Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?

November 14, 2011
Google conducts some of the toughest job interviews: since its first recruiting campaign in 2004, the company has been using brainteasers and other open-ended mental challenges along with the standard behavioral questions to identify the candidates most capable of iconoclastic, creative problem solving—and to find out, as a former Google employee describes, “where the candidates run out of ideas.” Today, alongside passing social network checks and displaying far above average intelligence, candidates must sit through more interviews than ever before and pass questions that try to screen for a particular personality—and offbeat interview questions have become de rigueur at other companies. Poundstone (Priceless) offers strategies for making the best of these nerve-racking situations, decoding interviewer’s hidden agendas, and salvaging a doomed interview, in a solid treatment peppered with mind-bending puzzles. The creativity of these puzzles, along with Poundstone’s energetic, compelling writing, makes the book fun even for nonjob seekers.

November 1, 2011
Poundstone (Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value, 2010, etc.) surveys today's tough job-interview questions. "We live in an age of desperation," writes the author. "Never in living memory has the competition for job openings been more intense. Never have job interviews been tougher. This is the bitter fruit of the jobless recovery and the changing nature of work." Job interviews have become not only personally invasive, but also intellectually diabolical. Behavioral questions and work samples are now supplemented by logic puzzles, and this isn't just at Google and Microsoft, but at the local shoe store as personnel departments have caught the general drift that there are more bodies than jobs and talent goes begging. Despite the air of gloom, Poundstone keeps a jaunty tone as he gives advice on how to field the offbeat, odd-angle questions tossed by interviewers, often open-ended and with no definitive correct answer--in order to test mental flexibility, entrepreneurial potential and innovativeness. Google's hiring process is the author's standard, which sets the bar pretty high, but its practice is contagious: "Weird interview questions are a meme, like a joke or viral video. It's catchiness, rather than proof of their effectiveness, that keeps them in circulation." Hiring is still a game of chance, yet for the "zombie hordes of unemployed and underemployed [who] are willing to claw at anything that even looks like a job," Poundstone offers dozens of teasers to tackle (answers included). These include insight questions and lateral-thinking puzzles, how to spot an algorithm question and how to dig below the cryptic surface. In perhaps the most inspired paragraphs, he explains the art of salvaging the southbound interview, but he notes that much of this is improvisation. Serious ammunition to pack for your next job interview.

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December 1, 2011

Poundstone (How Would You Move Mount Fuji?) gives readers tips on Google's (and others') interviewing strategies. The first half of the book includes word problems and story-based questions typical of the Google-type interview, and the second half explains the answers. While quite difficult to solve on the spot, these questions give readers some idea of what to expect from a nontraditional interview. (One example of a Google interview question: "Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.") Google and other companies are using this method to identify creativity and analytical thinking and to sort candidates in a flooded market. One helpful section is "Salvaging a Doomed Interview," which includes ways to "avoid dead air." While this is a helpful look into a new style of interviewing now performed by large corporations, the book is overly full of tough questions and long answers that would be a challenge for anyone to memorize. VERDICT For those who want something extra in their repertoire for their next interview.--Barb Kundanis, Longmont P.L., CO

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.