Interviewing - Prep
We'll get to the actual interview soon, I swear!
OK so if you read the last article (all two of you…), we talked about making that initial impression and getting past the HR/screening process.
If you’ve been notified of “next steps”, then it’s time to do some research before the actual interview.
Research - The Company
If you’ve reached out/applied to the company you’ll be interviewing with, then you surely have some reasons about why you want to work there. Perhaps you’ve heard of the great culture (from insiders you know), studied their solutions while working elsewhere, or maybe their HQ is a shorter commute than your current role (it happens!). Either way, it’s time to dig in and have some reasons about why you want to work there and in that specific role you’re applying for.
If you have an insider that’s been sharing info about how great the company is, that’s fine, but you’ll still want to do some research. Using LinkedIn, Google, or other professional sites, you might find out what companies they’ve recently acquired and how that would be relevant to your role. Or you might see that they recently moved up and to the right in one of Gartner’s Magic Quadrants. What about their ESG goals?Any recent layoffs? Chances are, you’ll get an opportunity to share why you want to work for this new company during the interview process.
Research - The Role
Yes, they did select your resume and move you past the initial screening, but you’ll want to do some research around the specific role using the job description that was provided (either when you applied or from the recruiter). Besides making sure you check most boxes (remember, you don’t have to check them all!) is enough.
It should be easy enough to give examples about the areas you’re strong in, but you can also identify weaker areas on the job description and identify those as areas you are willing to learn and grow into. Better yet, maybe you can mention you’ve already started studying XYZ in your home lab. That can show initiative and bias for action.
If the role is new to you, you might need to do some research into what a typical “day in the life” of a Technical Product Manager might be like, for example. That way, you can have a discussion during the interview and ask if your impression aligns with how the company sees the role. If you’ve done the role at a previous company, you can talk about how it went in the past and open the door for a compare/contrast discussion. Either way, the interviewers will want to see that you’ve got the experience and put in the time to learn more about the specific role you’ll hopefully be hired into.
Research - The People
Without getting to stalker-y, you’re going to want to do some research on the people that you will be interviewing with. Often, the recruiter will give you a heads up about who you’re interviewing with, but if not, you will probably see their names on a meeting invite.
If you don’t want to be seen “LinkedIn-stalking” them, you can always fire up an Incognito/Private browsing window and see what Google turns up. Often, LinkedIn will allow you to see the first part or most of the profile page before signing in and that should be enough. You will want to look at things like:
How long have they worked there?
Where did they work before?
What roles did they have before?
What connections do they have that you might know?
Using this information, you can ask questions about how career development and mobility work (Is it fostered? Do they expect you to stay in the role a minimum of two years?) without sounding like you’re looking to jump around immediately! Perhaps you have a shared background as front-end developers, engineering managers, or network engineers. If you have a shared colleague (especially in the professional sense), you can talk about how your previous interactions helped display the positive culture at this prospective company.
Avoid getting too personal, though. I know it can be tempting to talk about going to the same university or seeing that you live/lived in the same town, but that can introduce a “affinity bias” that most hiring managers are trained to avoid. Having said that, a short innocent minute of small talk never hurts, especially if it’s initiated by the interviewer.
Preparing your answers
One of the last steps before the actual interview is to prepare your answers into a useful format so your responses will sound more coherent and complete. Many people have adopted the STAR method or similar variant.
In short, you need to focus on:
Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example.
Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.
Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.
Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.
This method helps make sure you cover the specific things that you did in the context/environment and what the results were. As we discussed on your resumé, we need quantitative data as much as possible!
Your interviewers may not ask you to answer in this format, but you can bet they’re taking notes and trying to see if you’re answering the specific bullets listed above so they can better understand your experience.
As they try to gather data, they will ask you “behavioral questions” to ascertain how you acted in certain scenarios but they’re definitely looking to get as much quantifiable data as possible to measure your impact.
Here’s an example response to the question, “Tell us about a time you had to deal with a conflict at an important customer.”
