October 2003
New Twists and Turns in Interviewing
By
President of Workforce Associates
and author of
NetWork: Maximizing Your Career Resources on the Internet
Available online and in print from Author House
October 2003
New Twists and Turns in Interviewing
By
President of Workforce Associates
and author of
NetWork: Maximizing Your Career Resources on the Internet
Available online and in print from Author House
#1 The Mental Puzzle Game:
Several weeks ago I caught part of a radio interview with the author of this provocative book, How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle; How the World's Smartest Company Selects the Most Creative Thinkers. This puzzle is typical of a type of puzzle-solving interview used at Microsoft and many other hi-tech and creative firms. It and several others are featured in this new book by William Poundstone. These interviews pose problems – some mathematical, many not – for job candidates to solve. Some have the impossible feel of Zen riddles.
Microsoft wasn't the first to use puzzles, though it popularized the technique. Now, according to Poundstone, it has spread to Wall Street and throughout corporate America. Even if you’re not naturally a mental puzzle fiend, this book is valuable for a job seeker because it covers current interview techniques in general, and why technology companies tend to rely on mental puzzles so heavily. Poundstone is quite harsh on companies who are over-reliant on this type of problem solving because he thinks that is not the best indicator of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. He’s even harsher on more traditional interview questions such as "where do you see yourself in 5 years time?" which typically do no more than reinforce whatever bias the interviewer has built up anyway.
Sample questions, (abbreviated) answers below:
• How many piano tuners are there in the world?
• Design a spice rack for a blind person.
• You have a bucket of jelly beans in three colors – red, green and blue. With your eyes closed, reach in the bucket and take out two jelly beans of the same color. How many jelly beans do you have to take to be certain of getting two of the same color?
Poundstone poses many puzzles you might face, should you be one of the few called to Microsoft's Redmond, Washington headquarters for a job interview.
The length of the answers section (over 100 pages) demonstrates how challenging the questions are. There may not be one right answer and often isn't. What the interviewer is testing is thought process and the poise with which you handle the question.
Poundstone's examination of this process is a fun read. He is a veteran science author who specializes in simplifying complex material. His engaging, easygoing writing style steers readers through difficult material.
One reason these interviews have become popular, he speculates, is that so many questions that used to be staples of job interviews are now illegal to ask candidates, so companies may feel they have to use this kind of device.
In summary, "Mount Fuji" is not just for those in the job market. Anyone who wants to try some mental aerobics and thinking "outside the box" will find it useful and enjoyable.
Answers:
•Piano tuners: If you think this is easy, consider that Poundstone's answer takes three pages. Your reasoning process is being tested, not the strict accuracy of the final number.
He says the answer that will please an interviewer will have you methodically reasoning, based on population in the USA and the world, how many pianos you think there are and how often they need tuning. Laboriously, he works his way to an estimation of 20,000 piano tuners worldwide. No one really knows the answer to this, he says, and it's possible the figure could be off by a factor of two.
•Spice rack: This is another answer that takes up nearly three pages. He says the feature common to all answers is how to apply Braille labels. He points out disadvantages to Braille lids and says it is hard to read a curved Braille label. Square jars with identical labels made of durable, but flexible plastic on all sides may work. Or you could work with the jars you now have, but use a label panel in one continuous strip containing the Braille descriptions.
This also becomes an ergonomic problem: Your solution should reflect the fact that a regular spice rack is at eye level, but yours might make more sense at counter level, like a keyboard, comfortably positioned for the user's finger.
•Jelly beans: One brief answer: "Four. Pick just three jelly beans, and it's possible you'd have one of each color and therefore no match. With four jelly beans, at least two have to be the same color."
#2 The Jig’s Up!
An interesting study by Frank Bernieri and Neha Gada-Jain had two interviewers conducting 98 job interviews with a selection of volunteers. Standard interview techniques were used. The interviews were taped, and a fifteen-second clip of the very first part of the interview (applicant enters, shakes hands with interviewer, sits down etc) was created for each interview. These taped segments were then shown to another group who rated the interviewees based upon this tape alone. The groups' opinions of the interviewees based upon a 15-second clip correlated strongly with the opinions of the interviewers who had spent 20 minutes on each interview.
The conclusion was that interviewers form first impressions of an interviewee in the first few seconds of meeting, and that everything that follows with "traditional" interview techniques is largely irrelevant. In other words, the hiring decision already has been made, albeit subconsciously. The conclusion of this study is: If you are going to an interview, make sure your handshake is a good one!
#3 The Byzantine World of Phone Interviews:
In the interests of saving time and precious travel money, companies are increasingly relying on the telephone to interview candidates. Although you as the job seeker may find it comforting not to have to worry about bad hair days or an interviewer seeing your sweaty brow, in fact the phone interview is the trickiest of all interviews, in my opinion. First of all, you can’t see your interviewers so you can’t make small talk about an interesting outfit or piece of jewelry or even the contents of their office to size them up before the grilling begins. It’s also tough to appear confident just through the use of your voice rather than your smile or posture or business attire during a face-to-face interview. Speaker phones often distort your voice. They also make for uncomfortable silences as folks at other end of the phone tentatively wait for someone else’s response before jumping in.
Career counselors advise that you stand while you’re in a phone interview. This will enable you to speak louder and more confidently. Wear interview clothes so you’ll feel more professional even though they can’t see you. Disable your calling waiting feature. Take advantage of the fact that the interviewers can’t see you to line up all the results of your research on this company and the list of questions that you want to pursue with them. Make sure that you have your customized resume on hand to answer any questions about it. Be sure to ask what will be the next step in the interview process at the end of your interview, what additional materials they may need from you, and their willingness to have you email or call if you haven’t heard from them by a certain date.
Enjoy the Fall color and the upbeat ticks in our economy. Please continue to send me your resumes and thoughts and ideas re job searching. I greatly enjoy the mental puzzles that you send me! All the best.
Sincerely,
Jane M. Lommel, Ph.D.
jlommel@WorkforceAssociates.com
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