Amazon Product Manager copyright ©
Interview Preparation Course coursetake.com
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• Congratulations on getting an opportunity to interview with Amazon. Amazon is just a fantastic company innovating at every step of the way and slowly but surely capturing every aspect of our lives.
So GREAT JOB getting the journey with them started. • You most probably know that Amazon receives thousands of applications
everyday, so you definitely have stood out for them to have contacted you. Great work, so far.
COPYRIGHTS & DISCLAIMER • This document and its creators are not affiliated in any way with Uber Technologies Ltd., a transport, and logistics company. The document is solely provided for educational purposes. This presentation, course videos and website coursetake.com are not affiliated with or endorsed by Uber. All the questions and csv files in the book are created from ground up by Coursetake. • This document and relevant files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of individual or entity to whom they are addressed. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods. All rights reserved. • The information on this document is tried to be as accurate as possible, but no guarantee of usefulness or fitness for a particular purpose is implied. The content is provided on an as-is basis. The advice given may not be suitable for every situation.
Table of Contents Section 1– The Product Management Role Section 2 – The Product Management Role at Amazon Section 3 – Interview Process at Amazon Section 4 – Amazon Company Information Section 5 - Questions Section 6 – Questions to Ask Section 7 – Preparation Plans and Tips Section 8 – Conclusion
INTRODUCTION • This class is purely about preparing for an Amazon Product Management Interview • My aim is to take you through a systematic process one-step at a time to help you ace this interview. • My approach will be to first teach you a lesson and then give you homework for You to complete • This class consists of worksheets and slides, along with the video lectures, that you can download. • I’ve seen that the most successful candidates are the ones who NOT ONLY follow the lessons, but do the homework at the end of it.
This course will combine theory and practice to help you succeed. coursetake.com
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Agenda – The Course Consists of 8 Sections 1. The Product Management Role – We’ll start by understanding the role of a Product Manager in general. 2. Amazon Product Manager Role – We’ll then talk about the role of a Product Manager specifically at Amazon. 3. Interview Process – We’ll talk about the interview process for a PM at Amazon 4. Company Information – We’ll then talk about the details about Amazon as a company and the various products it has.
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5. Questions – We’ll then get into the specific question types that Amazon Typically asks its candidates and how to attack each one 1. Behavioral Questions 2. Tradeof Questions 3. Pricing Questions 4. Financial Projections 5. Strategy Questions 6. Customer Experience Questions 7. Metrics Questions 8. Design Questions 9. Vision Questions 10. Estimation Questions
6. Questions to Ask – Here, we will discuss what questions to ask during your interview. 7. Preparation Plan and Tips – We’ll then cover a number of preparation tips for the interview process and put together a time table to study. 8. Conclusion – Finally we’ll end by summarizing everything in this section.
Section 1– The Product Management Role 9 Things that PMs do
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Role of an Product Manager a.k.a. PM • A PM is responsible for making sure that a team ships a great product. • What does shipping a great product mean? 1. Vision and Strategy: The PM sets the vision, strategy and business model for the product. • They do so by understanding the market, competition, customers and current company capabilities and then define the unique value proposition for the product they are working on for the appropriate customer niche that they plan to target.
2. Goals and Initiatives: The PM sets specific goals for the product and defines initiatives to drive those goals. The PM defines specific success criteria/metrics or Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the product to achieve those goals and specific targets that the product should achieve.
3. Product Roadmap: The PM defines and maintains the product roadmap, that maps out a timeline of these initiatives. 4. Features: For each initiative, the PM defines features/user stories i.e. a business needs or wants of the customer. These come from customers, sales, marketing, customer support, internal engineering and other teams and various other parts of the organization. 5. Prioritization and Release Roadmap: The PM prioritizes various features and makes decisions on which ones to go after first and which ones can go into a product backlog. The PM maintains all this in a “Release Roadmap.”
• PMs prioritizing by taking into account areas such as value add, risk, complexity of implementation etc.
6. Requirements: For the features that are going out, the PM further refines each feature into detailed requirements i.e. defines the capability of what the product should do to meet the business need of the feature. A feature is essentially a high-level collection of individual requirements.
7. Feature and Requirements Design: The PM works with designers, user experience, engineering, QA and others to come up with solutions to those requirements and hence features. The PM also defines the specific success criteria for each feature in terms of specific metrics. 8. Implementation: The PM works with engineering teams, QA, data analysts and others to ensure on a day to day basis that those features are being built and are ready to go out to customers. 9. Release: The PM coordinates all release activities related to launching those product features and maintains a timeline of the same.
• This includes signing of on the final build, going through a launch checklist of various items, communicating out to various parts of the organization and to customers and making various decisions through the process, working with marketing to co-ordinate the “Go To Market” plan etc. etc.
9. Rinse and Repeat: The PM consistently follows this same process again to consistently ship great products.
Summary of the PM Process
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Summary of the PM Process
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Just some of the areas a PM has to own
As you can clearly see, based on the activities that a PM performs that he or she is clearly the CEO of his or her product. The PM drives activities across an organization right from vision all the way to Execution and launch
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…with one distinction • PMs have no direct reports. • A CEO does.
• This means that PMs have to drive their entire product strategy through influence and not through direct authority over anyone. • Leadership through influence is an extremely important trait that good PMs have and it will be tested throughout the interview process. PMs are great leaders as the success of their product is the direct function of their ability to influence others to do their best work. coursetake.com
A PM sits in the middle of the Business, Technology and the Product
Even though the title says “Product”, the PM has touch points to various parts of the organization.
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Section 2 – The Product Management Role at Amazon
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Amazon PM • In this section, we will define the role of a PM as it relates to Amazon and how the responsibilities differ from the core responsibilities of a generic PM. • We’ll also define the skills that a Amazon PM needs in order to be both successful there, but more importantly for you to prepare specific interview areas during your interview studying process.
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Amazon PM Job Description Here is a typical Amazon Product Manager Role directly advertised on the Amazon Careers Website. Let’s break down some of the core responsibilities of this role. Note one important thing about Amazon – Even though they are looking for candidates for a specific team, they will
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recruit you into the company.
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Amazon PM Core Responsibilities • Create, build, and implement groundbreaking new customer experience-related features and benefits that will impact millions of Amazon customers
• Thing 4/Features, Thing 7/Feature and Requirements Design, Thing 8/Implementation
• Write business requirement and functional specification documents • Thing 6/Requirements
• Lead and coordinate eforts cross-functionally with business teams, software development engineers, retail teams, other product managers, UX designers, and external partners to guarantee a smooth and efficient product delivery • Thing 9/Release
• Identify and mitigate bottlenecks, provide escalation management, balance business needs versus technical constraints, and maximize business benefit while building the best customer experience • Thing 9/Release
• Manage roadmap projects from inception through implementation • Thing 1/Vision and Strategy, Thing 2/Goals and Initiatives, Thing 3/Product Roadmap, Thing 5/Prioritization and Release Roadmap
As you can, the Amazon PM role is very similar to the core role of PMs as defined in the industry.
Amazon Company Culture • The Amazon culture is well published on their website in the form of 14 Amazon Principles • https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• As a PM, its extremely important to internalize these 14 principles as Amazon takes their culture very seriously. You’ll get tons of questions on these principles. • We’ll get into the details into Section 4 in the Questions section, however, its important early on to understand these 14 principles very well.
• Let’s look at the culture in detail:
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Amazon Principles 1. Customer Obsession • Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
2. Ownership • Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job".
3. Invent and Simplify • Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here". As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
4. Are Right, A Lot • Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
5. Learn and Be Curious • Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
6. Hire and Develop The Best • Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
7. Insist on the Highest Standards • Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
8. Think Big • Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think diferently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
9. Bias for Action • Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
10. Frugality • Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.
11. Earn Trust • Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
12. Dive Deep • Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote difer. No task is beneath them.
13. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit • Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
14. Deliver Results • Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
What do you need to have to be a good Amazon PM? Amazon PM = PM Job Description + Amazon Cultural Fit The Questions (Section 4) will cover how to showcase both these skills during your entire interview process. But, this means that a good Amazon PM needs to showcase all the skills of
What do you need to have to be a good Amazon PM? a good PM (Section 1) and he or she …
What do you need to have to be a good Amazon PM? Needs to be obsessive about the customer. 2. Needs to take full ownership for his or her products. 3. Needs to innovate and simplify. 4. Needs to have strong judgement and good instincts. 5. Needs to learn consistently and be curious. 6. Needs to hire and develop the
8. Needs to think big. 9. Needs to take action. 10.
Needs to be frugal.
11.Needs to earn trust of others and lead through influence. 12.
Needs to dive deep.
13. Needs to have backbone, disagree and commit. 14. Needs to consistently deliver results.
Some additional information on Amazon PMs • Amazon prefers MBAs for its PM positions. • But they also have Technical Program Managers and Program Managers (Non Tech) to drive the day to day execution with the various teams.
• PMs don’t need to come from a technical background unlike some other companies. • Amazon is a very data driven company, so PMs need to have strong analytical skills. • Amazon prefers documents instead of presentations, so PMs write something known as a “Business Case” memo for their ideas – normally 6 pages + appendices. This forces the author to be precise. • Meetings start with everyone reading the document and asking questions.
Some additional information on Amazon PMs • The document is refined with various meetings.
Next… • So with this lecture, hopefully you’ve got a good sense of what it takes to be a good PM at Amazon and also what the Amazon culture expects out of its PMs. • Its important to keep these in mind as tons of questions will be centered around the cultural aspects of Amazon. • For example: If a question asks “Tell me about a time when you had to lead with influence”, the interview will spend a lot of time with you digging deep into your answers to see if you as a PM candidate just did the high level stuf or you dove deep into the details on your ownership. • This is testing the “Dive Deep” principle at Amazon.
Next…
• But before we get there, lets talk about the interview process at Amazon.
Section 3 – Interview Process at Amazon
Interview Process
3 Phone Screens + Onsite Interview to the Amazon Campus
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First (Optional) Phone Screen – Recruiter Phone Screen • The first phone screen is with a recruiter who will walk you through the role, judge your general interest for the position and ask you some general questions on your background. • Sometimes Amazon recruiters will look at your resume and directly connect you with the hiring manager as the first phone screen.
• They also judge which team would be a good fit for you based on your background, interests etc. • Their goal is to see whether it makes sense to pass you onto to the hiring manager for the next screen. coursetake.com
Second Phone Screen – 30-45 minutes • Goal of this screen is to test how you match up against the 14 principles that we discussed. • The recruiter won’t go deeper into your skills here, but basically ask you 2-3 general questions on the 14 principles. • The interviewer will try to cover 2-3 principles. • E.g. “Tell me a time when you did X”
Third Phone Screen – 30-45 minutes • The third phone screen will either be similar to the first screen or they might go deeper into some other question types: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
• E.g. of other types that may be asked. But typically these are common. Case Based Questions Pricing Questions Strategy Questions Vision Questions Tradeof Questions Estimation Questions
• DO NOT expect any technical questions or design questions during this screen. • Unless you are interviewing with an extremely technical group within the company.
