How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle -- How the World's Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers
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Product Description
Microsoft's notoriously grueling interview process has been emulated by companies everywhere that seek to separate the most creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI? reveals more than 35 of these challenging riddles and puzzles and, for the first time, shows how answers can be found through creative and effective analytical thinking.
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
Should have read it twice....
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Comment:
This books is filled with all those puzzle questions that *used* to come up at interviews at Microsoft and Google... I interviewed at both companies none of these came up, in fact thay are now frowned upon...as fate would have it I interviewd at a third company and they asked the one about the boat and the suitcase, which I couldn't remember.. aaaaarrrg
Bill
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Summary:
It's not about finding a job, but having an open mind.
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Comment:
Too simple to think of this as getting a job at Microsoft of job interviews in general. It's about having an open mind. Clearly the "problems" can distinguish between those who say "I can't do it" and give up and those who find every problem, even the impossible, an opportunity to succeed, and are not crushed be failure. And the problems are fun.
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Summary:
Good for interview backup
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Comment:
This was a pretty fun read. The book goes over the origins of brainteaser/puzzle interviews, how they are/should be used, and has a lot of well explained examples. For my purposes of going over brainteasers that I might run into in investment banking interviews, the book was pretty handy because the few brainteasers I did get, I had read about before. If you are trying to do the same thing for other types of interviews (with trading companies or something more quantitative) then the book isn't as good in those areas, because the questions are more probability/stat based.
Overall, very enjoyable and well-written.
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Summary:
The answer key to your next interview
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Comment:
For anyone looking for an entry level position at a financial or technology firm, this is a must read. Insane logic puzzles and brainteasers are the new craze in interviewing, and the ideas are spreading to more and more companies. Whether such silly interview questions are a good measure of a candidate's intelligence is debatable. But one thing for certain is that interview brainteasers are here to stay.
Mt Fuji covers all angles of the interview brainteaser, from its history and origins to how they should be handled in an interview. The first segment of the book about the history of interviewing and puzzles is an interesting read and gives you insight into why their creators first put them to practice. As both an interview and interviewee, the history may help you understand their application, but overall this segment is not very practical for a tough interview.
The meat of this book comes near the middle, where it gives a list of popular logic puzzles actually used by some companies (solutions to all puzzles mentioned throughout the book are in the appendix). If you have the time, they are fun to work out. After this page of puzzles, the author describes how employers applied them in interviews and gives general guidelines for defeating similar questions.
The final chapter before the appendix is directed towards potential interviewers. It explains how some companies have gone overboard and improperly used brainteasers to evaluate job candidates. For interviewees, it makes you feel better if you had a bad interview because of unfair use of brainteasers.
Mt Fuji is an excellent read for any young person currently seeking a job, and any employer who would like to incorporate brainteaser questions into the interview process. The puzzles and history are geared towards technology firms like Microsoft, but these brainteasers are also very common with Wall Street firms. Not only is this read informative, but will be fun if you enjoy thinking out of the box.
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Summary:
The utility coefficient between the contents of this book and your interview at Microsoft will be < 0.15
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Comment:
At this point, this is for entertainment purposes only. Like the late James Fixx's brainteaser books, these now are just for fun. If you really wish to cram logic puzzles for interviews, it probably pays to look at very old ones rather than current hot ones, since HR departments are not snoozing at the wheel on the ambitious nerdnicks who memorized vocabulary lists for the SAT.
There does appear to be some mapping of the techniques tested here and workplace problem solving skills, but we are in the artistic stage of alchemy rather than a scientific stage of chemistry on the topic. Anyone who claims these puzzles distinguish intelligence might as well be wearing a pointed hat and gazing into a bowl of mercury (on a tripod, warmed by a candle no less).
Still, lots of fun.
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