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William Poundstone

Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?: Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques You ... Know to Get a Job Anywhere in the New Economy Hardcover – January 4, 2012

by William Poundstone (Author)

4.1 370 ratings

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You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

If you want to work at Google, or any of America's best companies, you need to have an answer to this and other puzzling questions. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? guides readers through the surprising solutions to dozens of the most challenging interview questions. The book covers the importance of creative thinking, ways to get a leg up on the competition, what your Facebook page says about you, and much more. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? is a must-read for anyone who wants to succeed in today's job market.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Little, Brown and Company
Publication date

January 4, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 1.25 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

9780316099974
ISBN-13

978-0316099974
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Serious ammunition to pack for your next job interview."―Kirkus

"Poundstone offers strategies for making the best of nerve-racking situations, decoding interviewer's hidden agendas, and salvaging a doomed interview, in a solid treatment peppered with mind-bending puzzles. Poundstone's energetic, compelling writing...makes the book fun even for nonjob seekers."―Publishers Weekly

"A neat little manifesto on interview technique...Touring through a huge number of puzzles, he provides a truly exhaustive account of all the factors you're meant to consider when thinking your way through the solutions. Tackling [them] is incredibly gratifying, when you're not withering under the baleful eye of a potential employer."―New Scientist Culture Lab

"For those in the job market, Poundstone provides a handy survey of killer questions and how to answer them. For others, he offers the challenge of matching wits with people at America's most innovative companies. As for employers, he presents a timely warning about creative thinking and why job interviews don't work...The format affords Poundstone room to display his scientific knowledge, mathematical fluency and knack for explaining the arcane in playfully precise sentences."―Bloomberg Businessweek

About the Author

William Poundstone is the author of fourteen books -- including Rock Breaks Scissors, Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, and Fortune's Formula, which was Amazon Editor's pick for the number one nonfiction book of the year. He has written for the Believer, the Economist, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Esquire, Harper's, Harvard Business Review, the New York Times op-ed page and Book Review, and Village Voice. Follow Poundstone on Twitter (@WPoundstone) and learn more at his website, home.williampoundstone.net

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 031609997X
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company; First Edition (January 4, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780316099974
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316099974
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.25 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,154,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #868 in Job Interviewing (Books)
- #2,529 in Job Hunting (Books)
- #6,267 in Job Hunting & Career Guides

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4.1 370 ratings

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William Poundstone is the author of two previous Hill and Wang books: Fortune's Formula and Gaming the Vote.

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Winston Kotzan

Informative for interviewing at Google and beyond, but don't get your hopes up

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 2, 2013

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I found this to be an entertaining and informative read about the riddle-type questions that are now so popular in job interviews. Some of the advice offered could give you ideas on how to answer such questions if you are faced with them during an interview. Importantly, it could help you better structure your thought process and demeanor when tackling such interview questions. However, this book alone would probably not help you get a job at Google or anywhere else - riddles or not.

The most interesting thing I found in this book is the admission that other companies have adopted riddle questions because they are trying to be more like Google. However, such interviewers usually don't understand the reasoning or objectives behind Google's riddle/mathematical problems and therefore a worthy response to a riddle asked at Google may get you different results at other companies.

I had fun comparing my answers to the riddles to the answer key in the back of the book, but I believe that it has only made me marginally better as an interviewer. I still think that getting hit with a riddle during an interview at any company makes your success more of a crap shoot.

2 people found this helpful

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Bermuda Joe

Easy read with interesting observations.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 3, 2013

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I guess I am not smart enough to work at Google! But more importantly after reading this book I would not want to. Is Google an advertising company or a technology company? The questions Google asks on interviews (if this book is accurate) have very little to do with work and perhaps are designed to stroke the ego of the person asking the questions. Like all things it is far easier to ask a cleverly worded question than to answer it. Nevertheless the questions and the suggested answers are quite interesting and entertaining. In the end I guess the book leaves you with the thought that if Google is looking for creativity and the suggested interview questions are designed to hire creative people then it looks like it is not working out. Google remains a "one trick pony" and is a company with a search engine and no other real products to speak of. Perhaps it is time to go back to the drawing board!

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Yvonne Teach

I am NOT smart enough to work at Google

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 5, 2012

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This was a very interesting book. I am a fan of puzzles and open ended questions and this book was loaded with them. I particularly enjoyed the reasoning behind asking such questions in an interview and how as others have copied Google and that has been lost. An excellent read for anyone who is job hunting in a super competitivve market as well as anyone who likes a challenge. Note: I read the kindle version of this and found it a little challenging till I got the hang of it. Not the Kindle itself (I love mine) but looking up the answers and then getting back to where I was reading, confused me at first.

