How Would You Move Mount Fuji ?

How Would You Move Mount Fuji ? focuses on the use of puzzles in the hiring process. While the cult of the puzzle was made most famous at places like Microsoft, Wall Street investment banking and high price consultancies, the book is a little more than that (though you have to love the buy-bait slug on the cover “How the World’s Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers.”). We’re about to hire a whack of people for my team at work, so any incremental advantage we can get in hiring good people or avoiding hiring bad ones is a good thing.

To its credit, the book actually deals with the problem companies have always had of hiring the best talent they can and goes over the idea of the puzzle as an employment test. Interestingly, the book also reviews the origins of testing for employment in general and in particular, the origins of the IQ test (which fascinatingly is how the modern HR department evolved – basically the administrative arm for administering IQ tests.).

The other most useful thing was the section on how companies shouldn’t hire which is probably the most valuable part of the book. Especially in the race for talent these days and in how you are going to keep it and how your corporate culture works, was a great little section. If you are looking for a job though, there is a nice section on how you should try to answer these sorts of questions if you’re interviewing somewhere that likes posing these things.

I do love the puzzles included though. Some of them which are very good and I’d love to incorporate them where they make sense into our own hiring to get an idea of how someone thinks and whether they have the right sort of mindset for some of the jobs (ie. a Fermi estimation, a design question etc.).

Also, I’m really happy that I did very well on most of the puzzles so figure, at least in a non-pressure cooker environment, I probably would have got the job. (my own interview with Google notwithstanding).