Pre-Application Recruiting Tests; Part I

Check out this now-famous billboard that was on Highway 101 in the heart of Silicon Valley:

     {First 10-digit prime found
       in consecutive digits of e} .com

No company name, no logo, no stated purpose. Nothing but this mathematical puzzle in big bold type.

What curious, high-IQ math geek could resist this challenge? There was even a rear-end collision or two by this sign. Coincidence? You decide. (Maybe there is a small market for bumper stickers that say "Warning: I brake for number theory".)

If you figured out this equation-driven URL, it would lead you to yet another URL that had an even harder problem, still without any company identification or stated purpose.

Getting past this second challenge landed those with obviously big brains at a special web page at Google Labs, the company's research and development arm.
       "What we're looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.
        As you can imagine, we get many, many resumes every day, so we developed
        this little process to increase the signal-to-noise ratio." 

Naturally, it went on to talk about the benefits of considering a career at Google and how to submit your resume at a special puzzle-solvers email address.

Like this concept but don't have Google's budget? Here is a small company story that pre-dates this billboard by over a decade.

Mike Scanlin, now a Venture Partner at Sierra Ventures, was a senior engineering manager at now-defunct T/Maker Company in the early '90s. He was looking for a few really smart engineers to optimize 68000 assembly language code for their WriteNow word processor running on early memory-starved Macintosh computers.

Mike's solution? He ran a small 1.5 x 3" (ain't no billboard!) display ad in the hard-core programming magazine MacTech that listed twelve lines of assembly language code with this challenge: "Remove at least 12 bytes and 38 cycles from this code and send your solution and resume to T/Maker."

The results? Out of 200 submissions only about 10% did it the most efficient way, but from that smaller pool of highly-qualified candidates with the right stuff, Scanlin filled the open engineering slots. One guy submitted two different correct answers -- and was, of course, hired! An East Coast math PhD was so excited to work with other efficient programmers that he changed careers and moved across the country to work at T/Maker.

Mike even got replies from several engineers with notes saying, "I am not looking to change jobs now, but I just wanted to know if I got the right answer!"

The total cost of his pre-application test? Just $200. And no rear-end collisions.

The big message: Get creative in your hiring process! It's easier to find what you're looking for if it comes looking for you.

     P.S.  The Google answer is 7427466391.com.  The URL is no longer active. This classic billboard was up in July of 2004 for a very limited period of time, but that was long enough to be featured in several local newspaper articles and on Bay Area TV news.