2 people found this helpful

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Dave F

Interesting Book With a Misleading Title

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 31, 2012

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I really wish this book didn't have the tantalizing (and very misleading) title. It's basically a book of brain teasers that are very loosely associated with Google or other tech firms. As background: I *did* read the entire book and have also interviewed at many tech firms and startups for Software Engineering positions. Including navigating through many difficult interviews at Google to receive an offer from them and speaking with *many* fellow engineers who have also interviewed at Google. So this review is from the perspective of software engineering, not sales or the many other (important) positions that exist at Google but aren't at the core of its business.

With an interview at Google imminent, I purchased the Kindle edition of the book on a whim to help study. It mostly plays on myths of what the interview questions are like at Google, i.e. "Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques..." Unfortunately if you use this as a study guide for a Software Engineering position, it's going to waste your time. Let me say that again in another way: this book will not help to prepare you for a Software Engineering interview at Google. In fact it might be detrimental because you'll spend valuable time and brain cycles working out the (fun!) brain teasers in this book rather than brushing up on the algorithms and CS fundamentals that are so much more important.

(As an aside: I will say that despite the ban on brain teasers at Google, I *was* asked a brain teaser on one of my last interviews. Out of 8 interviews and well over 20 problems, it was only 1, though. And it isn't in the book.)

Read this book if you want to read fun brain teasers and work through challenging problems. The problem descriptions are good and the explanation of the solutions (including frequently working from the "easy" answer through to the "best" one) is very good for non-technical people to read. For software engineers, particularly reasonably experienced ones, the explanations can definitely border on pedantic and overly obvious. There's also some awkward use of technical terms that make it clear it's not written by an engineer. For non-technical people, however, it's written in an accessible style with good humor that will likely add to the fun. The problems are frequently legitimately tricky no matter who the audience is, but again, they're not the types of things that are asked at Google. It's a good thing to read on the subway to/from work -- problems are bite-sized, so you can knock one or two off during the ride and pick up where you left off.

I saw an exchange of comments between the author of this book and the author of "Cracking the Coding Interview" on a couple of reviews. For what it's worth, the author of "Cracking" is more accurate from my perspective -- and her book is far, far better at preparing for a software engineering interview.

56 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jeffrey Rodger

A Look into the Wild World of Corporate Interviewing

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 14, 2012

Verified Purchase

An interview question at Apple: What happened in 2001? Hint: 9-11 is not the answer they're looking for. They want to hear it's when the iPod was invented, or the date of the first Apple store. At Goldman Sachs, they want to see whether you know the firm's latest stock price. At Nordstrom, it's all about a basic black dress. The book is an often funny survey of the corporate world, and about the many good and bad attempts to identify the smartest employees in the shortest time.

I saw an article in Bloomberg about this book and was curious because I did an interview at Google and did get a question similar to one there. It's not all about Google, it's something like a blend of a New Yorker piece on the trend of challenging questions and a Martin Gardner book.

Bottom line: If you love problemsolving, as I do, this book is a natural. If you're looking for a job and aren't expecting a simple cheatsheet, it's valuable background.

8 people found this helpful

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Alberto

Consigliato

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on April 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

Anche se non si vuole lavorare per google apre la mente.

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Mark

Not long enough, unfortunately

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

I liked this book but I felt it was just a bit short on content

Granted, there are a lot of brainteasers and topics covered but the main section of the book finishes after chapter 10 on page 136 and then it dives into the answers section, which yes, expand on the riddles/questions asked but the writing here is very technical at times and unnecessarily long for certain explanations.

A lot of the time, the questions in the main section of the book are answered in the chapter, at least briefly/conceptually, kind of making the answer section a little redundant at times and I feel it would have been more enjoyable if the technical explanations were a little shorter and kept to the end of each relevant chapter.

All that said, still quite an enjoyable book.

Mady

Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on August 2, 2018

Verified Purchase

El nivel de inglés es más avanzado de lo esperado y bastante denso pero es muy buen libro

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Amazon Customer

Fun thought-problems to do on the train

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on December 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

The title is misleading as most reveiwers mention that it will not get you a job at google. I have never been asked a brain teaser at a job interview (granted i have never interviewed at google).Im not in the tech industry so i wasnt reading it with employment in mind. The puzzle were interesting and fun to do on my daily commute

nur_meine_Meinung

Interesting, Compelling, Smart

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on June 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book is awesome. Not only do you get an insight into the hiring practices and general principles in Human Resources, you are invited to test yourself and your abilities to solve riddles of different form and difficulty.
Generally speaking the book is an easy read and gives you the chance to proove your abilities, creativity and intelligence without the pressure of an interview.
A must read for everyone who is on job search or likes logic, algebra and creative problem solution.

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