132,566
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchAre You Smart Enough To Work At Google? by William Poundstone (view source)
Revision as of 16:51, 3 August 2020
, 16:51, 3 August 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Are You Smart Enough To Work At Google?
|author=William Poundstone
|reviewer=Zoe PageMorris
|genre=Business and Finance
|rating=5
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1851689170
|pages=290
|publisher=Oneworld Publications
|date=April 2012
}}
I find recruitment fascinating. I started my career on a top 10 graduate scheme whose recruitment process included a 24 hour simulation of life in the role, and now some years later I'm on the other side of the table, taking part in the recruitment of the next generation. Prior to that I worked everywhere from multinational software companies to British high street department stores and over the years I've heard everything from the boring (''What are your strengths and weaknesses?'') to the predictable (''Tell me about a time you worked as part of a team and encountered conflict'') to the quite frankly brilliant, in my mind (''How many piano tuners are there in Barcelona?'') Once I had to come up with a variety of uses for a cocktail shaker after first gaining points for being able to identify the item correctly, despite being a tee-total teen at the time. If interviews are a time to shine, I prefer the latter two tasks to the first two because they let you show what you can do, and how you would approach a task, rather than just making you prattle off a prepared response.
Google get about 130 applicants for every job according to the book, which compares to 14 applicants for every place at Harvard. That doesn't actually sound massively high to me (my year, the odds for my grad scheme worked out as 78 to 1, and Google we ain't) but it's still a lot, and no doubt growing year on year. The issue isn't so much about the on-paper caliber calibre of the applicants, many of whom have top degrees from top universities. Instead, Google and other companies like them (Apple, Microsoft, even Amazon and Bank of America) are looking for people who can deal with the unexpected, think both logically and outside the box, depending on what the situation requires, and who can ask the pertinent questions needed to clarify the ambiguous. That's why they ask questions like these.
''Can you swim faster in water or syrup?''
An internet geek (or just want to be one)? Why not have a peek at our views on [[The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser]], [[The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich]] or best of all our [[Top Ten Books For Slightly Geeky People]]
{{amazontext|amazon=1851689176}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=88500781851689176}}
{{commenthead}}
