How Would You Move Mount Fuji?

Abstract: How Would You Move Mount Fuji? explores the riddles and puzzles used in interviews by Microsoft and other high-tech companies. The author traces the rise and controversial fall of employer-mandated IQ tests, the peculiar obsessions of Bill Gates (who plays figsaw puzzles as a competitive sport) and the sadistic mind games of Wall Street (which reportedly les one job seeker to smash a forty-third story window).

 

About the Author: William Poundstone is the author of nine books, including Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos, Prisoner's Dilemma, Labyrinths of Reason, and the Popular Big Secrets series, which inspired two television network specials. He has written for Esquire, Harper's, The Economist, and the New York Times Book Review, and his science writing has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Riddles and Sphinxes Contd...

The reasons: •References, bedrock of sound hiring practice are fast disappearing in this litigious society. •Changing ground rules of interviews in the past decades: It is illegal in countries like the United States for an interviewer to enquire about applicant's age, weight, religion, political view, ethnicity, marital status,sexual preference, or financial status. Neither can the interviewer ask for information on children, drinks, votes, does charity work, or has committed a major crime. These restrictions prohibit interviewer from asking all the traditional style questions. •Traditional job interview process has been criticized by scientific researchers.Lot of experiments assert the fallibility of interviewers. Studies in this area suggest that a standard job interview is a pretense in which both interviewer and interviewee are duped. It was found that interviewer generally makes up his mind by the time the interviewee has settled into his seat. The questions and answers that are exchanged are a sham, to convince each other that they followed a rational basis while making a selection decision. However, in reality, the decision has been made already on some flimsy basis.

Future Tense

Microsoft, more than most big companies, accepts a candidate as blank slate. Its avowed goal is to select the candidate for what he can do rather than what he did already. Predictions about future performance are invariantly based on how the candidate answers the questions posed during the interview. Microsoft believes that it can judge a person's caliber in a four to five one-hour interviews. Adam David Barr, a Microsoft developer, compares the interview process to the National foot ball league's annual draft. There are some teams which are selected based on college football record. There are others where the selection is based on individual workouts where college players are tested more rigorously.

Microsoft follows the later method in selecting for all positions except the most senior people. Microsoft's goal is to assess a general problem-solving ability rather than a specific competency. It uses logic puzzles, riddles, and impossible questions to meet this end. Microsoft people believe that there are parallels between the reasoning skill necessary to solve puzzles and the skill necessary to address the real problems of innovation and a changing marketplace. Solver of puzzles, and technical innovator should be capable of identifying essential elements in a situation that is ill-defined at least in the beginning. It is not clear often how reasoning should be employed. Hence, the solver of either the puzzle or problem concerning innovation must persist till it is possible to arrive at a solution.

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