Deconstructing the job interview of the twenty-first century.
6/9/2003
In today's labor market, preparing for job interviews by rehearsing those traditional questions related to career ambitions or managerial style will no longer suffice. As William Poundstone reveals in How Would You Move Mount Fuji, the job interview has become the setting for testing intellectual acuity. Poundstone contends that the use of puzzles and brainteasers may be traced back to as early as 1910 and the work of Lewis Terman. Terman, a Stanford psychologist, promoted the use of IQ tests, expanding on the work of French educator Alfred Binet. Terman adapted Binet's Intelligence Scale for adults, creating what is now commonly referred to as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Poundstone describes the first use of intelligence tests in the workplace for army recruitment in 1917, revealing their obvious relationship to current brainteaser techniques used by Microsoft and Wall Street firms. Readers will find How Would You Move Mount Fuji enlightening not only for its historical account of current recruitment practices but also for its practical advice for recruiters on incorporating puzzles into the job interview. Recruits will also find it valuable: Poundstone devotes the final chapter to deconstructing the answers to typical puzzle questions.