Onsite Interview • Once you get through these phone screens, Amazon will fly you over to their offices to conduct a thorough interview process. • Expect to go through 5 rounds of 45 minutes to an hour where you will be asked any of the question types in Section 4.
• One of the interviewers will be with the hiring manager. He or she will meet you again (after having spoken to you on the phone.) • One of the interviewers will be with the “Bar Raiser”. • The bar raiser is a neutral person that does NOT belong to any team. • His or her role is to determine whether you will be above 50% of the candidates at your level. In short, are you raising the bar? • The bar raiser’s interview is typically the toughest interview. So expect to be challenged during this interview. • The bad news is that even if all interviewer’s say YES to you, the bar raiser has the ability to say NO. He or she has veto power.
• Additionally, the hiring manager has veto power as well.
That’s it… • You should know pretty soon the decision of the hiring team within a week or so after your interview. • Next lets focus our attention on the actual interview questions and get you ready for the interview. • See you in the next section.
Section 4 – Amazon Company Information
Studying Amazon • If you have ever interviewed before, you should know that questions regarding the company are common throughout the process. • You want to show throughout the process that you have done your research about the company, know where the company is going and why you’re excited about the same. • This module will give you a list of areas that you need to prepare for, specifically about Amazon.
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When studying information about a company, its important for us to have a framework in place. Here is a good framework to use when studying Amazon.
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a. Amazon’s Vision and Mission • Amazon’s vision statement is “To be Earth’s most customercentric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” This vision statement underscores the organization’s main aim of becoming the best e-commerce company in the world. The following components or characteristics are emphasized in Amazon’s vision statement: • Global reach • Customer prioritization • Widest selection of products
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• Amazon’s mission statement is as follows: “We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.” This mission statement promises an attractive e- commerce service to satisfy customers’ needs. The following components or features are identifiable in Amazon’s mission statement: • Lowest prices • Best selection • Utmost convenience
* Note that there are no “Take Profits” here. It’s a closed loop.
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b. Amazon’s Culture and Values We have already covered in this great detail earlier in this class. You can either refer to that section of read more about Amazon’s principles of leadership here.
https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
c. Products and Services These are some of Amazon’s key businesses: https://www.amazon.jobs/ en/business_categories
Next
d. Customers • This section should be answered specific to the group/product/category that you are considering. • Few examples: • • • •
Age bracket Household Income (HHI) Male/Female Ratio Average Spend per Year
• Amazon has tons of diferent customers, each diferent for the diferent products it ofers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-demographics-chart20151
• Amazon customers consist of upper & middle class social groups who have inclination towards using E-commerce portals and are comfortable with online shopping.
e. Competitors
Competitive Advantage • http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/18/amazonssustainablecompetitive-advantage.aspx
Other Competitive Advantages (Strengths) 1. Strong background and deep pockets – Built on its early successes with books, Amazon now has product categories that include electronics, toys, games, home and kitchen, white goods, brown goods and much more. Amazon has evolved as a global E-commerce giant in the last 2 decades. 2. Customer centric: Company’s robust CRM has created customer centric processes in order to carefully record data on customer’s buying behavior. This enables them to ofer individual items, related items or bundle them as an ofer, based upon preferences demonstrated through purchases or items visited. Also, the company claims that 55% of their customers are repeat buyers resulting in low cost of acquisition of new buyers. 3. Cost leadership: In order to diferentiate itself, company has created several strategic alliances with other companies to ofer superior customer service. The most important strategic tie ups are with logistics provides who control costs. Because of playing on economies of scale, Amazon is able to lower the inventory replenishment time.
4. Efficient delivery network: With its strategic partners & due to its Amazon fulfilment centers, Amazon has created a deep & structured network in order to make the product available even at remote locations. It also has free of cost delivery charges in certain geographies. 5. GLOCAL strategy: By using the strategy of “Go global & act local”, Amazon is able to fight with domestic E-commerce companies through absorbing & by forming / partnering with supply chain companies. The branding too is done as per local taste. For exampleIn India, Amazon is currently using the “Aur Dikhao” campaign to encourage users to browse more of their products. 6. Acquisitions: Acquiring companies like Zappos.com, Junglee.com, IMBD.com, woot.com etc. has proven to be a successful and revenue generating for Amazon.
Weaknesses 1. Shrinking margins: Due to extensive delivery network & price wars Amazons margins are shrinking, which is resulting in even losses. 2. Tax Avoidance issue: Amazon has attracted negative publicity on account of Tax Avoidance in countries like U.S & UK. Most of its revenue is generated from these well established markets. 3. High Debt: In many developing nations Amazon is still struggling to make the business profitable thereby afecting the overall profitability of the group resulting into High debt. 4. Product flops – Amazon launched the fire phone in the US which was a big flop. At the same time, Kindle fire did not pick up as strongly as Kindle did. Thus, there were several product flops which caused a dent in Amazon’s deep pockets.
f. Management Team
Key man behind Amazon is Jef Bezos. I recommend you read a brief bio on him - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jef_Bezos
g. Metrics/Financials (as of 2016)
Statistic
Value
# of Active Users
244 MM
# of Amazon Prime Customers
54 MM Users
Average Monthly Active Users (MAU) for Amazon App
30 MM MAU
More Statistics on Amazon http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/amazonstatistics/
h. 1. Backward Integration: Amazon can come up with its in-house brands in diferent product categories. They can also diferentiate their ofering. This will help them make profits in highly competitive E-commerce market. 2. Global Expansion: Expansion mainly in Asian & developing economies will help Amazon because those are the markets with low competition in E-commerce industries & are not saturated like developed economies. 3. Acquisitions: By acquiring E-commerce companies it can decrease the competition level & also can use the specialized capacity of the other company. 4. Opening physical stores outside U.S: By doing this Amazon can help the customers to engage with the brand, resulting in increase in repeat purchases & increase in loyal customer base.
i. 1. Low entry barriers of the industry: Low entry barriers afect the current player’s business as more & more company means tough competition, price wars, shrinking margins & losses resulting into questioning the sustainability of the players. 2. Government regulations: Not having clarity on the issues related to FDI in multi brand retail, has been a big hurdle in the success of the E- commerce players in many developing nations. 3. Local competition – India has SnapDeal and Flipkart who are local E commerce retailers and are taking away majority of the market. Similarly, there are many local players who take bites from the market share thereby making it hard for a big player like Amazon to make profits.
More Detail • http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/onlinebusinessrevenue-models/amazon-case-study/
Section 5 - Questions coursetake.com
Questions • Now we’re going to get into the meat of the course. We’re going to cover a number of diferent question types that PMs get during their interview process at Amazon. • We have covered a total of 10 Question Types in this course. • Here is how the format of each section will go:
Format of Each Section
Template on how Questions Sample to answer each question. and Sample Answers Questions to Practic
Please do not move forward with any section till you practice a few questions and start getting confident. Take Action.
Order of Question Types • Note that the 10 question types that have been presented here are in order of their importance to Amazon. • This means: • Design questions are not asked much at Amazon as compared to Behavioral question types. • If you don’t get time, you can ignore the bottom 2-3 categories.
What
Cares About!
Strengths, Motivation and Fit • If you have to remember one thing for any interview in your life, just remember this. • There are only 3 interview questions for any interview that you are part of.
Strengths – Can you do the job? Motivation – Will you love this job? Fit – Can we tolerate working with you?
• Any question type that is asked if some variation of these three types of questions.
3 Interview Answers So with that being said as an interviewee you have to prove that you have answers to these 3 questions:
• My strengths are a match for this job. • My motivations are a match for this job. • I am a good fit for this organization.
Organization = Problems • Organizations are full of problems. Sometimes managers know them and sometimes they do not. • Whatev the case, you need to position yourself as a solution to er those proble ms. • But that goes beyond the technical know how of the job, it comes down to your strengths, motivations and fit. • Through the process, right from when the recruiter gets in touch with you
Organization = Problems
for the first time, reinforce these 3 key points to ensure that you are the solution to their problems.
Examples • Tell me about yourself. Type—Strengths • What do you know about this company’s products? Type— Motivation • Tell me about a time when you had to deal with conflict? Type— Fit or Strengths (based on the Job) • Give me an example of a time when you behaved with integrity? Type— Fit • Why
? Type—Motivation • What process do you use to prioritize a backlog? Type—Strengths
Tips When Answering Questions • Ask clarifying questions before you start. • Be decisive • Have conviction • Always say ”I’d love to give you 3 reasons for the same. 1…. 2.... 3....”
• Explain reasoning
Framework to Ask Questions – 5W and 1H
Let’s get into the questions • So with that background in place, lets get started with the individual question types…
Question Type 1 - Behavioral Questions
These questions test your ability to showcase how you would and have reacted in various situations – both good and bad.
Behavioral Questions The main types of questions that are asked in any interview process come under the category – Behavioral Questions. These questions are extremely popular today and specifically at Amazon, so its important that you prepare well. There are 6 main question types that we will cover. Almost every behavioral question you get will fall under these 6 types.
1. "Tell me 2. "Goals" Questions about yourself” Questions
4. “Strengths 3. ”Why" and Weaknesses: Questions Questions?
5. "Tell me about a time" questions.
6. ”Culture" Questions
If there is one thing that you have to remember…. Remember this:
If you forget everything that you have learnt here. Just remember this key – ICJC
ICJC I Company C Job/Role J Industry
What this means is that when asked a question, you can talk about the
Culture/Values
Industry Company
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7 6
If there is one thing that you have to remember…. Jo b/ R
ole Culture/Valu es
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1. "Tell me about yourself” Questions • This is probably the first question you will get in any interview that you have. • The famous words from almost any interviewer when starting an interview.
Why don’t we start by you telling me a little about yourself.
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1. "Tell me about yourself” Questions
• This is probably the first question you will get in any interview that you have, whether it’s a recruiter, hiring manager or someone else.
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Your Story • This question is one of the best questions for you to be able to “Tell your Story”. • … and thats exactly what it should be. • The answer to this question is not to repeat your resume, but to really showcase your strengths, motivation and fit for the the company and job. • Lets see next a framework to answer this question.
Framework to Answer – With Work Experience Pick 3-5 main requirements from the Job Description.
Highlight your last 3 jobs where you did similar work using the same verbiage in the job description.
End your story by highlighting “Why are you looking for a job” and
Framework to Answer – With Work Experience additionally "Why this company and or role?"
For Each Job – Use This Framework 1. I’m currently for . 2. As part of this role, I do (Using verbiage from the job description). 3. I’d love to highlight . 4. Repeat 2-3 times
1. Prior to that I was for . 2. As part of this role, I did (Using verbiage from the job description). 3. I’d love to highlight .
5. Additionally I have . 6. I’m leaving my current role because of . 7. And I’m excited about this opportunity with Amazon for the following reasons: 1. 2.
For Each Job – Use This Framework 3.
Framework to Answer – With NO Work Experience Pick 3-5 main requirements from the Job Description.
Highlight 3 projects where you did similar work using the same verbiage in the job description.
Framework to Answer – With NO Work Experience End your story by highlighting additionally “Why this company/job?”
