HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI?

Author: William Poundstone
ISBN number:0-316-77849-4

This book takes us through the various interviews and the puzzles that are asked in the interviews. These puzzles are used as a filtering measure in these companies to ensure the “not so good candidates” are not hired. This culture of interviewing was followed first in the Silicon Valley and is most effectively used by Microsoft in their recruitment process. Most of these questions do not have a single correct answer. There is no right or wrong, the person is judged by the way he approaches the problem. With the changing technology every minute, It does not make sense to recruit a person who is an expert in some skill, With such puzzles the approach of the individual and problem solving capabilities can be accessed and this proves fruitful.
After advice to interviewers (on how to make the tests fair and meaningful) and interviewees (on how to succeed), the Author takes the latter half of the book to present the solutions to the logic problems presented in the first half,. The author pays particular attention to the methodologies for arriving at the solutions to the puzzles. Some puzzles looked extremely difficult but once I read the answers, I realized they weren’t. There is an underlying method using which all these problems have to be approached..The books calls for one to be prepared for these kinds of the puzzles, which needs out of the box thinking to crack.. Does the sun always rise in the east? This was one example. To me the answer was yes but then the answer said in the South Pole everything is to the north of it and vice versa in the North Pole .I was never able to think on those lines.
I always heard that Microsoft’s recruitment process involved various puzzles, this book outlined 2 things
1) Why these kinds of puzzles are used.
2) How they should be approached.

I wondered from where these companies got these puzzles even that was answered in the book. For someone who wants to have a good read with a lot of thought going into solving puzzles this is a great book.
There are various challenging questions in this book that were solved, to me the best were
1) Why the manhole covers are round rather than square?
2) How would you weigh a jet plane without using scales?
3) Which way should you turn a key to unlock a car door?
4) How do they make M&Ms (the answer was an interesting)
Unluckily most of these are no more used in any interviews because of “overexposure” but at least I know how to approach similar puzzles.