interview prep no. 49

Written Assignment | Google Delights | Company-First Strategy Approach | Human Metronome | My Essay | Delivers Results

While you were jumping in pools, I was coaching and climbing a mountain on skis…

This Week’s Highlights

1. Job Search Written Assignment

2. Product Sense Google Delights

3. Strategy Company-First Approach

4. Communication Tip Human Metronome

5. Getting Your Foot in the Door Self-Discovery

PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

1. Coach's Mock My Written Assignment

2. Insider Info Delivers Results

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Job Search

Amazon Written Assignment

In this week’s post, I share how I approached my written assignment for Amazon. Paying readers get access to my essay.

I walk you through how I evaluated the prompt options and then selected what I would write about.

Learn more here.

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Design

Google Delights

I was using Google Meets for the first time in months, and I was pleasantly surprised. I evaluated my customer delight and speculated on why it took so long.

TL;DR - Google Meets made the need for a boom mic less crucial and reduces my horrible fumbling to mute exercise I go through 5x times per day, on average.

Read the full story here.

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Strategy

Company-First

This week, I helped a client who was on the cusp of the right answer nail product strategy prompts. It resulted in the writing of two articles you might find helpful:

• Strategy vs. Design Frameworks

• Strategy Drills

Most people try to shoehorn (to force inclusion or admission) product strategy case questions into product strategy frameworks. Don’t make the same mistake. Strategy questions typically start with the company and then go to the user. Don’t forget the user, but don’t forget that strategy prompts typically ask if X company should do Y, not should Y be done.

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Communication Tip

Human Metronome

Once again, Claire surprised me. She shared a simple but still life-changing tip to help me slow down. My speaking beats per minute are 200+ when I am slow. (Yes, that is jaw-droppingly fast). The goal for most speakers is to meet most people where they are: 140-170 bpm (the cruel irony is I can’t read 200+ words per minute, which is what most people can read.) My natural speaking cadence is that of the normal person’s reading cadence — but that is a story for another day.

Check out Claire’s most excellent post on using your fingers to create a metronome when you are speaking. I have been trying it all week. It is helping but takes a bit of practice. I have a long way to go but so happy to have a tool to leverage in my never-ending battle against fast speaking.

Claire’s post spawned a bit of a deep dive for me. It seems a comfortable speaking pace is 140-170 beats per minute for most humans. If you want to see what that sounds/feels like try this Google link (wish I had known about it years ago— or maybe it is new). You can drag it to 200 bpm to see how insanely fast I speak.

Have fun with your own self-discovery.

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Getting Your Foot In the Door

Know your Strengths

This week, as I was reflecting on my Amazon Leadership Principles, I decided to create a quick table based on the number of unique stories. I found I over-indexed on:

• Earns Trust

• Learn & Be Curious

• Customer Obsession

• Have a Backbone; Disagree & Commit

• Are Right, A Lot

In simple English, my superpowers are building trust with partner teams, being relentlessly curious—never happy with the status quo—customer obsession, not being afraid to speak up when something doesn’t make sense or seems strategically misplaced, and having strong product instinct.

The Challenge: Catolog your behavioral stories, what do you learn about yourself? How can you incorporate these learnings into your brand statement?

To see more about my self-reflection, read more here.