双语：美出版面试攻略书助你找到心仪工作

2012-09-29 00:00:00来源：中国日报英语点津

　　" Are you Smart Enough To Work At Google?"

　　An American science writer is set to release a book, in which he enlists all sorts of tricky questions, riddles and several deviousinterviewing techniques that would enable one to land a job at Google, as well as possibly anywhere in the United States.
　　美国一位科技作家将出版一本新书，他在其中列举了各种稀奇古怪的面试问题、谜语、以及多种偏离常规的面试技巧，帮助应聘者在谷歌公司、以及美国的任何一家公司找到工作。

　　William Poundstone, author of the new book, " Are you Smart Enough To Work At Google?" says that interviewers while recruiting today ask more bizarre and vague questions such as 'Can you swim faster in water or in syrup?' or 'How would you weigh your head?' than normal questions pertaining to the job.
　　这本新书《想进谷歌工作，你够聪明吗？》的作者名为威廉庞德斯通。他表示，如今面试官的提问更加稀奇古怪，也更加模糊，比如“你在水中还是糖浆中游得更快？”或者“你怎样称自己头部的重量？”，而不是问和工作有关的问题。

　　The reason Poundstone says he's offering this guide is because firstly "there are more people than there are jobs and a potential employer can set the bar to entry high and still be assured of a waiting room full of desperate souls". Second, "HR departments are running scared, asking themselves 'How can we make sure our questions have predictive power for how well someone will do on the job?'" he says.
　　庞德斯通说，自己编写这本指南是因为，首先“现在就业机会与劳动力市场处于‘僧多粥少’的局面，面试官可以在招聘时提高门槛，这样也能保证有足够的应聘者入围。”另外，“人力部门非常谨慎，问自己：如何才能保证我们的面试问题能预测到应聘者可以把工作做到多好？”

　　Many of Google's questions, says Poundstone, are intentionally open-ended. Example: 'How would you devise an evacuation plan for San Francisco?' In most instances, there is no single correct answer. The interviewer's goal is to see how the thinking process of the applicant works, and to gauge his or her creativity in problem-solving, the report said.
　　据报道，庞德斯通称谷歌公司的面试问题很多都故意设为开放式的，比如：“你如何为旧金山设计一个疏散计划？”大多数问题都没有唯一的正确答案。面试官的目的是考察应聘者的思维过程，并且评估其解决问题的创造力。

　　The book's most useful features include A Field Guide to Devious Interview Questions, which divides questions into categories (e.g., classic logic puzzles, lateral thinkingpuzzles, insight questions, tests of divergent thinking, etc.), then offers strategies and tips for answering each type, it added.
　　报道还提到，这本书最有用章节包括《五花八门面试问题实战指南》，作者将这些问题分类，并给出应答每类问题的策略和小技巧。问题分类包括经典逻辑难题、横向思维难题、深度问题、和发散思维测试等等。

　　Interviewers at Google invest effort in coming up with ever-newer and more-devious questions. It's, therefore, more valuable for the applicant to understand the strategy for answering a given type of question than to have a canned answer ready, Poundstone concluded.
　　庞德斯通总结说，谷歌公司的面试官尽力想出更新奇、更古怪的问题。因此，与准备好的固定答案相比，应聘者理解解题策略更有价值。

　　Vocabulary:

　　devious: 狡猾的

　　run scared: 小心谨慎、战战兢兢

　　lateral thinking: 横向思维

　　divergent thinking: 发散思维

本文关键字: 面试官