For Each Project – Use This Framework 1. I’m currently student at majoring in . 2. As part of studies, I have done (Using verbiage from the job description). 3. I’d love to highlight . 4. Repeat 2-3 times 1. Additionally, I have done . 2. I’d love to highlight .
5. I’m excited about this opportunity with Amazon for the following reasons: 1. 2. 3.
At a high level…you have to highlight your story 1. This is my background
2. This is why I'm looking
3. This is why I will be a good fit for the role/company
Example “Tell me About Yourself” answer I’m currently the Chief Operating Officer of Unikrn, an eSports and Gaming technology company based in Seattle, WA. As part of my role, my core responsibility is to work with the management team on the overall strategic plan for Unikrn, including specific goals for the company. But more importantly, drive the individual teams across the company to achieve Unikrn’s objectives. My most notable achievement as part of this job to was to take the company from 5 employees to 40 and to a $7MM Series A round. I believe I’ve put the company onto a growth path for massive scale in the future.
Prior to that I was a Senior Manager of Product and Strategy at Groupon, where I led a autonomous product and engineering to launch Groupon’s consumer commerce marketplace on its web platform. This project added 2MM active users to Groupon’s web platform in Q3 of 2015, a growth of 25% from the previous quarter. Additionally, I’ve spent 6 years at Microsoft as an Engineering Manager leading teams between 5 and 40 in the Office, Windows and Dynamics groups. My most notable achievement was the launch of the online app store for Windows 8. This enabled Microsoft for the first time to compete efectively with Apple by creating its own app platform. Also, I have a Masters in Computer Science from Clemson University and an MBA from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business in Entrepreneurship, Finance and Strategy.
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I’ve started exploring opportunities recently due to significant change in the direction of my company. The co-founders have decided to move the company to Australia, something that I can’t do personally at this point of time. Hence, I’m very excited to interview with your firm. I normally look for 3 criterion when looking for new companies: 1. Companies that ofer products and services that solve a true need for its customers. 2. A role that gives me an opportunity to drive product and engineering teams to achieve company goals. 3. A culture that encourages entrepreneurship and an action oriented attitude.
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Tips • Don’t focus on the negatives. Make sure to spin any negative into a positive. • For example: • Never complain about your current role. • Never focus on money. • Never focus on being bored and not learning.
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Practice and Take Action • Its your turn now. • Please practice this question multiple times as it will be your “ice breaker” question in any interview. • PLUS it will showcase your confidence and communication skills as you kick things of in an interview. • Here are some questions to ponder over: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Tell me about yourself. Tell me a little more about what you’ve been doing over the past few years. What brings you here to this opportunity? Why are you leaving your current job? coursetake.com
2. “Why” Questions? • These are questions that ask you questions around “Why this job?”, ”Why this role?” etc. etc. • Anything that starts with a “Why”?
• These questions will definitely will be asked by the recruiter in your first phone screen and also by the hiring manager when you speak to him or her. • These are great ways to understand your motivation and just like the ”Tell me about yourself” questions are great ice breakers and ways to start conversations of.
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Framework to Answer
• Probably one of the oldest rules in the book – The Rule of 3. • Give exactly 3 points when answering these questions. • Next look at a framework to specifically answer this question.
Framework to Answer - Why Company?
Framework to Answer - Why Company? Summarize the answer to the question, then give 3 reasons:
1. Talk about the Company
3. Talk about the Culture/Values
2. Talk about the Job/Role/Position
Framework to Answer - Why Company? C J
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Again, a reminder of why I asked you before to study the company, its culture, values etc.
Framework to Answer - Why Role?
Summarize the answer to the question, then give 3 reasons:
1. Talk about what you love about the job and what you bring to it.
Framework to Answer - Why Role?
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Framework to Answer - Why Industry?
Framework to Answer - Why Industry? Summarize the answer to the question, then give 3 reasons:
1. Talk about your interests and passion.
Framework to Answer - Why Industry?
3 Typical Examples • The next 3 examples are typical examples that we’ve seen in and out in almost every interview we’ve been part of. • So I highly recommend practicing these 2 examples before you go into your interview. • “Why” Amazon? • “Why” Product Management? • “Why” eCommerce or Gaming or
Example – Why Example: Why do you want to join us at Amazon? • There are 3 main reasons why I’d like to join Amazon: 1. Amazon over the past few years has been on a strong path of innovation, specifically in the cloud space. The company has come up with interesting services on the cloud such as Kindle Direct Publishing and Fulfillment by Amazon that have taken the world by storm. I want to work for an innovative company that is poised to change the world through its innovative products and services. I strongly believe that winning companies are those that constantly innovate and are ahead of the market. Amazon is one such compny.
Company
Example Why Job
2. Secondly, I’m excited about what I bring to the company. My experience and passion has been in conceptualizing and bringing products to market and I have done that over my 10 year career in my previous roles. I’m excited about bringing this experience and passion to Amazon and help successfully launch many innovate products afecting millions of customers. 3. Thirdly, culture is very important to me. I thrive well in entrepreneurial cultures. The Amazon principles of leadership “Taking Ownership” and “Taking Action” appeal to my style of
Example Why
operating on a day to day basis and I believe I’ll be able to perform at my peak there.
Culture
Example: Why ”Product Example: Why do you want to be a Product Manager? • There are 3 specific reasons why the role of a Product Manager is appealing to me: 1. Product Managers sit between the business, engineering and the Product. The ability to be the CEO of my own product that I can drive both strategically and operationally towards hitting company goals is what I’m passionate and good at. In my last job, as part of launching Groupon’s marketplace to the Indian market, I had to strategically think about our value proposition, our target customer demographic, competitors, pricing strategy. I had to work with various groups internally (sales, marketing, engineering) and externally (partners, customers) to be able to deliver on company goals.
Job
Job 2. Good Product Managers are analytical - I’m a firm believer in data driven decision making. I believe good Product Manager’s keep their biases out of the equation and use data to make decisions whether qualitative or quantitative. 3. Finally, Product Managers lead through influence – My personal leadership style is all about leading via influence, irrespective of whether I have reports or not. Great Product Managers are relationship builders and achieve company goals by bringing teams together to do so. This is one of my key strengths that makes me a good fit to this role.
Job
Example “Why Technology Example: Why are you interested in the • There are 3 main reasons why I’d love to join the technology industry: 1. My Personal Interests and Passion – As I was going through my undergraduate year in college, I started meeting with a few alumni Product Managers at Amazon from my university and started developing a keen interest for the Product Management. I loved the challenge of owning a Product end to end leading teams to execute on our collective vision. I started loving the aspects of delivering projects with a clear focused deadline and goals. More importantly the tech industry, given its nature lets me test out product features faster with customers directly, the feedback of which can be incorporated into the product as soon as possible.
My Interests
2. Secondly, my long term goals play an important part in my decision. In the long run, I see myself starting my own technology company. I believe the best CEOs are very Product driven. They can think strategically about the market dynamics, but more importantly, can deliver a value proposition towards the needs and wants of the customer.
My Goals
3. Finally, the tech industry is at the forefront of innovation in every industry. Technology is working today on problems for the future. That’s what excites me about this industry.
Opportunity
So its this combination of my personal passion, my long term goals and the opportunity that this industry brings that attracts me to this industry.
Practice and Take Action • This is the list of questions you should be ready for in your interview: • • • • • •
Why this company? Why do you want to work here? Why this job/role? Why not go to ? Why ? I don’t think is for you.
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3. “Goals” Questions • This is the next set of questions that you should prepare for. There are really two questions here that you should prepare for. 1. What are your short term goals? 2. What are your long term goals?
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Framework to Answer – Long Term Goals
Summarize your Long Term Goal. Then summarize 3 reasons
1. I want to be part of the right company.
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Framework to Answer – Long Term Goals 2. I want to be part of the right next job/role.
3. I want to be around people with the right values/culture.
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Framework to Answer – Short Term Goals
Framework to Answer – Short Term Goals Talk about your long term goal (yes that’s correct)
1. Talk about your short term goal – This Job.
2. Talk about the company.
3. Talk about values/culture.
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Example “What are your long term • In the long run i.e. over the next 10 years, I see myself becoming the General Manager of a Business Unit at Amazon, where I can run various cross functional teams and manage P&L to be able to successfully execute on company goals. • In order to get there: 1. I want to work for a company that encourages my long term plan and provides a growth part for me. 2. Secondly, I believe the role of Product Manager is the great next step for me. I believe the best CEOs are Product people who can think critically about customers, their needs and wants. 3. Thirdly, leadership is an important aspect of getting there and a company such as Amazon and its leadership principles put me a strong growth path to getting there.
Example “What are your short term • I’d like to start by outlining my long term goal. I see myself becoming the General Manager of a Business Unit at Amazon, where I can run various cross functional teams and manage P&L to be able to successfully execute on company goals. • In order to get there: 1. My short term goal is find a position that puts me on the path towards the long run. In my case, the Product Manager. I aspire to grow in that role, prove myself and then to expand that out to becoming a Senior Product Manager managing an entire product instead of only a few features. 2. Additionally, I’d want to do this at a company such as Amazon that encourages growth this kind of growth. 3. Thirdly, leadership is an important aspect of getting there and a company such as Amazon and its leadership principles put me a strong growth path to getting there.
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4. “Strengths and Weaknesses” Questions • The next type of question is the “Strengths and Weaknesses” questions. • Another extremely important type of question that is definitely going to be asked to you through the entire process. • So its best to be well prepared.
• Similar to before, the goal here is to use the ”Rule of 3”. Give exactly 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses. • Additionally, for your weaknesses you will need to also add the following: “What have you been doing to overcome your weakness”. • Lets look at details… coursetake.com
Strengths – Framework to Answer • Focus on the core strengths of a PM – the ones we discussed in Section 1. You want to be able to highlight these skills. • Bonus points if you highlight 3 strengths directly from the job description like we covered in Section 2.
Strength Strength 1: State Strength your 2: State coreyour 3: PM State Skill, coreyour then PM Skill, core givePM then example. Skill, givethen example. give example.
Example “Give me Your top • Absolutely. I believe I have 3 top strengths and they are as follows: 1. I’m extremely analytical. As an example, this one time using insights on our customers, I was able to significantly influence a change in our product direction. I make tons of my decisions based on the data which enables me to keep any biases out of the equation. 2. I believe I have strong leadership skills. The ability to influence others and bring the best out from them is a core strength of mine. I didn’t have any direct reports in my last job, but was successfully able to pitch the idea of our next product to the company CEO and rile together a group of engineers to execute on the same.
3. Finally, I’m relentless and see things through. In my first job as a Software Engineer at Amazon, there were tons of bugs in one of our older projects that management had given up on due to the volume of bugs. This was an opportunity for me to step in and spend extra hours to fix those bugs and get the product launched. The launch earned tons of kudos for both me and our department in general and was considered a huge success for the company.
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Weaknesses – Framework to Answer • Be honest here and don’t give something vague like “I work too hard”. • Pick a genuine weakness.
• Be professional and talk about work related weaknesses, as compared to something personal. • Finally, make sure you mention what you are doing to overcome this weakness.
