Interviewing Skills - Puzzle Interviewing Part One - Chandramowly

Puzzles reveal logical thinking When a candidate responds to a puzzle, which appears impossible to solve, he looks at the interrelated elements to form a rule leading to a solution. In the process, interviewers observe the thinking path and pattern of a candidate to predict success of matching person with position, writes M R Chandramowly in a two part series. PART I

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uru: “Hello, come in my dear friend. How are you? I am seeing you after a long time.” CEO: Namasthe Guruji. I was travelling; it was a long business trip. This time I had a chance to listen to Bill Gates at a seminar in the US. Guru: “Oh, did you? Good. Do you think the next CEO of Microsoft could be an Indian?” CEO: Probably “Yes”. India is one of the three countries where Microsoft is fully represented. It cov-

ers the business from R&D, customer support, IT to sales and marketing. In fact, one of the purposes of my visit was to know more about puzzle interview process. Guru: Puzzle interview and Microsoft? What is that about? CEO: The popularity of stress and puzzle interviews is generally attributed to Microsoft. With their proposed investment of $2 billion in India, our engineers must gear up now to face the new puzzleladen interviews. Guru: But, what are these puzzle interviews?

CEO: Companies such as Microsoft use puzzle questions to discover smart and creative candidates who can think under stress as well as outside the box. It is is a process of putting candidates through a rigorous series of puzzle questions during an intense, multiround process. Guru: So, the key to selection will be in the right answer, right? CEO: Not exactly. A puzzle may get dissimilar answers from different job applicants. In such cases, how applicants explain the logic that gets them to a final answer can be more impor-

tant, than the answer itself, because the best employees are normally three to 10 steps ahead of others. Interviewers look for mix of people skills, generic skills, communication, problem solving and organisational skills applicable to any job. Candidates need to know how to find answers. Guru: What are these puzzle questions? Is it a shadow of known brainteasers? CEO: Yes Guruji. But, puzzle questions are slightly different. Just look at this one. We have eight balls all of the same size. Seven of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can we find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings? Here is the answer. We put four balls on either of pan and we would know which pan is heavier. Now, we must take the four balls

from heavier pan and split them in-group of two and place in each pan of balance to get the heavier group. And we can physically feel and can distinguish the heavier of the two balls. Guru: Yes. I think these puzzle questions seem to have a long tradition. Have you heard of this one? There are two pretty birds, which are not only colleagues but also close friends and are sitting close to each other on a tree. They are practically intertwined. One of the birds is partaking of the delicious ripe fruits of the tree with great relish. The other bird is maintaining a detached outlook, exhibiting no interest in eating the delicious ripe fruit and is judiciously presiding over the activities around. CEO: Interesting. Haven't heard about this. Looks like you have some philosophical solution to this. Guru: True. Here is the answer. “dvasuparna sayuja sakhaya…,” a popular puzzle of our ancient scriptures. To be precise, it is in Rigveda. It underscores the basic concept of the Vedic Trinity, the ‘matter’ around us, the ‘individual’ and the ‘power’ that holds everything. The supreme power and the individual appear to have their separate existence as two birds, and the third one is the ‘matter’ that is a passive agent of the universe. The tree

represents mundane world or the nature. The vibrant bird enjoying the fruit represents soul that partakes of the myriad products of world. It acts out of its own volition (yoga of action). Supreme power, the other bird presides over the entire creation, as a friend, philosopher and guide. CEO: Guruji, I can see the connection. However, the puzzle interviews what I am talking about are presented in new and distinct ways. They intend to bring out more of practical aspects than philosophical simile. Puzzles are of many variety, some may even appear funny yet logical. Here is one popular puzzle used in such interviews. If a bear walks one mile south, turns left and walks one mile to the east and then turns left again and walks one mile north and arrives at its original position, what is the colour of the bear? It may sound unintelligent but the right answer is White. The logical steps will lead you back to the direction of north pole where they have polar bears.

Million dollar puzzle Here is an interesting real story of a successful entrepreneur who used puzzle interview very effectively. “William Shockley left Bell Labs team that invented transistor to start his own company and he knew transistor was going big in 1957. His goal was to make million dollars. Every one thought he was

crazy. Shockley knew he wasn’t. He was going to make transistors cheaply by fabricating them out of silicon. He planned to start production in the valley south of San Francisco. All he needed was the right people. The day’s interview was with Jim Gibbson, a Stanford Ph.D. Shockley asked these questions holding on his stopwatch. “A tennis tournament with one hundred twentyseven players, Shockley began, in measured tones. You’ve got one hundred twenty-six people paired off in sixty-three matches, plus one unpaired player as a bye. In the next round, there are sixty-four players and thirty-two matches. How many matches, total, does it take to determine a winner? Shockley started the stopwatch. The hand had not gone far when Gibbons replied, one hundred twen-

ty-six. How did you do that? Shockley wanted to know. Have you heard this before? Gibbons explained simply that it takes one match to eliminate one player. One hundred twenty-six players have to be eliminated to leave one winner. Therefore, there have to be 126 matches. Fast-forward after 4 decades, there was a career fair at Stanford and Microsoft was in attendance. Here, Shockelys dream to make $1 million could be a reality for any employee before their 30th birthday. But the puzzle interviewing was there again. A Microsoft’s recruiter was interviewing a graduate!

Part II of this article will feature in the next edition of DH Avenues. The author is currently HRD consultant and Competency Architect. E-mail: [email protected]