When recruiters ask good questions: Skyscanner
As a recent graduate I’m doing what many other graduates are doing. Applying for jobs in hope of continuing with life. With supply much higher than demand interview technique needs to perfected.
One of the problems that I often encounter is my reply to the competency based questions that I am often asked. I’m simply not great at answering them.
This is likely due to a lack of interview practice. But I’m looking for immediate results and that will have to involve skipping the practice part. These are dream roles I’m applying for and I’ve got to do my best to guide the interview before it even starts. One way of guiding the interview is making sure to be to be asked questions that I can answer well. To do this I’ve got to think outside the box and ‘hack’ the system.
There seem to be multiple ways of doing this. The most obvious is CV design. Making particular sentences more prominent than others can guide the eye of the reader when they glance over the CV. But if the CV is not even read beforehand this attempt is made redundant. Another way, which I am now unapologetically attempting, is acknowledging good questions. By giving feedback on the system, the system can then change to be more successful and improve the candidate experience, or that’s what I’m hoping.
But this case is slightly different. Sometimes you can be asked these good questions that I aim to be asked before an interview is even arranged. This makes both the company and their respective recruiter stand out from the rest and be valued by the applicant.
A good example is my Skyscanner application. I’m currently applying for the Associate Product Manager role and I’ve been asked 4 good questions which I’ve found easy to answer:
Tell us about your favourite digital product and why.
What is the one thing you would like to improve about our product?
What was your favourite project at university and how would you apply your learnings to our APM role at Skyscanner?
What challenges do you think online travel brands will face in 5 years’ time?
Why are these questions good? It may be a problem related to my inexperience, I’ve only been asked questions appropriate for grad schemes in the past, but I’ll ignore that and analyse them nonetheless.
- Tell us about your favourite digital product and why.
This question asks me about myself and positive interactions I’ve previously had with digital products. It’s been said hundreds of times, people like talking about themselves and I am no exception. Talking about a product that I have enjoyed using allows me to think about a positive past and reminisce. Once the particular product is chosen (the hard part) the question is easy and enjoyable to answer in which I talk about positive experiences I have had.
2. What is the one thing you would like to improve about our product?
The question is about both myself and Skyscanner and allowing me to think about a hypothetical future where we work together (with the aim of removing the hypothetical part). This hypothetical future is one where I would be working in the role that I want and making changes to perfect a product without the real world limitations that I would experience when attempting to achieve my goals. Although this is a virtually unobtainable dream (that a good PM could achieve), everyone enjoys dreaming and so this question is once again enjoyable to answer.
3. What was your favourite project at university and how would you apply your learnings to our APM role at Skyscanner?
I once again return to the past and I am reminded of the positive interactions I had when at university. Having once again reminisced, this time to a previous project that I’ve enjoyed, I take what I have learnt to that hypothetical future where I’m working in the role. So I would apply these positive interactions to the hypothetical future to ideally create a positive hypothetical future. Once again, questions about positive futures involving myself are enjoyable to answer.
4. What challenges do you think online travel brands will face in 5 years’ time?
This final question allows me to think of the bigger picture, identify a problem and theoretically solve it (the physicist part of me adores this!). To think of grand situations is an exciting part of business and is one of the main reasons I swapped from academia. To then attempt to solve this huge problem that is sitting on the horizon with only words is nice and a lot easier than doing in actuality.
So, I’ve enjoyed answering these questions because they’ve made me think of past, positive interactions and ideal hypothetical situations in the future with a focus on tech. Because of this these questions have had the effect that even if my application is unsuccessful I will continue to hold Skyscanner in high regard.
Unfortunately I’m asked to supply these answers in a cover letter which means I have to reduce their scope to save valuable space. Also, adding pictures to a cover letter in the main body of text is an innovation which I will not lead. So I’ll publish the long form answers here soon…
