Caltrain Notes 2: Preparing for a job interview with a tech company
As promised in my first blog post, I am sharing my strategy for preparing for an interview with a tech company. Note, this advice is based on my experience recruiting for Product Management and Product Marketing roles. Hence, depending on your role and company you should supplement your preparation with job function and product specific information.
There is no need to tell you that interviews are hard. Interviewing for a job that you have never done before is even harder. You have to demonstrate your ability to do the job, often without even knowing what the job entails. I broke down my advice into two sections — the first talks about interviewing for pretty much any job, the second is more specific to interviewing at a tech firm.
Use this tabs to navigate to sections easily: Show enthusiasm for the job. Practice interviewing. Company. Job function. Product.
- Show enthusiasm for the job and the role you are interviewing for! As someone who has conducted interviews myself, I can tell you that candidates who show lack of interest cause me to think I have wasted my time. If you are not interested in the job, why are we even talking?! What is a healthy amount of interest? State clearly why are you interested in the role and how it is aligned with your career plans. When answering the question why this job is for you, include in your answer what can you do for the employer, not just what you are hoping to learn and gain. Imagine for example that you are interviewing for an internship in an economic development agency that focuses on education in a Spanish speaking country. While your long-term goal is becoming a diplomat, your knowledge of Spanish language and beliefs that education is the force for uniting people make you a great candidate for the role.
- Practice giving interview in person, over the phone, on your computer. Everyone gets extremely nervous especially during interviews that they consider important. This nervousness manifests itself differently in different people. As a non-native English speaker I always thought that my accent in English language was extremely mild. Most people would have a very hard time guessing that my native language is Russian, listening to me speak. Until this one day. In my sophomore year in college I had to give my first phone interview to one of the banking companies. I picked up the phone started talking and immediately realized that I was searching for words in English and was pronouncing English words with a heavy Russian accent. Where did it come from? I was surprised and frustrated when this happened, but could not do anything with myself. I completely botched that interview. Luckily, I was advised to practice giving interviews by Williams Career Center. I made my friends call and interview me. I also filmed myself answering questions, and made sure I signed up for a practice interview at the Career Center. While we are at it — here is a pro tip. What makes phone interviews especially challenging is the fact that you do not have a presence in the room, so you cannot look confident or receive non-verbal cues from your interviewer, which further hurts your confidence. Try this trick — stand in front of the mirror when interviewing over the phone. As a psychology major I once read a paper that concluded that putting a mirror in front of people made them feel more confident, people also were seen straightening their shoulders and backs when looking at themselves in the mirror. Even if your interviewer cannot see you, having a confident posture allows more air flow to your lugs, puts a smile on your face and will make you sound more confident.
Now, let’s look at preparing for a tech interview
- Company. When interviewing you are likely to get this question very often. Why Microsoft? Why Amazon? Why Adobe? Many companies in tech or in other fields sound very similar from their marketing materials and during the information sessions that you as an applicant go to. “We have a collaborative, down to earth culture…” “Our teams are involved in building the future” It is really hard to come up with a narrative and specific reasons why one company is a better fit for you. One thing you should do when preparing for the interview is to watch videos of CEO speeches, that discuss the mission of their organization and vision forward. While the info sessions all seem similar, CEOs and company spokesman often state and restate company’s mission that varies company to company. Watch this video from Microsoft for example.
Now watch this opening speech at Adobe Summit by the CEO of Adobe, Shantanu Narayen. Notice how different the mission of Adobe is, compared to Microsoft. Also notice the approach Adobe takes to accomplish this mission “change the world through the power of creativity,” “empowering each person through creativity,” etc. Which approach resonates better with you? Why might you care more about changing the world through creativity?
In addition to watching the keynote speeches of the CEOs of the company, I recommend subscribing (via Google alerts, Hustle, or other systems) to the technology news and articles to keep up with company news and announcements. Being up to date with company news will help you decide whether or not you are onboard with the strategic direction the company is choosing to take, as well as will demonstrate your interest.
2. Job function. Read a few job descriptions that describe responsibilities of say a product manager at various companies. What do they all have in common? Imagine yourself doing this job every day. Does it sound like something you would like? If the job description sounds intimidating or too demanding (Engineering degree is required, 7+ years or experience, etc.) do not be intimidated. Most of the companies in technology sector are willing to risk accepting an employee without the exact same previous experience, especially if you can prove that you work hard and can think in ways required by your responsibilities. But how can you demonstrate that? Here is one tactic to learn about the job function — email, call and meet with people who are doing that job. In my MBA internship hunting, I called numerous Williams and MIT alumni who work as Product Marketing Managers (PMM) and Product Managers (PM) in technology companies I was recruiting at. When I called them I tried to understand what their day-to-day responsibilities entailed as well as what were the tough parts of their job. One of my friends who works as a PMM at a large tech firm broke down her responsibilities at that company into Outbound and Inbound PMM. She told me “outbound is pretty much everything we do to communicate the value of new feature to the customer,” “inbound is the work we do to communicate product requirements to product managers and technical teams.” I proceeded to asking her about how she conducts user research to collect new product requirements. It turned out many of the techniques she uses in her user research I was very familiar with from my job at Analysis Group (surveys, data analysis, user groups, interviews).
Learn as much as you can about the job responsibilities by asking how are their department /group or even company organized and why it is important to do each of the tasks types they mention. Each time take notes, write down the words you do not understand and learn. You should also ask for books or other resource recommendations to learn more about the job.
For my interviews I found the following books extremely helpful: (Cracking PM Interview, Product Management in Practice, Building Products for the Enterprise).
3. Product or business area. Be prepared to answer questions about the product or a business area. Often times during interviews interviewers pick their own industry or product to ask questions, other times they will give you a choice to pick an industry and interview you accordingly. In one of my interviews I was asked about launching a hardware device to a new industry. In another interview I was given a choice to pick a market or a product of my choice to have the discussion. In any regards, you should develop some sort of a framework to discuss, analyze and propose solutions about a product or market. I took most of my interviews at technology companies while doing my MBA, so the framework I used was very much influenced by what I studied in my MBA classes.
Specifically, 4 Ps of marketing management: 4Ps — Product, Price, Place and Promotion. And 5Cs of Strategy — Company, Customers, Collaborators, Competitors, Context.
To prepare for my interviews I picked the product category I was familiar with — laptops and analyzed my recently purchased laptop across those verticals. What other brands of laptops did I consider when purchasing my Dell 13 inch display, touch screen? What was my price point? Why did I choose the brand? Where did I make the purchase? Given laptops is a hardware product, I also had conducted this analysis for a few software products — e.g, my mobile banking app, image editing software email and etc. As I was doing my research on each of these points I also thought about strengths and weaknesses of the product/business and at least one way to improve current status.
Lastly, always remember that technology is a means to achieving some goal and bringing value to the customer. Each product or business at the end of the day is supposed to serve a pain of an individual, company, village or world. Putting your customer first is the key to developing a good business or product, it is also the key to being good at your tech job.
