Job Interview — Golden Reminders
I have recently coached bunch of people (friends/clients) on how to interview and it became evident to me that we all have a “stereotype” of a job interview in our mind and that stereotype does not serve us.
So allow me to add some missing pieces, contexts and colors to that picture of “interview” in your mind.
Just for fun, let’s start with the dictionary definition of job interview: “a formal meeting in which one or more persons question, consult, or evaluate another person”
“Formal meeting” — is fine, “question” — is fine, “consult” — is fine. Only word in the above definition that looked scary was “evaluate”, which invokes the ghastly image of an exam. Who likes those? I, for sure, still have nightmares of my school exam days.
Recently as I sat in an exam for coaching certification, the advisor reminded me with a beautiful tip: “don’t try to pass the exam, just coach the client”. That really helped me, and needless to say I passed with flying colors!
Here are some other important reminders about the interview process:
#1: Shared goal: The interviewer and you have the same goal. S/he wants you to pass with flying colors and do well, just like you. Sounds suspicious? Allow me to explain. Think about it, finding talent is ****ing hard. To interview a candidate a company spends 1000s of dollars and 100s of hours. That’s just to interview and they have to interview 10s of candidates before they get the right one. So the interviewer is secretly praying “dear lord, let this miserable hunt be over and let this candidate be the One”. They want you to dazzle them, they want you to be awesome and do well so they can offer you the job. So next time you are sitting across the table from interviewer, just remember, s/he wants you to succeed!
#2: They are all ears: Whatever question they just asked, they really really are curious and want to hear what you have to say. Good or bad answer, it does not matter. They are all ears. Think about it, next time you open your mouth to answer in the interview, how would your energy shift, if you remembered the interviewer is so damn curious and all ears. Sure they are busy typing and taking notes, but that’s just logistics. They really want to hear you, my friend. So bring out the big guns of creativity and talk, bring energy, presence and be excited about answering, as they, sure as hell, are interested in listening to you.
#3: They may not know the answers: Let me start by saying that this does not apply to coding and algorithm questions. Since the interviewer probably knows at least one solution. For other PM interviews and soft skills questions, there is no right answer and/or they may not even know the answer.
WTF, right? Ya, they want to hear your “thought process”, your approach to a big ambiguous problem. So keep talking through your approach and ask them if that’s what they wanted or should you focus on a different part of the solution.
#4 They can speak: Engage them in the dialogue. It’s not a fire (a question) and hide game. Every question can be answered in so many ways. While they may not tell you, what skill they are trying to assess, you can ask them, on what part of solution would they want you to focus on. Let’s say they ask “how would you go about this new product”, you can lay out areas of focus like market research, requirements, design, pricing, execution, process etc. Ask them is there a specific part they want you to focus on or just a jack of all areas kind of an answer. Let’s say you finished with your answer, you can ask — “is there any aspect of the problem that I covered or did not cover, that you wanted hear from me more about in next couple of minutes?”.
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