When tech companies interview candidates, they are continually assessing experience vs potential. The challenge for candidates is to demonstrate both of them without overbalancing towards one side or the other.
Let’s dig into defining these three main types of interview questions.
Behavioral
These questions are aimed at assessing your previous experience. They often begin with the phrases: ‘tell me about a time’ or ‘describe a situation when you…’ or ‘give me an example of a time when you...."‘
The goal is to articulate for your interviewer what you have done and how you have done it. Expect clarifying follow-up questions.
The best structure to use for your responses is the STAR Method: Situation, Task, Action, Result.
Situation: Describe the situation you were in.
Task: Tell me about the task or goal you were working to accomplish.
Action: Detail the specific actions/steps YOU took in this scenario.
Result: Tell me about the results you achieved from this scenario.
Sample questions include:
Tell me about a time that you used data to make a decision.
Describe for me a problem that your team faced and how you led the team to overcome that challenge.
Hypothetical
Also called situational questions, these are aimed at assessing how you would respond to a situation that you may not have encountered yet. These questions could begin with ‘imagine that you…’
Generally, I see these questions aim to evaluate how a candidate might respond to a management scenario (while mini-case questions - below - aim at more quantitative solution development). Some would argue these are all under the same umbrella. (To each her own.)
The goal is to demonstrate and verbalize your thought process - and usually, there isn’t one ‘right answer.’ Make sure to show an understanding of the problem and offer a couple potential solutions. You should ask clarifying questions but expect that there may not be additional data for them to offer you (as the interviewer may be mirroring the type of ambiguity you’d face if this challenge came up on the job).
Sample questions include:
Imagine that you are given a project at Amazon and told to get it done in 2 weeks. You realize it will take 5 weeks. What do you do?
Imagine that you are a new product manager at Facebook, and no one agrees with your proposed product improvements. What would you do? What skills would you employ to bring them over to your way of thinking?
Mini-Case
These are a subset of hypothetical questions, but I find they are distinctive in that you are walking an interviewer through your potential solution to a business problem that involves using estimation & analysis skills.
Sample questions include:
With our recent spate of mergers & acquisitions, we have a ‘dangling’ business unit that is not obviously aligned to anywhere and we’re not sure what to do with it. How would you approach figuring out a solution?
Imagine you are a PM for Amazon Kindle, and you recently found out that there is a delay affecting your product release. The release is planned for holiday sales that brings in 60% of the revenue. How will you solve this problem?
Create a framework for determining where Google Cloud Platform should locate its next data center.
