interview prep no. 53

12-Week Plan: Follow Me | Week 1 | Product Fail | Avoiding Ums | Recording | Slack Community

View of Kaua’i, Hawaii from a helicopter

Thank you for your patience. I had an unexpected summer but am returning to a regular posting cadence. Some new benefits for paid subscribers include a Slack channel and recordings as part of a 12-Week Case Prep Program (Meta-Style).

This Week’s Highlights

1. 12-Week Plan Follow Along

2. Week 1 Product Sense Basics

3. Product Sense Maps Fail

4. Communication Avoiding Ahs & Ums

Paid Subscribers ONLY

1. 12-Week Plan Suggested Prompts

2. Slack Channel Ask me questions and chat with others

3. Recording Jobs for the Disabled

---

12-Week Plan

Follow Along

Starting this week, I am going to try something new. I am going to prepare over the course of the next 3 months to be ready for 2025 Q1 hiring cycle. I will use Meta as my goal company but you can follow along for almost any company. I will basically build the course for preparing for basic product interviews, including the 3 most important question types:

1. Product Sense/Design

2. Execution/Analytics

3. Behaviorals (Basics)

For this round, I will not cover Google-specific questions for Strategy. It might be a fast follow or answered in one-off additions to the newsletter but it will not be not part of the standard parts of this program.

Each week, you will get 5 Lessons: one per day (Check out my YouTube Channel every morning M-F). Paid subscribers will get more support and recordings.

---

Week 1: Product Sense Framework

Start S.U.S.S.ing out the Answer

As returning readers know, I leverage the S.U.S.S. framework for product sense interviews. Read here to familiarize yourself with it. Focus on Strategy, Users, Solutions and Success Metrics.

For this first week, our goals are:

• Brush off the cobwebs/orient ourselves by reviewing framework

• Mocks: Get past the discomfort of mocks: Complete at least 3 case mocks.

• Drill: Come up with 3 clarifying questions for 5 prompts. Here are some databases of prompts if you need them.

• 5 Mini-Lessons on YouTube

  (Don’t be thrown off by the AI voice, I am writing the scripts but testing AI to get more done with limited time.)

  • Monday: S.U.S.S. Framework Review

  • Tuesday: Strategic Clarifying Assumptions/Questions

  • Wednesday: Narrowing vs. Segmentation

  • Thursday: Pain Points

  • Friday: Thinking Big Tricks

---

Product Sense

Apple Maps Fail

Part of building product sense is evaluating both good and bad product experiences. When I was on vacation this summer, I decided to try Apple Maps rather than Google Maps. It was one trip, and I went back to Google Maps. Why?

Apple Maps sent me to an empty field when I was looking for an ice cream shop in the middle of town. When I got to the field and tried to tell Apple the location was wrong, they would not accept a simple note that the location was wrong. They would only accept me tagging the location was wrong IF I went and found the right information and then gave it to them!!! This is a horrible user experience.

If I were to fix it, I would let people report the problem. Then, notify the business that the location was incorrect and ask them to confirm. I might add a follow-up message asking the user when they were done on their trip to confirm where their location was IF they found it.

Apple has created a horrible experience on three fronts:

1. Gave me bad directions (wasting time, money, and energy, nevermind gas)

2. Refused to take basic feedback (leading me to give them bad information just to give feedback)

3. Created a UI that woudn’t flex based on what I knew.

They lost my trust. Apple Maps needs users to get better, scaring them away is a double whammy.

---

Communication

Avoiding Ahs & Ums

During Real Time with Bill Maher, John McWhorter made an interesting observation about VP Kamal Harris’ use of synonyms. She has an effective way of speaking smoothly, using triplets to avoid ums or anything that might make her sound inarticulate. At one point, to avoid ums in an interview she said the “ambitions, hopes and aspirations” of the American people. They all mean the same thing but it sounds better than “um, um, um”. You can catch his observation on Real Time with Bill Maher S22 E25 at the 21-minute mark.

What tricks do you use to avoid filler sounds or words?

---