PRAISE FOR WILLIAM POUNDSTONE: For PRISONER'S DILEMMA...
"If we are to open up the prison of self-interest and aim for the common good, we had better start looking for decision makers who have this author's width and breadth of vision."
About the Author
William Poundstone is the bestselling author of eight books, including Prisoner's Dilemma, Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos, and Big Secrets. He has written for The Economist, Esquire, Harper's, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications. His science writing has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in L.A.
SJRLC services are funded by dollars appropriated by the New Jersey Legislature for the New Jersey
Library Network and administered by the New Jersey State Library, an affiliate
of Thomas Edison State College.
