About book How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult Of The Puzzle--How The World's Smartest Companies Select The Most Creative Thinkers (2004)
Catchy title, ain’t it? Well the title is one reason I did pick up to see what the book is about… I know… I know… you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover… or the title for that matter. But that’s not what I am doing. Just saying that the title piqued my interest. Plus, there is also “How the world’s smartest companies select the most creative thinkers” as a subtitle on the cover, with Microsoft being referred to as a smart company (which I endorse whole heartedly, not getting into the debate of the quality of their software). And since I am an active member of the job market currently I had a somewhat personal interest in this book.Having said that, I also loath the preachy self help books that teach you how to win friends, or how to get rich, or how to change the channel on the TV with the minimum effort. Thankfully, this book stays miles clear from being preachy. It is like a person who knows his stuff come and give his acquired knowledge to us in the 15-min coffee break. It educates, but does not bore; which is quite a task to achieve.The book primarily focuses on the proliferation of puzzles in recruitment interviews, especially for the young, ready-to-take-on-the-world college pass outs. It covers pretty much all the aspects on the subject: the history of puzzles in interviews, the objective of puzzles, their effectiveness, ways to tackle them, and even what companies should do while using puzzles as a technique for hiring along with a handful of puzzles thrown in. None of the topics in the book make you feel like you have read a heavy duty chapter on “.Net” technology. And the tips in the book are actually quite practical.But don’t read this book if you want a treasure of puzzles. There are a plenty of websites dedicated to them. The book is about a very narrow subject: “Puzzles in interviews”. But the audience for this book is not narrow. Obviously the kids who are gonna pass out of their colleges next term could make good use of the book. But you could read the book for plain fun and some pretty neat insights into the hiring practices in some companies. And by the way, to give the answer to the title puzzle, if you tried, you can move Mount Fuji in 30 million years, give or take a few million.PS: A little anecdote: A friend was interviewing candidates for a position in his company. He asked one candidate, “If you are in a race, and if you overtake the guy who is third, what position would you be in.” The candidate promptly said, “Second”… It took some time before the catch sunk into him and he sheepishly said while leaving the room, “That should be third, it was a trick question!”A couple of candidates later, my friend asked the question, “If you are in a race, and if you overtake the guy who is SEVENTH, what position would you be in?” And the candidate blurted out, “Third…”
"... studies suggest that the standard job interview is a pretense in which both interviewer and interviewee are equally and mutually duped. The interviewer has made up her mind by the time the interviewee has settled into a chair. Maybe the decision is based on looks, body language, or the 'cut of your jib.' What's certain is that it's not based on anything happening inside the job candidate's head. The questions and answers that follow are a sham, a way of convincing both that some rational basis exists for a hiring decision. In reality, the decision has already been made, on grounds that could not possibly be more superficial." Spoken like a true disappointed office-seeker at page 17.Poundstone in his ever engaging style, here takes on the puzzle interview. There's grist not only for fans of logic puzzles and Martin Gardner (Poundstone poses and -- at the back of the book -- thoroughly analyzes more than 50 common "puzzle interview" questions), but also for business majors interested in improving hiring performance. The author problematizes and sympathizes with all that has contributed to making contemporary interviewing so difficult: fears of injecting litigable bias, time constraints, knowledge and preparation for a game that is itself unlike the job to be performed. He closes this book by offering not only specific answers and general strategies for outwitting logic puzzles, but concrete suggestions for improving hiring outcomes when preparing choice puzzles.And so what if my PhD'd spouse pooh-poohed Poundstone's interpretation of a pair of thin-slicing studies? All in all, this book is very much diverting bathroom reading. Which is all I asked of it.
Do You like book How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult Of The Puzzle--How The World's Smartest Companies Select The Most Creative Thinkers (2004)?
This guy is a complete asshole. The whole book is about the lack of significant validity of puzzle interview questions but virtually nowhere in the book does he mention that there is NO perfect interview technique and all we can do as interviewers is to assess our applicants the best, most relevant and most valid way we know how. This book also seriously lacks in statitical analyses and when he does throw in a statistic it is usually out of context and only to back up his ridiculous arguments. I do have to admit that he has done good research on the history and use of puzzle interview questions and gives us some good anecdotes and good examples throughout the book.
—Sandy
I have a fear of hiring people. Let's just say that my past record has not been stellar and we've been stuck with some people that we should never have been brought in. I came across this book and thought, "hey - this might help for next time!" Well, not really. It's an interesting book and if I ever need to apply to Microsoft for a job, I'll re-read it, but I can't see it helping me in the hiring process.What it did help me with was the answers to a lot of logic puzzles. When trying to figure these things out, I get easily frustrated and give up. I always think they should be easier to solve than they are and I give up pretty quickly. This book doesn't just explain the reasoning behind the question interview, it actually gives you the puzzles, and the answers! I spent a lot of time thinking about the questions and trying to solve them before I turned to the answers. (Poundstone must have known that if he had put the answers right after the questions, people would "cheat" - I know I would have.)The book gave me a couple of days of carrying around the questions in my head and puzzling through them. I actually enjoyed it. An interesting read, but I can't imagine that they use the same questions anymore. It might give you a few insights about why companies use these types of interviews - and that could be worth it.
—CJ
From a blog review I wrote in 2005:I just finished How Would You Move Mount Fuji? - Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle by William Poundstone. It's about Microsoft's (and other companys') interview testing where they throw 'impossible' puzzles at applicants. I checked it out just to see if I could answer the puzzles (I'll give you an example question and its answer later.) I have to confess I couldn't figure them all out. There's more to the book than just the puzzles, however. Poundstone discusses the pros and cons of hiring based on how someone responds to these tests. Many companies don't even care if the applicants get the right answer, they're more interested in seeing the logic used to get the answer. He also goes into detail on Microsoft's hiring process specifically, and doesn't seem to be all that impressed by it. There's also a section on how to outsmart the puzzles which would be helpful if you were ever put into this situation. Here's the promised example: You have five jars of pills. All of the pills in one jar only are contaminated. The only way to tell which pills are contaminated is be weight. A regular pill weighs 10 grams; a contaminated pill is 9 grams. You are given a scale and allowed to make just one measurement with it. How do you tell which jar is contaminated? Answer: Call the jars #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. Take one pill from #1, two from #2, three from #3, four from #4 and five from #5. Weight the whole lot. Were all the pills normal, the results would be 10+20+30+40+50 = 100. In fact, the weight must fall short of this by a number of grams equal to the number of the contaminated bottle. Should the total be 146 grams (4 grams short), then bottle #4 must contain the lighter pills.
—Kathy