Last year, our largest customer, ABC Corp., hired a new Enterprise Architect (EA) that wanted to fundamentally change many of the major technology choices that my company helped implement. The new EA wanted to replace Cisco networking with Juniper, Cisco Collaboration with Avaya/Polycom/Zoom, and Cisco Security with Palo Alto. As you can imagine, our Account Manager was frantic, so he called me in to meet with the executive team.I hurried over as quickly as possible, and I made my mission simple: Reduce/alleviate any chaos or arguing, give the new EA time to justify his decisions, then talk about the operational support cost of multiple vendors.After giving everyone a chance to speak, I set the stage by having everyone agree that both solutions (our Cisco one and a “best of breed”) had feature-parity for 99% of the corporate population. After getting their agreement, I talked about how difficult operation support would be for this multi-vendor solution. I talked about the inevitable finger pointing that would happen and lastly, I reiterated the fact that their very lean network team had only recently gotten trained and comfortable with the all-Cisco environment. After everyone had a chance to digest what was said, the CTO adjourned the meeting and went back to his office. The next day, we received word that the Cisco environment was safe due to the previously mentioned operational support concerns and I’m happy to say they’re still a very happy customer and grew their investment in us and Cisco by more than 10%, putting them at an annual spend of $12 million.As you can see in this response, we covered each bullet of STAR and avoided any ambiguity. If you leave out details, the interviewer can ask clarifying questions, but you should have the data ready for them in advance!
Think of a few scenarios and list out your STAR response on a Post-it note (or similar) and review them a few times each. Don’t just try to memorize these! Use the bullet points to trigger your memory (remember, you actually did this stuff!) and try to tell an engaging story. People remember stories much better than just bullet points.
Some scenarios you can prepare responses for:
Tell us about a time you disagreed with your manager or leader.
Tell us about a time you took on a project that wasn’t in your job description.
Can you tell us about a situation where you had to discipline or terminate someone?
Practice with a friend or colleague if you’d like. If they aren’t in the same field, they can help identify if your responses are clear enough. Perhaps you need to help set the stage during the Scenario better or maybe you left out the hard data from the Response.
What do I ask them?
At the end of your interview, you’ll typically have room for questions. You should have prepared questions in advance to ask your interviewers. They could be questions about the role, about the company, about the culture, or even about your predecessor. Perhaps there were some things that they loved about him/her, but now they want to pivot and take this role in a new direction.
Questions you may want to ask your interviewers:
My understanding of the role is that it’s <fill in the blank>. Does that sound correct? This will allow them to see you’ve put some thought into and they can correct your perception, if needed.
It looks like we’ll be working together often. How often would you like to meet to keep up with our metrics? This again shows you’ve put some thought into it and allows them to tell you how they feel about what your interactions might be like.
I feel comfortable with most of the job description, but will I have time to learn ABC during onboarding or should I get started now? Typically hiring managers are looking for potential. If you show you have most of the required skills and are a quick/eager learner, they’ll typically allow you to learn anything proprietary as you onboard.
I am thinking my 30/60/90 day plan looks like this… Does that sound reasonable? Again, this shows you’ve put some thought into it. Allow them to digest that and clarify.
How will my success be measured? Ask this if this wasn’t clearly defined.
Inheriting a team can be a challenge, do you have any particular insights into the team including morale and culture? Obviously only ask if you’ve got the appropriate audience that has worked with that specific team.
I see you also worked at QRS Corp. How is XYZ Corp. different? This may allow them to share some information with you that you’d be familiar with if you’ve both worked at the same company.
tons more - Google them so you’re prepared!
Almost there!
From applying to screening to preparing, you’ve already done a ton of work, but the hardest part is yet to come: The Actual Interview!
I know it may be hard, but if you’re well-prepared, acknowledge that! If you’ve done everything you can to prepare, then it’s time to relax and get a good night of sleep before the day of the interview.
Next article will definitely cover the actual interview!
Thanks for reading!
Sources:
HBR - Apply to a Job, Even If You Don’t Meet All Criteria