Weakness 3: 1: State your weakness, what are you doing to overcome it, and if there have been any improve 2:
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Example: What’s Your Biggest Weakness? In my last performance review, my boss wrote that “John has a straightforward and direct approach. For those not familiar with John, they will be taken aback by John’s bluntness and find it ofensive.” The reason I am blunt is that I get impatient with others. I am eager for my team to do a job and do it well. Over the last 3 years, I’ve worked on becoming more patient by: 1. Meditating. It helps be more calm and contemplative. 2. Be more compassionate. I have begun to accept that not everyone can operate by my standards. 3. Take time for breaks. Whether it’s exercise or grabbing a beer with co-workers, it helps me break me away from the must-get-it-done routine. Recently, my peers & direct reports have noticed a change in my behavior. One person told me, “John you’re more laid back now. Small things don’t seem to bother you as much. You’ve been more patient with others, and your working relationships have improved.” coursetake.com
Strengths and Weaknesses • Sometimes employers will ask you questions related to both your Strengths and Weaknesses. The key is to answer both. • For example: You could be asked – “What would your coworkers have to say about you?”. • The key to this question is to recognize that the interviewer is trying to see whether you are critical about yourself, but at the same time you recognize your strengths.
Sample Strengths analytical
scrappy
creative
energetic
organized
decisive
Thinking outside the box
Risk taking
Calm under pressure
thorough
See things through
Understand people’s feelings
flexible
initiative
Detail-oriented
Good planner
quantitative
multitasking
leadership
Good to taking feedback
persistent
persuasive
Data-driven
independent
Self-critical
Good mentor; caring
Not afraid of challenges
prioritization
Enjoy learning new skills
Add humor and fun to the team
Sample Weaknesses Not detail oriented
Overly confident
Lack of confidence
Too negative
Makes too many assumptions
unrealistic
unassertive
impatient
indecisive
stubborn
Intimidating to others
procrastinator
Take feedback personally
Difficulty admitting failure
Hesitant asking for help
Too direct/blunt
overanalyzing
argumentative
Easily distracted
Can be very vague
Bad at multitasking
Micromanages people
Short attention span
shy
Practice and Take Action • Strengths • • • • •
What are some of your strong points? Tell me your strengths. What would be reasons we would promote you at your job? Why should we hire you? What's your style of leadership?
• Weaknesses • What are some of your weaknesses. • If you are not here in this company 1 year from now, what do you think would be the reasons?
• Strengths and Weaknesses • If I ask your ex boss/coworker about you, what would they say?
4. “Tell me about a time” Questions • Example: “Tell me about a time when you successfully shipped a feature”. • This is probably the most important set of questions in the Behavioral category of questions. • Amazon asks tons of these and they will NOT stop after your first answer. They will consistently dig deeper looking for deeper answers to the answer to ensure that you are a culture fit – (Remember the 14 principles in Section 2 ). • Before we get into the heart of the types of questions and how to prepare for this, lets look at a framework to answer this question type.
Framework to Answer
Talk about the goals that you intended to achieve and (optionally) the metric and target to measure succe Specify the dramatic situation you came into. Talk about actionsTalk youabout took in the the results situation that were achieved.
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5 Main Categories • Normally these questions fall into the following categories: Category
Example
Leadership and Influence
Tell me about a time when you made a decision that wasn’t popular.
Challenges
Tell me about a time when you weren’t able to reach a deadline.
Mistakes/Failures
Tell me about a time when you failed.
Successes
Tell me about a time when you solved a problem in a creative way.
Teamwork
Tell me about a time when you had to do something you didn’t want to do.
What do the Categories Mean? 1. Leadership and Influence – is all about influencing other people to bring the best work out of them with our without direct responsibility over them, so an interviewer will want to understand what tactics you use to build teams, persuade or influence others. 2. Challenges – The interviewer is looking not just for challenges that you faced in your job or in your personal life, but how did you deal with them. The interviewer is looking for how you solve problems. 3. Mistakes and Failures – For one the interviewer is looking for your humbleness in admitting that you failed or made a mistake. Secondly she or he is looking for how you handled the situation appropriately. coursetake.com
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When Talking About Mistakes Please avoid anything that will represent a red flag to the company. • Don’t go overboard. • For example: Giving an example of when you lied or cheated is going NOT going to help here.
What do the Categories Mean? 4. Successes – This is another opportunity to sell yourself. Use this opportunity to talk about a project in your past where you made the most impact but at the same time, its relevancy for the role. 5. Teamwork – Teamwork questions are used to assess your interpersonal skills, particularly in times when you are working with your immediate peers. Communication, specially in areas of diverse cultural and “working style” settings will be useful to highlight.
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Example – Leadership and Tell me about a time when you were leading a team that faced a significant challenge, and how you led your team to overcome that challenge. “We had a final class project during business school where we needed to deconstruct a business case scenario and make a formal presentation. I was elected team leader to make sure things stayed on track and to take the lead in the presentation. Everyone got along fine at first – we were making good progress on understanding the key issues the business faced – but as we neared the deadline, we couldn’t agree on what the solutions were for those key issues. People simply disagreed, and given that everyone was tired and stressed, it led to a lot of fighting and tempers really flared.”
Situation and Goals
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“The problem was that the team had essentially two opposing views of the solution. I tried to wait it out a bit, but it seemed like we were getting nowhere, so eventually I took the lead and simply said, “Look, you guys appointed me as your team lead, so this is what I propose.” Then, I laid out a compromise solution that actually had parts of each side’s thoughts. Next, I pointedly asked each person, one at a time, if they were okay with this solution, and if they weren’t, what their concerns were. By doing this, I really isolated the problems and made sure to get buy-in. Miraculously, we were able to finish the project on time and we got a great grade. What I took from this experience was two-fold: one, that as a leader your job is to make sure the team delivers on key deadlines and deliverables, and two, that both individual and group buy-in are necessary to move forward and reduce friction.”
Actions and Results
Example –
Situation, Goals and Action
How did you deal with a difficult boss? “My manager in my last job, where I worked for 2 years, was tough. Really tough. I struggled the first few months I worked with him – in retrospect, I realized that had no idea what he wanted from me. So finally, I decided I couldn’t take it any more, so I scheduled a lunch with him to address the issue. At lunch, I basically said that I was having a challenging time working under him. Then I gave him 3 examples of where I’d spent an enormous amount of time working on a specific assignment, only to have him change what he wanted at the last minute. I then talked about how,
Example –
I could’ve done 5 other things for him and helped the company if I hadn’t wasted that time.”
“He was a little taken aback, but because I was so specific about the opportunities to use time that would have been freed up had he been more direct and consistent, he really took to it. After that, I think he respected me a whole lot more. He really listened, and became more thoughtful about his early decisions so he didn’t change directions 180 degrees at the last minute. I took away from that experience the need to be facts-based when having sensitive conversations, and to show how resolving a conflict can benefit both parties by really trying to see priorities and concerns from someone else’s perspective.”
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Example – What was your greatest failure and what lessons did you learn from it? “I tried to start an organization on campus my freshman year, but in the end it failed. The main goal of the organization was to help new students from China coming in to the United States settle in well.”
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Example –
Situation and Goals
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“It was far from a waste of time, however – I learned so much about what it takes to start something and keep it going. I realized that I didn’t plan thoroughly enough and that I tried to go too fast.“
Follow Up – What did you learn from it?
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“With that experience under my belt, I successfully started a consulting club on campus my junior year to get together with like-minded students regularly to study cases and talk about business trends. My team and I grew the club to 300 members in the first year through effective advertising. We have a great funding model, and we continue to go above and beyond the mission we set out to accomplish.”
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Example – What do you think is your biggest success?
Situation and Goals
“My biggest success professionally has been taking my company from Pre Revenue to $5MM a year over a period of 2 years. When I started the company, unlike many startups, I decided to put together a clear cut business plan and associated with that a strategic plan on how I was going to get there over the period of 2 years. I broke down the bigger plan into smaller pieces and set quarterly and monthly goals. Then I started executing on the plan, consistently built my team over time and one step at a time achieved the goals I initially set out. This experience taught me the power of planning and discipline when it came to achieving goals. My consistent discipline is the big reason that I was able to achieve my company goals"
Example –
Actions and Results
Example – How would you deal with difficult coworkers? “I was a writer for the sports coverage desk of the campus newspaper. There were just 4 of us, including one section leader, and we spent all of our time together going to events – watching them, discussing them, and then writing our stories. There was one guy who was just tough to be around. Every time I proposed a story, he tossed out a sarcastic comment in response. And he always pointed out little things about my story that were vague or wordy. It was hard to work with him. I noticed that over time due to this behavior we were unable to hit some of our deadlines.”
Situation and Goals
Example – Teamwork
Actions and Results
“I finally sat down with him one day when everyone else had left the office. I was really direct with him about how what he was doing affected me. He was really defensive, but then I started to give examples of his bothersome behavior. “ I also showed him that I appreciated his eye for detail, but shared how constructive criticism would sound to me (it was different to his approach, that’s for sure!) I think what really got across was my general message of, ‘Look, we both want to write great articles and give people good recaps of games and stories about the teams. I’m happy if you criticize my writing to help me make it better, but in the future, why don’t we sit together and try to help improve each other’s stuff as opposed to trying to embarrass the other person in front of a group?’ I learned a lot – specifically that sometimes things can get personal, but I needn’t react defensively. Rather than focusing on feelings, I need to show where goals overlap and propose actual steps we can take to fix the problem together. Overtime, our relationship improved and I started receiving more constructive feedback on my writing. Over the next couple months, we started receiving praise for our writings and we hadn’t missed a single deadline”
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How to Prepare? Prepare 15 Main Stories and Spin Them • For each of the 5 categories we discussed above, prepare 3 stories using our framework. Category
Job 1
Leadership and Influence Teamwork Successes Challenges
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Job 2
Personal
Mistakes/Failures
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Additionally, Highlight and Create Stories for the 14 Amazon Principles • Remember the 14 Amazon principles. Now is the time to showcase those principles in your interview. • This is your time to highlight those here in your cheat sheet.
You must lead with those in your interview.
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• That way you’re consistently focusing on the language of the company. • Additionally if within your 15 stories you don’t cover all the principles, add a few more stories to complete the list.
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Final Cheat Sheet for Stories Category
Job 1
Job 2
Persona l
Leadership and Influence Teamwork Successes Challenges Mistakes/Failures Additional Story that covers 14 principles
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Final Cheat Sheet for Stories Additional Story that covers 14 principles
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Practice and Take Action – Leadership and Influence 1. Describe a decision you made that wasn’t popular. How did you handle implementing it. 2. Describe a time when you had to motivate employees as coworkers. 3. Tell me about a time when you showed initiative. 4. Tell me about a time when you showed initiative. 5. Tell me about a time when you had to give a presentation to people who disagreed with you. 6. Tell me about a time when you had to make an unpopular decision. 7. Tell me about a time when you had to sell another person or team on your idea. 8. Tell me about a time when you’ve built a team. coursetake.com
Practice and Take Action – Challenges 1. Tell me about a time when you faced a challenge and overcame it. 2. Tell me about a time when you weren’t able to reach a deadline. 3. Describe a major change that occurred in a job that you held. How did you adapt to this change. 4. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with changing priorities. How did you handle it. 5. Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision quickly or with insufficient data. 6. Tell me about a time when you used a lot of data in a short period of time. 7. Tell me about a time when you handled a risky situation.
