Are You Smart Enough To Work at Google?

Poundstone (How Would You Move Mount Fuji?) gives readers tips on Google's (and others') interviewing strategies. The first half of the book includes word problems and story-based questions typical of the Google-type interview, and the second half explains the answers. While quite difficult to solve on the spot, these questions give readers some idea of what to expect from a nontraditional interview. (One example of a Google interview question: "Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.") Google and other companies are using this method to identify creativity and analytical thinking and to sort candidates in a flooded market. One helpful section is "Salvaging a Doomed Interview," which includes ways to "avoid dead air." While this is a helpful look into a new style of interviewing now performed by large corporations, the book is overly full of tough questions and long answers that would be a challenge for anyone to memorize.