Serious ammunition to pack for your next job interview.
Poundstone (Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value, 2010, etc.) surveys today’s tough job-interview questions.
“We live in an age of desperation,” writes the author. “Never in living memory has the competition for job openings been more intense. Never have job interviews been tougher. This is the bitter fruit of the jobless recovery and the changing nature of work.” Job interviews have become not only personally invasive, but also intellectually diabolical. Behavioral questions and work samples are now supplemented by logic puzzles, and this isn’t just at Google and Microsoft, but at the local shoe store as personnel departments have caught the general drift that there are more bodies than jobs and talent goes begging. Despite the air of gloom, Poundstone keeps a jaunty tone as he gives advice on how to field the offbeat, odd-angle questions tossed by interviewers, often open-ended and with no definitive correct answer—in order to test mental flexibility, entrepreneurial potential and innovativeness. Google’s hiring process is the author’s standard, which sets the bar pretty high, but its practice is contagious: “Weird interview questions are a meme, like a joke or viral video. It’s catchiness, rather than proof of their effectiveness, that keeps them in circulation.” Hiring is still a game of chance, yet for the “zombie hordes of unemployed and underemployed [who] are willing to claw at anything that even looks like a job,” Poundstone offers dozens of teasers to tackle (answers included). These include insight questions and lateral-thinking puzzles, how to spot an algorithm question and how to dig below the cryptic surface. In perhaps the most inspired paragraphs, he explains the art of salvaging the southbound interview, but he notes that much of this is improvisation.
Serious ammunition to pack for your next job interview.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-09997-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
PROFILES
A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.
An exploration of the importance of clarity through calmness in an increasingly fast-paced world.
Austin-based speaker and strategist Holiday (Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, 2018, etc.) believes in downshifting one’s life and activities in order to fully grasp the wonder of stillness. He bolsters this theory with a wide array of perspectives—some based on ancient wisdom (one of the author’s specialties), others more modern—all with the intent to direct readers toward the essential importance of stillness and its “attainable path to enlightenment and excellence, greatness and happiness, performance as well as presence.” Readers will be encouraged by Holiday’s insistence that his methods are within anyone’s grasp. He acknowledges that this rare and coveted calm is already inside each of us, but it’s been worn down by the hustle of busy lives and distractions. Recognizing that this goal requires immense personal discipline, the author draws on the representational histories of John F. Kennedy, Buddha, Tiger Woods, Fred Rogers, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other creative thinkers and scholarly, scientific texts. These examples demonstrate how others have evolved past the noise of modern life and into the solitude of productive thought and cleansing tranquility. Holiday splits his accessible, empowering, and sporadically meandering narrative into a three-part “timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the human body.” He juxtaposes Stoic philosopher Seneca’s internal reflection and wisdom against Donald Trump’s egocentric existence, with much of his time spent “in his bathrobe, ranting about the news.” Holiday stresses that while contemporary life is filled with a dizzying variety of “competing priorities and beliefs,” the frenzy can be quelled and serenity maintained through a deliberative calming of the mind and body. The author shows how “stillness is what aims the arrow,” fostering focus, internal harmony, and the kind of holistic self-examination necessary for optimal contentment and mind-body centeredness. Throughout the narrative, he promotes that concept mindfully and convincingly.
A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53858-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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