Practice and Take Action – Mistakes and Failures 1. 2. 3. 4.
Tell me about a time Tell me about a time Tell me about a time Tell me about a time yourself. 5. Tell me about a time responsibilities.
when you made a mistake. when you failed. you improperly analyzed a situation. when you were disappointed with when you were unable to judge all your
Practice and Take Action – Success 1. Tell me about something you’re proud of accomplishing. 2. Tell me about a time when you reached a goal that was important. 3. Tell me about a specific insight you gained from something outside of work. 4. Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty. 5. Describe a time when you resolved a situation before it became serious. 6. Tell me about a time when you had to show innovation. 7. Tell me about a time when you solved a problem in a creative way.
Practice and Take Action - Teamwork 1. Tell me about accomplish something. 2. Tell me about 3. Tell me about 4. Tell me about to do. 5. Tell me about 6. Tell me about
a time when you had to work across teams to
a time when you had a disagreement at work. a time when you mentored or aided a coworker. a time when you had to do something you didn’t want
a time when you had to compromise. a time when you had to resolve a conflict.
Practice and Take Action - Teamwork
7. Tell me about a time when you had a challenging interaction with a coworker.
Practice and Take Action – PM Specific Tell me a time when you: 1. Created the product roadmap, vision and strategy 2. Led a team 3. Dealt with a difficult team member 4. Executed a plan that grew top line results 5. Took initiative when not asked to do so 6. Made an important decision under time pressure 7. Analyzed a large data set 8. Gained consensus 9. Adjusted your project plan to accommodate unforeseen issues 10.Juggled multiple projects at once 11.Managed the complete product lifecycle
6. Cultural Questions • Remember our “Strengths, Motivation and Fit” framework initially. This type of question focuses on your fit to the company. • The hiring team wants to know whether they can tolerate working with you and if you’ll be a good fit to the team, their values and how they operate everyday.
Most of these should already be covered in the previous section, however, make sure that there are aspects of the culture that you are not missing.
Example – What do you Like to do for fun? In my free time, I love to read books. I’m currently reading a book called “Play Bigger”. The book discusses how some of the fastest growing companies are category creators. They taught customers a new way of doing things. The book outlines something known as “Category Creation Strategy” by learning and summarizing from the best category creators of this world – the likes of Facebook, Uber among others.
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How to Prepare? Remember our “Company” worksheet, where I asked you list out everything related to the company. Now its time to bring all that together.
Pick areas of the culture/values section from that sheet and practice 1 example for each. You don’t need to use the entire SGAR framework. Simply state your answer and justify why?
How to Prepare? Prepare 1 Example for Each Area of the Culture Category
Example
Culture Area 1 Culture Area 2 Values 1 Values 2 …
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Practice and Take Action 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
How books do you read? What do you like to do outside work? What do you do for fun? What are some of your hobbies? Tell me a joke.
Question Type 2 – Tradeoff Questions
These questions test your ability to influence/negotiate as a leader. You will be asked to pick a side and give your reasons for the same.
Framework to Answer
Ask Clarifying Questions
Give 2-3 Reasons as to why you picked that side. Pick a Side
Example: Display Advertisements Amazon recently launched Display Advertisements on its web page, and it was a highly controversial decision within Amazon. Pick either the pro or con side of the argument and explain your position of including ads on the site.
Launching Amazon display advertisements is a good decision, and here’s why: 1. Helps customer experience Advertisements can help minimize negative customer experiences or enhance a positive customer experience. Let’s say a customer was intent on buying a product, but Amazon is out of stock. The customer was going to navigate anyway. Amazon might as well direct the consumer to a competitor that does have the product, enhancing the customer experience. Alternatively, advertising can highlight special offers, enhancing the Amazon shopping experience. 2. Provides additional revenue Advertisers are willing to pay Amazon to achieve their business goals. For instance, manufacturers might want to increase awareness, increase upsell, or shift share away from competitive products. And competitors might want to convert Amazon customers who can’t find what they need on Amazon. In either case, Amazon can generate revenue (from either friend or foe) which they can use to further invest in the Amazon customer experience.
Launching Amazon display advertisements is a bad decision, and here’s why: 1. Distracts customers from purchasing products Ads can clutter the customer experience. For example, it may be harder for the customer to find what they want. In the short-term, it could lead to increased bounce rates, more abandoned shopping carts, and overall reduced conversions. In the longterm, it could lead to reduced repeat visits as customers search for shopping alternatives with a less time-intensive process. 2. Create a negative brand perception Over time, customers could notice that Amazon repeatedly refers customers to Google- like search results. Rather than come to Amazon as their first shopping destination, they may choose to go to Google first, giving a competitor an opportunity to establish their reputation as the first place to find & research products they need.
Practice Questions 1. The US government recently submitted a bill to tax all online sales. Pick a pro or con side of the argument, and explain your position.
Question Type 3 - Pricing Questions
These questions test your ability to price one or more of Amazon’s products.
Framework to Answer 1. Understand 2. Choose a the Product and Competitive Products Pricing strategy
3. Evaluate 4. Recommend Supply and Demand a Price and give 2-3 reasons why
How would you price the Kindle Fire HD? 1. Understand the Product First, I’d begin with the product, discuss similar products, and how they are priced. The Kindle Fire HD is a 7” tablet with HD display. It’s main competitors are the iPad mini, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and Google’s Nexus 7. The iPad retails for $329 while the Galaxy Tab and Nexus 7 both go for $199. The Galaxy Tab and iPad mini both have a lower resolution screen than the Kindle Fire HD. I’d also like to understand how much it costs to manufacture. Each unit costs $174 to make.
How Would you Price the Kindle Fire HD? 2. Choose a Pricing Strategy There are three different ways we can thinking about pricing: 1. 2. 3.
Customer’s willingness to pay Competitive pricing Cost-based pricing
At the high end, we can look at the customer’s willingness to pay for the product. That is, what is the value to the customer. If they didn’t have the product, what would they do instead, and how much would they pay for it. At the low end, we can look at the Kindle Fire’s unit cost and charge a markup. We know that it costs $174 to produce, and we can mark it up by an absolute or relative percentage. At the medium end, we can look at market prices and price within those ranges.
3. Supply and Demand For the last part, we should evaluate supply and demand. Limited supply and high demand might merit a higher price point while the inverse might merit the reverse. We could test different price points and build a supply curve to evaluate the optimal price.
4. Recommendation and Reasons I know you’re looking for an actual price. In the absence of more time and data, I would price the Kindle Fire HD at $179, and here’s why: 1. Competitive pricing. Other Android tablets are priced at $199. Kindle needs to be priced competitively, especially given the # of choices available and not so obvious differentiation. 2. Upsell opportunities. At $179, Amazon gets a slim $5 profit. However, Amazon can gain additional profit from upselling eBooks, music, and video. We can model those revenues as a follow-up question, if you’d like. 3. Strategic. Amazon has made money in books, games, CD, and DVDs. All of that is migrating to digital form. Amazon needs to not only lead this trend, but also win this category to prevent competition from taking their digital content sales.
Practice Questions 1. How would you price the next Kindle?
Question Type 4 – Financial Projections
These questions test your ability to be able to project out financially any decisions made by changes in product.
Framework to Answer Decide what you want to Project
If you are comparing scenarios, then do a before and after.
Decide on the Calculations for Projections
Recommend a side (if needed)
Make appropriate assumptions and do the calculations
Example: Financial Projections for Pricing Change Assume you are the new Product Manager in our Amazon Prime business and are in charge of Pricing. The VP would like to lower the price from $79.99 per year to $69.99 per year. Making your own assumptions, develop the financial projections of this decision.
1. Decide on what projections make sense In order to measure the impact of this decision, I will measure the total impact on the bottom line. For the same of simplicity, I will restrict that to EBITDA i.e. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. 2. Decide on the calculations for EBITA Gross Profit = Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold Gross Margin = Gross Profit / Revenue EBITDA – Gross Profit – Operational Expenses EBITDA Margin = Operational Expenses / Revenue
3. Make appropriate assumptions and do the calculations + 4. If you are comparing scenarios, then do a before and after By lowering price, we will increase customer demand. It’s also possible that the new Prime customers will purchase more. However, increased demand will reduce membership revenues from existing Prime customers and increase shipping costs for existing non-Prime customers. Let’s assume there are 5 MM Prime customers. Existing Prime customers With a $10 discount, that reduces annual revenues by $50 MM
New Prime customers We need to estimate how many additional Prime customers will occur from the price cut and the cost increases. Finally, let’s consider additional revenue from the membership, along with incremental sales. Let’s say any additional 20% join Prime due to the price cut. That’s an additional 1MM Prime customers. The incremental membership revenue is roughly $70MM. Average shipping costs per customer is around $40 per year. Let’s say that moving these customers into Prime increases shipping costs by $20 per year per new Prime customer. That’s an additional $20MM cost.
Financial Projections for Pricing Change Lastly, we can anticipate more frequent purchases due to free 2-day shipping. Let’s say there’s an additional $40 worth of purchases per new Prime customer per year. Amazon’s gross margins are 25%, so that’s an extra $10 per year per new Prime customer. To recap on the EBITDA annual impact: Existing Prime customers -$10MM EBITDA New Prime customers +$60MM EBITDA Increase = +$70MM member revenue - $20MM incremental shipping costs + $10MM incremental gross margin 5.
Recommend a solution
Given these numbers to the bottom line, I would recommend reducing the price.
Practice Questions 1. Should Amazon lower the price of Amazon Prime? 2. Should Amazon decrease payouts to Amazon Associates?
Question Type 5 - Case Based Questions These questions test your ability to approach different strategic product related situations e.g. New Market Entry, New Product, New Business, How to Grow, Strategy, Turnaround, Company Position Assessment These questions also test your ability to strategize about opportunities. Imagine yourself as the CEO of a company. What you would do in certain cases?
Framework to Answer
Market Large market Growing market Good margins
+
How to Enter? Start from Scratch If Yes, How?
Acquisition
Enterin g No
Joint
How to Enter?
Venture
Start from Scratch, Acquisition or Joint Venture
Segment, Segment, Segment ALWAYS, ALWAYS SEGMENT • Segment revenues (by product, channel, customer type, region) (total revenues, revenues per unit) • Segment costs (by fixed vs variable, costs within each segment of value chain) (total costs, cost per unit) • Segment customers (by demographics, needs, purchasing patterns, price point, other) • Segment competitors (by channel, region, product, customer segment)
Example: New Market Entry Start a new category, division, or international market for Amazon. Which one did you choose and why? I would start a dollar store category for Amazon. It’s a good fit because:
Category
Reason
Market
5-7% annual growth. 30-40% vs. Amazon’s 20-28%.
Customer
22% of dollar store customers make $70k+ per year.
Products
Dollar store improves product selection, so its consistent with Amazon’s overall product strategy.
