Presentation Interview Preparation

Interview Tip

 
Last week we had a Founder (Mike Molinet, Thena) and a VP of CS (Apoorva Thuse, Arena) reveal their secrets on the presentation stage of the interview process. You can watch the full recording here AND you can see Apoorva's Interview Presentation Guide here. A couple highlights from the webinar are listed below, a constant theme = how you go about the interview process is a reflection of what it will be like working with you full time. Let's dive in.

The #1 mistake candidates make in the presentation stage of the interview process

Mike
-> Not asking enough questions
-> One of the things I'm testing when I give a prompt or a vague prompt, how do they go about that?
-> Do they ask clarifying questions? Do they do research about the company and ask me questions?
-> Do they approach me before the presentation and say here's what I'm thinking, here's my approach, here's the draft, what do you think and get feedback?
-> That show's me this person is curious, cares and is putting in the time vs. someone who get's the prompt and I don't here from them until the presentation a week later
-> I want somebody that if they're not sure, or if there's ambiguity, they actually get clarity before moving forward
-> In our job, that's a constant, you're always going to have ambiguous situations and you don't want someone that assumes they know the answer and moves forward
-> I want someone that says, actually, this can be interpreted multiple ways, let me get more information to ensure I'm going down the right path before I put in a week of work

Apoorva
-> If you're not comfortable asking for help, then you're probably not a good team fit
-> In the culture I foster and build, you should always be comfortable asking for help and asking questions
-> If we haven't presented ourselves as an approachable team then I feel like that's not a good fit
-> As a VP, I still ask clarifying questions
-> An example would be with customer calls that I join, it's super important and the quality of questions matter as well
-> Your interview really starts the minute that prompt hit's your inbox
-> How you communicate with the Recruiter, what kind of questions you ask, your email format, are you able to ask clear questions

What's something that's made an interview presentation memorable

Apoorva
-> Breaking the ice, are you able to get comfortable quickly or are you going to rush through the presentation
-> Did you do your research and are you curious
-> For example, when people look at my LinkedIn profile, talk about a post of mine and share how it resonates with them
-> Use visuals, people are either reading your text or listening to you so less text more visuals will help people follow along
-> Doing a bad job of this is the fastest way to get people to disconnect and zone out
-> Metrics, if you're presenting anything use %/numbers because people care about impact

Mike
-> Content far, far exceeds design
-> I've had people with probably the worst design slides but the content was phenomenal
-> I came out of those conversation blown away
-> You can tweak the designs, you can polish that stuff later, but the content was phenomenal - that stood out to me
-> I've had the opposite and so irrespective how gorgeous the slides were, it was a no
-> This told me that this person didn't know how to properly prioritize their effort and where they should've put in the time
-> 90% towards content / 10% towards design
-> This doesn't mean you can be sloppy, have significant typos or just a white slide with black text