interview prep no. 47

Mapping Stories | 5 Ways to Level Up | MAMAA | Claire's Workshop | Positive Signs | Recording of Amazon Practice | Think Big

Touring at Kirkwood

This Week’s Highlights

1. Job Search Mapping Stories

2. Behaviorals 5 Ways to Level Up

3. New Lingo MAMAA

4. Communication Tip Claire’s Workshop

5. Getting Your Foot in the Door Positive Signs

PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

1. Coach's Mock Amazon Practice

2. Insider Info Think Big

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Job Search

Step 10: Map Out Stories

This week, I focused on mapping out my stories for an Amazon onsite as well as mid-tier company. This means taking all the Amazon Leadership principles and figuring out which stories I want to use for which principles. I need to make a final cut soon.

This is NOT easy because:

• I don’t know in which order the questions will come at me.

• I can NOT repeat any stories

• I only have about 3 solid stories I love

• I have another 5 I like

• But I will need to tell between 20 and 30 stories.

Read here to learn more.

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Behaviorals

5 Ways to Level Up

This week, I fell flat on my face mocking with a friend who is at Amazon. I didn’t prepare. Part of me was kicking myself, and the other part of me was glad I got a much-needed wake-up call with more than a week to go to practice.

Where I fell flat was not sounding senior. After getting the feedback, I narrowed the problem to 5 key elements, if you will, that one needs to sound senior.

1. Scope

2. Visibility

3. Business Impact

4. Conflict

5. Scalability

In this article, I dive into each element and examples from my own experience.

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New Lingo

MAMAA replacing FAANG/MAANG

This week, I saw a lot of mentions of MAMAA (Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet). The rise of Microsoft in this GenAI-first environment has increased the use of this term in the press. When it comes to interview prep, the difference between Microsoft and Netflix is negligible. Microsoft has more of a system than Netflix and is less entrepreneurial in its hiring approach, but they are very similar when it comes to interviewing.

You will still hear me use FAANG and MAANG because when it comes to interviewing, the Google way still resonates more than Alphabet. A lot of the Alphabet bets interview slightly differently than Google but still use the Google foundation.

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Communication Tip

Claire’s Weekly Workshop

Now that ski season has come to a close, and I need to get back to focusing on my weaknesses, I have started attending Claire’s vocal confidence workshop. If you need to work on your verbal communication, and we ALL do, I highly recommend you at least try to attend once a month. I am shooting for at least every other week.

Not only do you learn from Claire, but you can learn from others in the room.

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Getting Your Foot In the Door

Positive Signs

It looks like things might be easing up a bit. I had a recruiter come back after 6 weeks. I also had a client who got a shot at a role when they had been turned down in the past after the first choice backed out. That is a signal that some people are getting multiple offers.