Company
Amazon likely has relationships with dollar item manufacturers already.
Competition
Physical products can utilize Amazon’s superior fulfillment Dollar store value without the driving and the slimy store experience.
Tips – Product • Important point of your answer:
Overall Strategy
Vision: • Global reach • Customer prioritization • Widest selection of products Mission: • Lowest prices • Best selection
Leverage Amazon’s
Tips – Product
• Utmost convenience
Tips - Company • Important point of your answer:
Leverage
Amazon’s Capabilities as a Company
Ideal products leverage Amazon’s strengths including: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Brand Marketing & distribution Merchandising platform Fulfillment infrastructure copyright ©
Tips - Company 5. Customer service
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Practice Questions 1. Should Amazon start selling groceries from neighborhood markets? 2. You’re Jef Bezos. The head of corporate development tells you that Quora is in play, and both Microsoft and Facebook are bidding for it. Should Google participate in the discussions? 3. You are the CEO of Yellow Cab taxi service. How do you respond to Uber? 4. If you were Amazon’s CEO, would you be concerned about Microsoft? 5. How does Amazon make money, and what are the biggest threats? 6. Should Amazon launch a Smartphone? 7. Choose a company that you believe provides a world class customer experience. What do they do well? 8. Amazon launched a new program called Amazon Prime. Why is Amazon Prime strategically important for the company?
Question Type 6 – Customer Experience Questions
These questions test your passion for great customer experience.
Key Factors Key factors for a good customer service experience: • Helpfulness. Is the company’s staf helpful? • Value for time. Does the company demonstrate that they value and attempt to make efficient use of the customer’s time? • Customer recognition. Does the customer feel recognized and acknowledged at first contact? • Promise fulfillment. Does the company keep promises? • Problem solving. Extent which customers feel that staf try to resolve problems.
Example: World Class Customer Service Choose a company that you believe provides a world-class customer experience. What do they do well? Answer: I believe Home Depot has a world-class customer experience. When I think why, it comes down to three criteria: • How knowledgeable is the staf? • Does the staf go the extra mile to help me out?
Example: World Class Customer Service • Can I find the product I need?
I’ll go into more detail. I have a home improvement problem, but I don’t know how to solve it. Without knowing what to solve, I don’t know what to buy at Home Depot. Because their staf is very knowledgeable, often stafed with former contractors, they not only point you to the product you need, but also give helpful tips on how to use it. For customers who are looking for solutions, it’s a blessing that the staf doesn’t just care about selling products, but solving problems. The staf typically goes an extra mile to help you out. The other day, I needed to buy a hex wrench to loosen up my sink disposal. The Home Depot clerk and I weren’t too sure of which one I should buy. Rather than have me buy a couple wrenches and return the ones that didn’t work, he said, “Let’s take all these to the sink disposal section and make sure we find a good fit before you checkout.” It required him to open up some packaging to do so. I really appreciated his extra efort. Lastly, I can always find the home improvement product that I need in Home Depot. I’m always rest assured that my time driving to Home Depot is time well spent.
Example: Poor Customer Service Choose a company you believe provides a poor customer experience. What do they do poorly? How would you improve it? Lowe’s provides a poor customer experience. And here’s why: • Understaffed. Home improvement purchases are complicated. Customers need help – whether it’s to identify the right product or picking the right product from the top shelf. Lowe’s stores are consistently understafed that customers, on average, spend 3-5 minutes searching for an associate to assist. Compared to Home Depot, where associates are plentiful and can be often found in less than 30 seconds – the customer has a more pleasing customer experience. • Can’t seem to get the basics right. Lowe’s sales associates are poorly trained. Many of them seem to be new and lack understanding of Lowe’s processes. I’ve had two occasions where they did a poor job describing how sales discounts are being applied. • Limited product selection. One often has a hard time finding the right products in the store; they don’t seem to have the selection that Home Depot has.
To improve the situation, I would recommend the following be addressed: • Improve sales associate knowledge. This can be accomplished by either hiring more skilled clerks or better training programs. A recent MSN Money poll mentioned that knowledgeable staf is what customers say matters most. • Hire more associates. Customers don’t like to waste time. Make it easy for customers to get questions answered. An alternative to hiring associates could include self-service information kiosks, more product pamphlets, better signage, and a system to locate and page the nearest sales associate. • Increase product selection. Product selection is key. It can be improved by either carrying more goods in-store, supplement in-store goods with goods that can be purchased online, or possibly partner with
complementary partners that would give Lowe’s a more complete solution set for customers.
Practice 1. Amazon cannot get enough Nintendo consoles. What should Amazon do when visitors find that it’s out of stock?
Question Type 7 - Metrics Questions
Product Managers as part of their job need to influence KPIs directly, so its important to understand Product metrics.
Framework to Answer Background Information
Metrics to Track Success
Goals
A/B Testing Approach
1. Background Information 5 W and an H are questions that are considered basic information gathering. 5 W and an H 1. What is the product? 2. Who is it for? 3. Why would they use it? 4. Where is it available? 5. When will it be available? 6. How does it work?
2. Goals Goals vs. Metrics • Goals are high level qualitative success criteria for a product and/or feature. • Metrics are specific Key Performance Indicators that will help you measure success of the goal. These are quantitative.
Goals
Metrics
List of Goals
Acquisition – Getting people to your product/service.
What are we trying to solve for? Acquisition
Engagement
Activation
Activation – Getting people to convert e.g. signup, free to paid etc.
Retention
Engagement – Customers are spending time with your product/service. Retention – Customers keep coming back.
Monetization
Virality
Monetization – Make money with your product.
Virality – Invite others to your product.
3. Metrics to Track Success Goals
Sample Metrics
Acquisition Activation
# of Visits # of Lazy Registrations # of Signups
Engagement
Example: # of Likes, # of Posts Shared etc. etc. (Product specific)
Retention
1 day Active Users (Daily Active Users – DAU) 7 day Actives 30 day Actives
Monetization
ARPU (Average Revenue per User) ARRPU (Average Revenue per Paying User) ARPDAU (Average Revenue per Daily Active User) LTV Conversation Rate
Virality
% of Signups sending invites. Ratio of Invites to Signups
4. A/B Testing Approach A/B Testing means testing your features for achieving your KPI targets before you go live to production with the entire feature. For example: You can test your feature for a metrics Metric / KPI
Lift
P Value
# of Signups
25%
0.02
Lift represents the amount of change in that metric. P value represents the statistical significance of the test. A value of 0.02 means that there is a 98% chance that the test results are valid. A number below 0.05 i.e. greater than 95% probability is good enough to give you confidence on this test results.
Example: Amazon New Feature Success Metrics Amazon is testing a few feature asking a new user to upload their profile photo during the signup process. What metrics would you use to evaluate the success of this feature?
1. Background Information Let me start by understanding the overall user experience of this feature and ask a few questions. Looks like this is the signup dialog during the amazon.com workflow that we’re talking about.
2. Goals and Constraints I also want to know what specific we are solving for. Looks like the core goal for this feature would be to increase overall customer satisfaction or in general engagement. Is that correct? Yes Given this is an important feature that touches other overall goals such as Activation, I’d like to analyze those as well.
3. Metrics
Goals
Metrics
Engagement
Percentage of photo uploaders to customers signing up. # of customers who upload photos during the signup process.
Activation
Percentage of visitors who complete the entire profile process. # of users completing the entire profile process.
4. A/B Testing The next step would be ensure that we A/B test this new feature to hit a 95% statistical significance on these metrics. My expectation is that we do not see a change in our Activation metrics compared to the baseline and a clear increase in the Engagement metrics for us to judge the success of this feature .
Practice 1. Suggest a new feature on the Amazon website. (Next section). What metrics would you use to track success of the same. 2. What feature would you add to Amazon Alexa? (Next section). What metrics would you use to track success of the same.
Question Type 8 - Design Questions
These questions test your ability to either critique design (good or bad), create new features for products or improve existing products.
Question Type 8a – New or Improvement Design Questions
Framework to Answer Background Informatio n
Goals and Constraint s
copyright ©
Personas
Requirements
Prioritization
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Solutions
When to use? 1. How would you improve product X? 2. What would you add, remove, or change about product X? 3. You’re the PM for product X. What new feature would you create? 4. What killer feature would create as PM for product X? 5. Create a mobile app for a popular website.
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1. Background Information 5 W and an H are questions that are considered basic information gathering. 5 W and an H 1. What is the product? 2. Who is it for? 3. Why would they use it? 4. Where is it available? 5. When will it be available? 6. How does it work?
2. Goals and Constraints What are we trying to solve for? Acquisition
Engagement
Acquisition – Getting people to your product/service
Activation
Activation – Getting people to convert e.g. signup, free to paid etc.
Retention
Engagement – Customers are spending time with your product/service. Retention – Customers keep coming back.
Monetization
Virality
Monetization – Make money with your product.
Virality – Invite others to your product.
Constraints Resources Budget
Time
Constraints
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3. Personas Personas helps us understand customer motivations 1. Personas is a stand-in for a larger user group 2. 3.
Help us understand customer motivations, expectations, and goals A detailed persona answers the following:
1. 2. 3. 4.
Who is this person? What do they need or desire? How do they currently get the job done? How does it make them feel?
Persona terminology 1. 2. 3.
Primary persona is the main target. They’ve been dying for your solution, and they’d be your early evangelists. Secondary persona is interested, but needs convincing. They’ve got a solution, but it’s not ideal. Negative persona is a potential future user, but you are not consciously going after their needs.
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4. Requirements/User Stories • User stories are simple, easy, efective in gathering requirements • User stories conveys what the end user wants to do in normal every day language. • It does not describe how the solution works.
Requirements/User Stories User story template and examples As a , I want so that . Examples • As an administrator, I want to be able to add/delete/change my boss’s schedule so that I don’t have to use his password. • As a FB user, I want to see out-of-town friends who send status messages in my hometown first, so that I can send them a note. Why do user stories work? • Concise • Captures the who, what, why • More casual
5. Prioritization User Story
Monetization
Implementati on Difficulty
Overall
3
Engagement/C ust omer Satisfaction 3
Story A
1
9
Story B
2
2
2
6
Story C
1
1
3
3
User Story
Monetization Impact
Story sizing
Priority
Story A
$500K
8
Revenue per point of effort $62.5K
Story B
$100K
3
$33K
2
Story C
$20K
2
$10K
3
1
6. Solutions • Brainstorm several solution alternatives for the use case you have chosen. • Do a real-time pros/cons analysis. It will create the perception that you are objective, thoughtful, and analytical. • Out of all the ideas, recommend a solution that you feel best meets the use case, the business goal, and constraints. Pros Solution 1 Solution 2
Cons
6. Solutions Solution 3
Techniques for Brainstorming - Reversal Reversing the situation helps uncover new possibilities. Example: Buyers don’t have time to travel to the car dealership. Reversal: Dealership delivers test drives to the buyer’s home. Example: Policeman disorganizes traffic. Reversal: Have traffic directs themselves by using a stop sign. Example: Customers can’t decide what to order at a restaurant. Reversal: Restaurant has no menu. Chef chooses what the customer eats based on what he bought at the market that day. Example: Customers don’t like the restaurant’s wine selection.
