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and those skills lead to job offers. As proven by the thousands of CS devs that "jump through the useless hoops" and end up with jobs.

I agree that a lot of story around interviewing is broken and that many of the questions don't relate to day to day jobs... like creating a binary tree or "how do you move a mountain" (IE: https://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/03167784...) - but they do show that you know CS basics, know how to learn them or have basic problem solving skills.

As much as people bemoan CS interviews... currently? They are a necessary evil to certain segments of the job market. Can you get jobs without them? Sure... just like you can get jobs without degrees - but your resume will get round-filed for a large number of jobs without a degree and you'll not make it past initial filters without knowing "basic" CS trivia like binary trees.

Whether you're okay with a limited job pool or not is on you... I don't have a 4 year... but I have a 2 year with many years of experience and I'm okay with some of the limits until I eventually get a BA. I still make six figures and know I can find a new job if it comes to it - as I've done repeatedly with limits. I've never balanced a binary tree for a job interview but I have "failed" online tests because I wasn't "fast enough" on code tests. I'm still employable and successful.

⬐ stale2002

> but they do show that you know CS basics

Ok. So not soft skills then.

Instead, it is very specific skills. It is not soft skills.

⬐ wernercd

Slight review shows I may be off on my terminology... Interviewing isn't a soft skill per-se but it is still an important one for those who wish to interview as it stands currently.

https://www.wikijob.co.uk/content/interview-advice/competenc...

> Soft skills are the more intangible and non-technical abilities that are sought from candidates. For example:

* Communication * Teamwork * Problem-solving * Leadership * Responsibility

So "interviewing" isn't a soft skill as I've always though it to be but I didn't call CS basics a soft skill - I called interviewing one. I was thinking more "a skill not work related per-se" - ie interviewing - while the expected definition is more... personality and interpersonal skills.

I'd consider interviewing "personality and interpersonal" but I can adjust my terminology.

Interviewing is an important skill for most people and interviewing in the programming realm, unfortunately, relies on CS basics. Generally you don't get one without the other.

Fast mental math is useful enough that folks in different fields keep reinventing variants of it, with different terminology:

- Estimation ('market sizing') is a standard part of management consulting company case interviews [1]. The reason is because clients will be throwing you questions and one part of the job is to look smart and give reasonable answers on the fly, without going to a computer or grabbing a calculator first.

- Physicists call them Fermi problems [2]

- Microsoft (in)famously asked 'How many ping pong balls fit into a 747?' as a brain teaser [3]. This was common enough that someone wrote a book about these brain teasers [4].

- Fast mental math is a standard part of many trader interviews, since you'll be making split-second decisions under pressure [5]

One technique is converting everything into log10 first, e.g. 3 billion is about 3 * 10^9 ~ 10^9.5, then you're just adding / subtracting exponents to multiply / divide. Another way is to always round inputs to 'easy' numbers (2, 3, 5), and calculate them separately from exponents.

A few minutes with a napkin can easily save several hours doing something that can't possibly be worthwhile [6]

[1] https://mconsultingprep.com/market-sizing-example/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem

[3] https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/microsoft-changes-job-inter...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/03167784...

[5] https://www.quora.com/Why-do-hedge-prop-quant-funds-ask-ment...

[6] https://xkcd.com/1205/

I quite like William Poundstone's books. In this case these two are relevant: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/031677... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prisoners-Dilemma-Neumann-Theory-Pu...

Edit: These are not puzzle books specifically, but books about puzzles.

It started a long time ago. See the 2004 book

"How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle -- How the World's Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers" https://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/03167784...

which discusses the use of these types of puzzles and the expectation that they are good interview questions.

⬐ hocuspocus

It's not new indeed, and there's been a shift from Microsoft's "How much would you charge to clean every window in Seattle?" type to Google's "Reverse a binary tree" kind of questions. I could be wrong but I believe the former wasn't as ubiquitous as whiteboard algorithmic questions have become.

Terman and IQ are also mentioned in "How Would You Move Mount Fuji" (http://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/031677849...). I recommend it to anyone interested in brainteasers and how Microsoft and a lot of other companies use them during the interviewing process...

Now back to the article: it was an enjoyable read, but I believe the title is somewhat misleading. High IQ does not make you less creative. However high IQ does not imply creativity. The converse is also not true. I am a bit tired of IQ being used as some kind of objective measure of capabilities, let alone success. Is there any other test that would be more representative of one's mental abilities?

Google is like Microsoft 20 years ago. Everybody should read "How Would You Move Mount Fuji" -- a detailed book on the topic of IQ, puzzles, and job interviews.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/031677849...

Microsoft has, of late, moved away from these sorts of questions because they don't really translate into job performance, from what I understand. ;)