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.

<< Previous

Wall Street and the Puzzle Interview

The puzzle interview exactly serves the purpose of Wall-Street, when competition is no less intense, and market share is no less tenuous compared to Silicon Valley. This high finance business is increasingly changing into software business. Sophisticated financial instruments and derivatives are very much software based and have to be designed and implemented by math-savvy nerds who are happy working long hours. Many of the questions posed in Microsoft and some other similar companies'interviews are very much common in Wall Street interviews. Goldman Sachs (which handled Microsoft's 1986 initial public offering) asks the puzzle about weighing eight balls to find the heavier one. Management consulting industry is no exception to this trend. A good consultant is supposed to be a “quick study”; and puzzles and riddles are seen as a good way to judge “non-contextspecific” intelligence. How to Outsmart the Puzzle Interview? Whether a candidate likes it or not, he might well have to face tough and tricky questions on next interview. What can the candidate do? Can he prepare himself for the interview? Just as so many abilities people bother about, puzzle solving ability is also a combination of innate talent and learned skills. Some of the suggestions to improve this ability are:

Almost all major American school systems adopted the practice of intelligence testing. Subsequently Terman and his associates went on advertise for IQ tests around Palo Alto. In 1956, William Shockley too got impressed with these IQ tests. Thus began the Silicon Valley's fascination with IQ tests and logic puzzles. But, since 1930s they have been disenchanted with intelligence testing. They realized that IQ testing was not the cureall that Terman had made it out to be. In 1964, New York City dropped IQ testing in its schools. The race issue was prime reason behind that decision. Educators have been complaining that the culture gap between white male test takers and minority test takers resulted in unfavorable IQ scores for minority students. IQ test was harming the prospects of minority students by assigning them with lower IQ scores. Companies were also forced to abandon the intelligence tests by lawsuits that blamed the tests to be discriminatory. All this might suggest that Intelligence tests are no longer in use. But it is not so. Intelligence tests are used as widely as ever in education as well as workplace. They are, however, used in disguised form.

1. Decide first, what type of answer is expected: Most interview questions expect a verbal performance that shows how the candidate approaches the problem and ends with a right or suitable answer. Hence, question asked should be classified into one that is asking a monologue or dialogue. Logic puzzles expect a monologue. A candidate is given limited information intentionally, and there is no point in trying to elicit more information from interviewer to solve the question. There are some other types of questions such as questions that ask a candidate to design a spice rack etc. This type of questions do not have a single answer. Candidates, in that case, can try to elicit as much relevant information as the interviewer is willing to give. That sort of behavior is in fact expected of the candidate.

2. What ever you think at first is wrong: The first potential answer that comes into the mind of an ordinary candidate is generally not the right answer. Had it been the case, the puzzle would not have been a puzzle at all. The failure to answer question immediately is a good sign. That shows that the candidate is on right track. The best place to begin with is to see why the obvious solution is wrong. This helps in understanding the problem.

Next >>