Techniques for Brainstorming - Reversal
Reversal: Customer provides the wine. Restaurant provides ambiance and service for a fee.
Techniques for Brainstorming - Attribute Example: Design for a new laundry hamper
Techniques for Brainstorming - Why? Ask “Why?” something exists or is done the way it is. Example: Why not a space elevator? Example 2: Why should cofee cups have handles?
Techniques for Brainstorming – Provoke Provoke method moves thinking to a new place where new ideas or solutions may be found. Example: Sales are dropping because product is perceived as old-fashioned. Ideas • Change the color of the packaging • Flood the market with even older-looking products to make it seem more appealing • Call it retro • Sell it to old people • Sell it to young people as a gift for old people • Open a museum dedicated to it
Techniques for Brainstorming – Provoke • Market it as a new product
Techniques for Brainstorming – SCAMPER is a framework to help develop provocative new solutions.
S C A M P E R
Substitute something. Combine it with something else. Adapt something to it. Modify or magnify it. Purpose – put it some other use. Eliminate an element. Reverse or rearrange it.
Example: Amazon Prime New Features Assume you are the new Product Manager in our Amazon Prime business and are in charge of new Feature Development. What data would you look at to develop new features? What new features would they be?
1. Background Information Before we jump into the question, do you mind if I clarify my understanding of Amazon Prime – especially the service and the benefits to both the customer and to Amazon’s overall business. Thanks. I understand that Amazon Prime is a membership club. Amazon Prime members get free two-day shipping for every order they place. They can also stream movies & TV shows for free and borrow books from the Kindle library. I'm assuming the biggest benefit for Prime members is the shipping. Normally, free super saver shipping takes 5-8 days to arrive. Two day shipping is a huge improvement. And by making it available to all orders must reduce the indecision on whether to upgrade from free super saver to a one-time shipping upgrade.
2. Goals and Constraints Ok, so back to the question. If I were to develop new features, I’d start with our business goal. What are we trying to achieve? There could a number of diferent goals, but I’m going to focus on an acquisition/activation goal as measured by: Increase the # of Prime customers
3. Personas Are there any specific personas that I need to focus on when designing new features? No.
4. Requirements We would need to first investigate why regular Amazon customers won't try Amazon Prime. It could be a number of diferent reasons: 1. Lack of awareness 2. Aware, but not enough interest or a lackluster value prop Interested, but not making the efort to try 3. Tried it, but not compelled to stay as a paying customer
Based on your knowledge, what's the #1 reason new customers Engages interviewer for don't try Amazon Prime? Ok, thanks for your data. You've found that 65% of Amazon customers are aware of Amazon Prime, but no more than half have actually paid for it. Furthermore, you've found that the reason those who haven't paid is because they didn’t find the value prop compelling.
For the purposes of the discussion, let's set assume marketing is not the reason why there's not enough interest. By putting that out of scope, that allows us to develop new product features.
When it comes to developing new features, I'd like to see data on customer's top pain points when it comes to their Amazon shopping experience. Then we’ll construct new Prime features to address the top pain point. Of the top of my head, here are what I feel are the top customer pain points: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Can't find the product I need Not a bargain Not timely Too much of a hassle to buy online
5. Prioritization Of these scenarios, I think the most important use case is "I can't find the product I need." I think "not timely" is another interesting use case, since Prime's core value prop focuses on that. Which one would you like me to focus on? Ok, I'll go ahead with that “can’t find the product I need” use case. Give me a moment to brainstorm some ideas.
6. Solutions I have a couple features in mind to solve that problem: 1. Personal shopper 2. Free return shipping 3. Product perks club Personal shopper gives each Prime member customized help when shopping for products. They can provide customized gift ideas, research products, and otherwise navigate Amazon’s seemingly endless database. Customer satisfaction & purchases are likely to go up – even for existing Prime members. But there will be costs to this program.
Free return shipping gives person the comfort that if they’re not sure if it’s the right product, they can buy it first and always return it later. This may lead to new Prime customers, but it also increases costs for not only new Prime customers but also old Prime customers. Product perks club is a special club where customers are given free samples, try new products, and write reviews. Not only does this introduce Prime member to new products and makes them feel special. The cost may be covered by manufacturers, who may want to get their products in front of the Amazon audience. Of all the feature ideas presented, I feel that product perks club has the best win-win. Customers & advertisers will like it, and the costs will be largely subsidized by advertisers. The feature that has the most impact as the free return shipping. The product perks club and personal concierge feel like nice to have features for most prospective Prime customers. However, free return shipping could tip a significant number of new Prime customers to Amazon.
Practice 1. 2. 3. 4.
How How How How
would would would would
you you you you
improve improve improve improve
the Kindle app? Amazon search? Amazon’s home page? Amazon’s signup process?
5. You are a Product Manager on the Amazon Kindle store. What killer feature would you build? 6. Design a brand new iPad app for Amazon. 7. How would you improve the current Amazon shopping app? 8. The billboard industry is under monetized. How can Amazon create a new product or ofering to address this?
Question Type 8b – Critiquing Design Framework to Answer Background Information
Define Criteria to judge
Define a Pros and Cons table
Conclude
When to use? 1. What are your thoughts on product X? 2. Do you think feature X is a good idea?
1. Background Information 5 W and an H are questions that are considered basic information gathering. 5 W and an H 1. What is the product/feature? 2. Who is it for? 3. Why would they use it? 4. Where is it available? 5. When will it be available? 6. How does it work?
2. Define Criteria to Judge 1. Innovative 2. Makes a product useful Pick one of these 10. I’ve highlighted the top 4. 3. Aesthetic 4. Understandable 5. Unobtrusive 6. Honest 7. Long-lasting 8. Thorough down to the last detail 9. Environmentally friendly 10. As little design as possible
3. Define Pros and Cons Table Pros Innovative Makes a product useful Understandable Honest
Cons
4. Conclude Finally make a decision on what your thoughts are about the product/feature based on the Pros and Cons matrix for that product/feature.
Example: Poorly Designed Product Tell me about a product that was designed poorly.
1. Background Information When I think about a poorly designed product, I think about the Apple hockey puck mouse.
2. Define Criteria to judge I’d like to judge this product on the following criteria 1. 2. 3.
Understandable Honesty Usefulness
3. Pros and Cons and Conclusion Criteria
Pros
Understandable
Honesty
Usefulness
Cons It doesn’t work well. The round shape made it hard to orient. Without looking at the mouse, you cannot tell if you are holding it right side up, upside down, sideways. The mouse could several tactical clues to help determine its orientation
Shape was unique
The design was excessive. The blue accents on the left and right do not deliver any additional function. It could be misconstrued for Thebuttons. shape was not useful. Holding the mouse was awkward.
Practice 1. Tell me about product you like and use frequently. Why do you like it? 2. Tell me about a product that was designed poorly. 3. What do you think about Amazon’s ”Customers who bought this book also bought” feature on the product pages?
Question Type 9 - Vision Questions
These questions test your ability to portray and solve for a grand product vision.
Framework to Answer
Solve a real problem
Be unique Describe and memorable how it will be solved
Example: Verticals of the Future Choose one of these verticals. Where do you think it’ll be in ten years? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
3D Printing Education Energy Mobile Security
1.Solve a real problem I’ll choose education. I love my kids, and I think about how hard it is for them to learn. The oldest is trying to memorize a Chinese poem. Yesterday, she cried and cried because she couldn’t do it. She wanted to give up. I gave her a tip: memorize the poem in chunks. It worked. It was easier to memorize bite-sized pieces of information and she memorized the entire poem within one hour.
2. Be unique and memorable So, to answer your question, I think in the next 10 years there’s a huge opportunity to create the AllRecipes.com of learning that is, every single person from every single teacher around the world can be indexed on a single website. 3. Describe how it will be solved. We would develop a PageRank-like formula to determine the most efective way to teach a concept. It would accelerate the learning process
exponentially. Who knows? Rather than spend 13 years to get through K-12 education, what if we could teach everyone the same material in just 5 years?
Good learning methods make a diference, but the challenge is getting all the lessons the plans out of teachers’ brains and into an indexed system. There is a new technology that has a lot of promise: the Brain Cap. A University of Washington researcher invented it. It is a computer that can detect brain waves for thoughts and actions. Once the brain waves are recorded, that can be saved or transmitted to another person.
We could use this technology to constantly monitor and document teachers’ thoughts and techniques, we could create the world’s most efective database of lesson plans, cut down on learning time, and improve efficacy.
Practice 1. What do you think Amazon can do on the iPhone that is truly groundbreaking?
Question Type 10 - Estimation Questions
These questions test your quantitative ability to make estimates about product opportunities
Framework to Answer 2. Make an 1. Clarify theEquation. Break it down if needed. 3. Review Edge Question Cases
4. Make Assumptions
5. Do the Math
6. Sanity Check
Example: How many iPhones are sold in the US each year? This is a market sizing question. 1. Clarify the Question Are you looking for specific distribution channels? No. Feel free to make assumptions that you may have. Are you looking for new or used iPhones? New Any specific versions of iPhones? No
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Sample Market Sizing Equation # of people in population
# of target customers in population
Quantity per
Purch copyright ©
Purchase Frequency
ase Period
Market
Share
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Price per unit
Example: How many iPhones are sold in the US each year? 2. Make an Equation. Break it down if needed. Total # of iPhones sold in the US = Total population of the US x % of people who have a cell phone x # of times per year they purchase a cell phone x number of cell phones they purchase each time x % of new cell phone purchases x % of market share occupied by iPhones 3. Review edge cases – None for now.
4. Make an Equation. Break it down if needed. Total population of the US = 315MM % of people who have a cell phone = 90% # of times per year they purchase a cell phone = once every 2 years, so ½ a year number of cell phones they purchase each time = 1 % of new cell phone purchases = 60% % of market share occupied by iPhones = 40%
5. Do the Math Calculations The number of people looking to buy a new phone each year is: (315 million people in the US) x (90% people have a cell phone) x (1/2 will be buying a new phone this year) = 142 million The number of people that will buy the iPhone each year: (142 million people that will be buying a new phone this year) x (60% will get a smartphone) x (40% of the smartphone buyers will buy an iPhone) =
34 million
6. Sanity Check Math looks good and my assumptions look solid. This is a good chance to check your Math and make sure your assumptions are all correct.
Other Types of Questions/Equations • Volume • Example: How many golf balls will fit in a plane? • # of golf balls = (volume of plane – volume of all items in the plane) / volume of golf ball
• Time • Example: How long would it take to empty a hot tub using only a drinking straw? • Time = (Volume of hot tub / volume of straw) * time to empty and fill a straw
• Weight • Example: How much does a school bus weigh? • Total weight = sum of the weights of all parts that make up the bus.
