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The Job Hunt Readiness Plan
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job_hunt.md

The Job Hunt Readiness Plan

Keep in mind

  • Clear writing
  • Tell a story
  • Show that with your previous experience, you will be able to execute future tasks. Your past behaviors are the best indicators of your future behaviors.
  • No fluff words
  • No ambiguity

The Tasks

  • : My Personal Brand
    • : Compile reminders and points to succeed
    • : Edit stories work narratives. (Look in Google Docs)
  • : The Resume
    • : Rewrite Resume
    • : Proofread Resume
  • : The Search
    • : Expand LinkedIn Network
    • : Gather Job Listing Sites
    • : Explore Automating the Process
  • : The Interview
    • : Read the interview prep section of Cracking the PM Interview
    • : Watch the Job Interview section in the Udemy PM course

My Personal Brand

Sell yourself as a brand, as a product

  • : Determine what features I want to sell. Ensure you can sell yourself to the skills that you are advertising.
  • : What are your strengths? How can you highlight them in an interview?
  • : What are your weaknesses? How can you get better?

The Interview

Questions

QUESTION 1 (Product Sense): Name a product that you think is exceptionally well-designed – ideally a non-electronic product. Tell me what makes it well-designed. (Testing intellectual ability, communication, and whether they know what customers want.)

GOOD ANSWER:

  • Excitement
  • Preferably a non-digital product
  • Look at the product from the user's perspective
  • Talk about the problem it solves
  • Educated guesses

WEAK ANSWER: Something superficial or cliché. “If they don’t go into a lot of detail and say something fluffy like, ‘My electric toothbrush is so great, it’s won a bunch of design awards,’ that’s a strike against them.”

QUESTION 2 (Technical Skill): In as much detail as possible, tell me what happens when I type yahoo.com into my browser and hit enter. (Testing intellectual ability, communication skills and technical background.)

GOOD ANSWER:

  • Be detailed
  • Be in order

WEAK ANSWER: Their response might be rudimentary or confused. You could get an answer like, “I see the Yahoo homepage, right?”

QUESTION 3 (Leadership): Tell me about a time when you disagreed with engineers and designers on your team. What did you do? (Tests communication, leadership and effectiveness within the company culture)

WEAK ANSWER: There will be allusion to finger-pointing, or mention of blame. The tone of their response will be generally negative, and you might see a dip in self awareness, complemented by a spike in defensiveness. They’ll be more concerned with smoothing over their role in the confrontation than sticking to the facts.

GOOD ANSWER: They’ll demonstrate leadership by diagnosing root causes of the conflict. They’ll show humility. A candidate who ends their response by saying what they learned from the situation and how they applied these lessons going forward should get serious bonus points.

QUESTION 4: What are all the implications of self-driving cars? (Tests strategic and analytical thinking and entrepreneurial spirit.)

Most importantly, the answer should come packaged in some sort of organizational framework. Maybe they’ll say how life will change for drivers, and then the auto industry, and then urban planning. Ideas should be presented within themes, not as a free-association jumble.

QUESTION 6: Why do you want to work at this company or on this product?

The Area of Focus

The following notes are a collection from Cracking the PM Interview, Udemy's PM Course and articles on the matter. Are there terms that I need to remember? Are there past instances that you can attach to any of the bullets? The purpose is to build a strong and honest set of responses for a job interview. I want to show that I can execute the role efficiently and that I have the required knowledge and experience to succeed.

These are the stakeholders that will probably interact with the person on a daily basis, and they’ll illuminate different aspects of their experience and personality. In all of these conversations, the goal should be to see how well the person fits this list of criteria:

  • Intellectual ability
  • Communication
  • Leadership
  • Effectiveness within the company culture
  • Knows what users want
  • Strategic/Analytical Thinking
  • Technical background
  • Entrepreneurial spirit
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