If they turned you down only because you hadn't read the book, then thank your lucky stars - you don't want to work with loonies like that.
i too would like to know who this agency (has it been confirmed that we are talking about a prop shop?) is so that it might help others who find themselves on their doorstep. RT
lol afterburner your answers are awesome. if i had a job that fit your skills, and you gave those answers on the spot during an interview, you would be a finalist for sure. i would never ask such dumb questions though.
It's not all bad at MSFT. As somebody who led the interview team for our group, we never asked riddles or ludicrous questions. I was not asked any either when I interviewed (I might have passed on the job if they had). That's not to suggest we didn't ask tough questions. If an candidate could answer all our questions correctly, we took it as a sign we needed to ramp up a bit more. However, we were on the other side of the continent from Redmond, and I did hear things were pretty silly back at Corporate.
At your next interview, answer the interview 101 questions as follows: Q. So where do you see yourself in five years? A. If I had the ability to see myself in five years, that would make me psycic. And if I was psycic, I'd most likely be extremly rich in five years as I would also have the abilty to see lottery numbers a day before they occur. Q. What is you greatest weakness. A. Chocolate. I just can't say no. Q. What is your greatest strength. A. My ability to answer dumb questions in a interesting way. Runningbear
What a joke. They probably needed a librarian. And if you would have read the book they would probably have asked if you can read and write. Just to be sure you won't push the wrong buttons when giving in an order as they did twice in Asia. If the book is so important it should be part of the stuff you learn at the university otherwise the educational system is wrong. If you make great returns i don't care which book you read.
Yes, well .,... I could come up with many, many books that your interviewer has probably not read ....... I realize that you probably need a job but .... you need to think about the IQ of someone that would ask you if you had read a particular book and, if not, make that the basis of their employment decision. If you run into someone like this you should understand that there is a high probablity that they, and their firm are inhabited by a group of people that really are not at the top of the IQ scale and you should consider yourself extremely lucky that you were not hired. Most likely this was a very poor job and probably a scam. Go out and look for smart people to work with ... they do exist and they wont disqualify you based upon a book, the color of your socks, your tie, a silly puzzle question, or any other arbitrary criteria.
My firms contracted with $soft performing software work that either they could not or would not do. Often we trained their software engineers on new technologies. Soo .... I think the fact that they needed to hire us as experts signals the "value" of their interview process. ..... A lot of the people at $soft have a mighty high opinion of themselves which is often misplaced. Oh.... we were never required to take a "puzzle" interview by the way. The true purpose of the puzzle interview has nothing to do with IQ or the candidates ability to be a superior scientist or engineer. My opinion: consider yourself lucky that the interview ended ...