Types of Questions/Equations • Web Ad Based Products – Google/Facebook/Twitter • Example: How much does Facebook make in ads every year? • Amount in Revenue = • • • • • •
Number of Visits per day x Number of Page views per visit x Number of ads shown per page x Click through rate x Cost per click x 365
Total Total Total Total Total Total
# of visits # of Page views # of Ads # of clicks $ per day $ per year
Numbers to Learn Data
Value
US Population
300 million
Average people per household
3
# of households in the US
100 million
Life expectancy (US)
80 years
Life expectancy (world)
65 – 70 years
World population
7 billion
European population
700 million
Asia population
4 billion
Hours in a year
9000
Minutes in a year
500,000
All numbers from Amazon
Learn from section
Lifetime Value • Sometimes you might get a question on Lifetime Value. If you do, its better to be prepared. • Here is a good blog article and infographic that outlines the entire calculation for lifetime value. • https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-calculate-lifetime-value/?wide=1
• I would suggest learning practicing this formula once before you go into the interview, just in case you are asked.
Practice Questions 1. What’s Gmail revenue per year? Web Ad Based Products 2. How much money does the shampoo industry earn each year in the US? Market Size 3. How much does the US spend on dog food each year? Market Size 4. How many tennis balls can fit in a two bedroom apartment? Volume 5. How many police officers are there in the US? Market Size 6. How many schools are there in the US? Market Size 7. How long would it take to empty a hot tub using only a drinking straw? Time 8. How many pairs of eyeglasses are sold every year in the US? Market Size 9. How many basketballs are purchased every year in the US? Market Size 10. How much does a school bus weigh? Weight 11. How much money do people spend on haircuts every year in the US? Market Size
Practice Questions
12. How much money does Facebook make in ads every year? Web Ad Based Products 13. How many queries does Gmail get per second? Web Ad Based Products 14. What is the lifetime value for a kindle user? Lifetime Value
Section 6 – Questions to Ask
Questions • You might think that you’ve done everything to prepare for your interview. But you have one more step to prepare for: Questions • Now its your turn to ask your interviewers questions.
DO NOT IGNORE THIS STEP • This is chance for you to showcase to your interviewer your passion for the job and the company. coursetake.com
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Interviewers are Judging You Based on the Questions you Ask • You might think that the interview is over when the interviewer asks – “Do you have any questions for me?”. • The truth of the matter is that it is not. • This is your chance to leave your interviewer with a lasting impression. How? • By asking some really good questions.
• Let’s see a framework next about asking questions.
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Framework to ask Questions • We will go back at this point of time to our old friend – You can do this for each interviewer you meet during the entire process
ICJC
Ask a question about the industry Ask a question about the company Ask a question about the job/role Ask a question about the culture/values
My Favorites List The following is a list of questions I ask time and time again in interviews and it has always worked. Use this as a set of examples to apply to your own specific job.
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1. Example: Industry • How do you think the industry has changed over the years and what do you think is the outlook for the industry?
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2. Example: Company • What’s Company X’s future plans? • What’s next in terms of products/services and/or growth?
3. Example: Job/Role • What are the top challenges for this role as of today? • How do you see this role solving those challenges?
4. Example: Company/Values • How would you describe the company’s culture? • How do teams operate and make decisions on a day to day basis?
Do not ask These Questions • There are 3 categories of questions you shouldn’t ask: • Red Flag Questions - Anything around salary, vacation, benefits etc. • Even though you don’t mean to, this might come across in the wrong way.
• Obvious Questions – Do not ask questions that you should know answers to already. • For example: How do you make money as a company? • This might show that you just didn’t prepare.
• Critical Questions – Finally anything that criticizes the company/group/person for making a certain decision. • Example: Why didn’t you follow a strategy like Y?
Do not ask These Questions
• You might come across as Mr. Smarty Pants.
Section 7 – Preparation Plans and Tips coursetake.com
What Amazon is Looking for in Top Candidates • Writes well • Can write concise copy that gets it done. • Finds the perfect words, not just ones that suffice.
• Forecasts and measures • Can forecast the benefit of a project using past experience and leverage comps. • Measures results and factor appropriately.
• Understands technical tradeoffs and design • Do not have to have a CS degree, but understands technical complexity without devs’ cost input. copyright ©
• Can appreciate great design and can articulate design diferences.
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Prep plan for an Amazon PM Phone Interview Item Amazon Company Information Behavioral Questions
Total Number of 2Hours hours 10 hours
Tradeof Questions
2 hours
Pricing Questions
2 hours
Financial Projections
2 hours
Strategy Questions
2 hours
Customer Experience Questions
2 hours
Metrics Questions
2 hours
Design Questions
2 hours
Vision Questions
1 hour
Estimation Questions
2 hours
Prepare Questions to Ask
1 hour
Prep plan for an Amazon PM Phone Interview Total
28 hours
Prep plan for an Amazon PM Onsite Interview Item Amazon Company Information Behavioral Questions
Total Number of 5Hours hours 25 hours
Tradeof Questions
5 hours
Pricing Questions
5 hours
Financial Projections
5 hours
Strategy Questions
5 hours
Customer Experience Questions
2 hours
Metrics Questions
5 hours
Design Questions
2 hours
Vision Questions
5 hour
Estimation Questions
5 hours
Prepare Questions to Ask
1 hour
Prep plan for an Amazon PM Onsite Interview Total
70 hours
Supplementary Tools • The following is a list of supplementary tools that I believe are necessary to hold with you at every given point of time during the interview. • These tools will take you to the next level as compared to every candidate out there.
3. Cheat Sheets
1. Resume/CV 2. Online Profile
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Supplementary Tools 4. Portfolio
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5. Appearance
6. Confidence
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9.a. Resume
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The Resume is Important • As much as my personal view is that it is very hard to summarize what a person can bring to the table on a single page, the resume unfortunately is the first step in the job search process, so ensuring that you get it right is extremely important.
Resume Template • As part of this class, we’ve provided for you a resume template that you can use as part of your job search. • It’s a template that top notch business school’s use to prescribe to their students. • I firmly believe it will help you stand apart from the crowd.
Please use the resume template from from this course.
9.b. Online Profile (s)
Scrub It… • In this day and age, whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, your online profile plays a big role in getting you a job or not. • And I don’t just mean this for professional social media sites like LinkedIn, but any presence you have out there will be looked at. • Employers can get turned on or of by your profile based on what you have on it, so.
Please make sure your online profiles are clean
Scrub It…
before you begin your job search.
For Every Social Media Profile… Use a professional photograph
Additionally… • For every post and/or image you have out there: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Remove any references to sexuality. Remove any references to guns, violence or drugs. Remove any references to profanity. Check your spellings and grammar – make sure everything is correct.
I understand that this might be you and you might be unwilling to change, however, do note that employers consistently look for this information, so its worth your time cleaning your profile up before you begin the search.
It will only help you convert better.
For LinkedIn Especially… • Please make sure that you’re entire profile is complete. • This means, put every detail of your resume out on the profile. • LinkedIn is nothing but your resume online.
Update all Profiles • This includes Twitter, SnapChat, Facebook, Google+ and others. • Please do not think that employers will not look at your other profiles.
In today’s day and age you are out in the open, whether you like it or not.
9.c. Worksheets/Cheatsheets
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Cheat Sheets • As part of this course, you will get a number of different worksheets that you will need to fill in as you are doing your preparation. • I’d highly recommend that you take the time to fill these sheets in as you start your interview preparation.
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For Phone Interviews Only… • Another very important tip is to fill in your interview sheets and keep them handy when you are doing your phone interviews.
• Use these as cheat sheets while answering. • This will ensure that you don’t forget anything you’ve learnt and also give you an opportunity to showcase your confidence during your interview process.
• Note: Please do not keep your cheat sheets out when on a video conference or onsite. It’s a sign of lack of preparation.
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9.d. Portfolio
Get Your Portfolio Ready • In today’s day and age, its NOT ONLY your work experience that matters, but your portfolio is extremely important too. • A portfolio will help you stand apart from the crowd and absolutely impress your future employer.
What do I Mean by Portfolio? Examples: These are just samples. Whatever your profile is, find work from your past that Presentations have done. youthat canyou showcase to your employer and impress them. Blog articles that you have written. Business Plans that you have created. Software Development – Code Samples. Design Work e.g. illustrations, web pages, mobile pages etc. etc. Any personal websites or projects you have run. Product Plans College Projects
Where do I Place These Documents? • You can place these documents on your own personal website if you have one. • Your LinkedIn profile also gives you the opportunity to write blog posts, upload documents etc. • Specific job profiles will have certain online tools that the community uses. Designers use Dribble, Developers use Github. • So make sure your profile is online, current and accurate on these places. • Employers will be expecting to see these.
9.e. Appearance
What to Wear? • I have one rule of thumb when it comes to dressing up for interviewers – “Always Overdress than Underdress”. • When in doubt, better to dress up in Business Formals.
If You’re Male… • If you’re male, this means a suit and tie – and not something that looks like a hand-me-down from your older brother. • You don’t need to spend a fortune on a suit, but it’s worth getting at least a moderately priced one that fits you well and that implies that you’re taking the interview seriously.
If You’re Female… • If you’re female, “business formal” also means “wear a suit” – do not wear a dress or go in looking like you’re auditioning to be a pole dancer.
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On Interview Day – What to Bring With you?
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On Interview Day – What to Bring With you?
• Just bring a nice-looking folder with hard copies of your resume / CV, a few extra sheets of paper, and a pen or pencil (in case you get questions where you need to write something down). • If you have a printable portfolio, make sure to carry that with you or an iPad/laptop if you need to show your portfolio to the hiring team.
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9.f. Confidence
This Should’ve Been the First Chapter of This Class • Look, I’ve already explained to you before that the entire job search process is a game of numbers. • There are absolutely NO EMOTIONS that should be attached to the process. • The more you attach emptions to the process, you more you are going to be worried, or scared or think – “What if I don’t get the job?”, or “What if I don’t make it”?
All this is just going to decrease your confidence
Confidence is All That Matters • At the end of the day of my friends, you can study all you want, you can practice all the questions you want, but if you can’t walk into that room and talk like you own that room, you are NOT going to get the job. • So you’ve got to practice, practice and practice. And what if you don’t get the job? • Well, simple – MOVE ON. Open your Trello board, move the card over the rejected. Open your google calendar and schedule more study sessions, application sessions and continue the process.
So How Do I Increase my Confidence? • Firstly,
please do all the exercises in this class.
Please do not skimp on them.Please do them seriously. They are in here because they work. • Secondly, get your mind right during the interview process – exercise daily, meditate for a period of time, eat healthy. • All these little things will help increase your confidence, make you look and feel confident and good.
So How Do I Increase my Confidence?
• Have fun. This can be a stressful time. Go out, network with others, have a good time with your friends. Don’t take the entire process so seriously. Make it part of your daily routine.
Section 8 – Conclusion coursetake.com
Don’t Expect Anything • Going into the interview, just remember that Amazon needs you – its not the other way around. • Remember that there are many many opportunities out there. • Job searching is nothing but a game of numbers. • The more you apply, the more your chances are to succeed.
• If you want a big picture course on How to Prepare for an Upcoming Job Interview, I would recommend one of our other classes.
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Conclusion With that in mind:
Best of Luck
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Contact
support @coursetake.c om
Conclusion | Disclaimer
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