Interview Prep Session: Tech - University of Pennsylvania · will connect your resume to their role Work backwards Virtual goads to traditional eCommerce Option #1: Start with the

Interview Prep Session: TechMBA Career Management

Dr. Sam Jones | Sue Valerio-Slade | Eric Johnson WG18

December 3, 2018

Agenda

MBA Career Management

2

Five Types of Interview Questions

• Motivational

• Behavioral

• Mini-Case

• Case

• Technical

Research

• Analyze job description and match to your resume experience

• Executive Speeches

• Wharton insights: Offer Directory, CareerPath and the Resource

Library, SY Interviews, Alumni Interviews & Past Interview Questions

• Industry trends – deep dive on the industry

• Company SWOT interview preparation – deep dive on a company

Skills

• 5 Most asked questions

• “Walk me through your resume”

• Evidence –Based Best Practices

• Motivational

• STAR – behavioral interview framework

• Case and mini-case framework

• Technical Questions

• Follow-up

Motivational

Mini-Case

Case

Technical/Coding/Data Set

Five Types of Tech Interview Questions

Resume/Behavioral


Research

Tech Team Curated Resources

ONLINE WORKSHOPS BIG EVENTS

• Tech Page

• Monthly Coaching

Letters

• Student Memos

• Interview Questions

• MBACM Company

Overviews

• Alumni Insights

• Industry Chat

• Big 6

• Tech 50

• Roles in Tech

• Navigating the

Enterprise Job Search

• Interview Prep

Workshop

• NYC Treks

• West Coast Treks

• Wharton Tech Week

• Semester in SF

ROAD TO THE INTERNSHIP

ONE-ON-ONE

• Office Hours

• Scheduled

Appointments

• Career Fellow Mock

Interviews

Self-guided Knowledge

Transfer

Experiential Personalized


Analyze Job Description


Listen to Tech Executive Speeches


7

How to transform company culture and the future of AI:

• Our job is to meet the unmet, unarticulated needs of

customers. No way to innovate without having the deeper

sense of empathy

• Must measure ourselves with the outcomes outside of our

own balance sheet

How to make the product better:

• Need to get trust right

• Past: Too many options around privacy

• Solution: Simplify the options, have them visible when

writing a post

How to communicate high-level aspirations:

• Economic opportunity for every member of the global

workforce

• Develop the world’s first economic graph connecting

people, companies, jobs and universities

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook

Satya Nadella, Microsoft

Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72A4rdsuV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tyCydR30pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQdJ39Kyq7A

Review Offer Directory and CareerPath


Offer Directory

• Identify Wharton students who

accepted internships or full-time

positions at specific companies

• Learn about students’ summer

internship experience

CareerPath > Research Tools

• View current and historical offer timing, source,

trends

• Review and analyze current and historical salary

data

https://students.mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/job-search-resources/networking/offer-directory-search/

https://apps.wharton.upenn.edu/authentication/index.cfm?service=12Twenty&auth=pennkey

CareerPath Resource Library


Step 1Find

Resource

Library on

left-side

navigation

Step 2Choose

Technology

folder

Step 3Choose

specific

company

folder


Tech Industry Page

MBACM Site > Research Tools > Research by Industry >

Technology Industries


https://students.mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/job-search-resources/research/research-industry/technology-industries/

Company SWOT: Interview Preparation

11

To prepare for interviews:

1. Build a SWOT Preparation for each A-List company

2. Find 10 sources

• >5 Analyst reports

• ~1 Sr. Executive Video (>15 min.)

• ~2 Articles

• ~2 current/former employees

• 10-k

3. Topics: products, customers/users/markets, operation, revenue, competitors

4. Fill-in the chart

5. Ask yourself how the chart relates to the role you applied to?


Strengths Weaknesses

Opportunities Threats

Sample LinkedIn SWOT

12


Strengths

• Leading professional social network

• Hiring solutions disruptive to online job

market

• Barrier to entry = network effect

• Value to recruiters depends on data, not on

user engagement

Weaknesses

• LinkedIn members less engaged than

other social networks

• Hiring solutions susceptible to

economic conditions

• Concentrated usage by a minority of

users

Opportunities

• $50bn gap between online internet usage

and ad spend

• Expansion into B2C online advertising

• Under-monetized internationally

• Well positioned for shift to mobile

• Still room to grow user base (LinkedIn

membership is 27% of professional

workforce)

• Students and recent college graduates =

fastest growing member segment

Threats

• Competition

• Heavy investments in technology to

upgrade product

• Increase in international sales force size -

longer productivity ramp up in less

mature markets

• Balance user needs with recruiter and

marketer needs. User wins out.

Tie it All Together: Sample Interview Research


https://students.mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/LinkedIn_Research_-_Sample_Research.pdf

Most Asked Questions

5 Most Asked Questions (1000 Questions)

1. Walk me through your resume. (Drill down questions into a few bullets)

2. What is a tech product that you love? How would you improve it?

3. Why do you want to work in technology?

• E.g., Passion and interest

• E.g., Data-driven

4. Why our company?

• Aspirational element of their vision

• Product

• Customer

• Culture

5. Why this function?

• Career enhancing

• Career switching


Resume

Walk Me Through Your Resume – Sample #1

17

Pros Cons

• Starting point: What is on the

mind of the interviewer (why you

want the job and why you are

qualified) and connect the dots

for him/her

• Demonstrate that you

researched the role and

company

• You may not be able to lead with

a “hook” or strongest attribute

TIPS

Start with role

and give them

roadmap that you

will connect your

resume to their

role

Work backwards

Virtual goads to

traditional

eCommerce

Option #1: Start with the role you want and work backwards

I am very interested in becoming a PM at Amazon. As I walk you

through my resume, I’ll make some connections back to this goal.

Working backwards, I decided to get my MBA at Wharton because of

the program’s emphasis on analytics and specifically customer

analytics. Prior to Wharton, I was a Producer at Riot Games where I

worked closely with our engineering team and our Community

Managers to help connect user insights with new game features such

as virtual goods. While it was interesting to sell virtual goods, I came to

realize that I wanted to move in the direction of eCommerce and sell

actual goods.



18

Pros Cons

• Highlight the three most

important things about your

candidacy

• Easy for the interviewer to follow

• Does not allow for sequential

story telling as other options

TIPS

State three

themes

Work backward

or forward

User-insights and

customer-

centricity

Option #2: Start by stating 3 themes relevant to the company

As I go through my resume, I want to highlight three themes that have

driven decisions I have made about my career: user-insights, cross-

functional teams and new technologies. Prior to coming to Wharton, I

was a Producer at Riot Games, in this role I worked very closely with

our Community Managers to gain user-insights which is very similar to

Amazon’s customer-centricity. At Riot, we always considered the user

first when creating new game features […]



19

Pros Cons

• Provide a lot of detail

• Sequential story is easy to tell and

prepare

• Risk losing the attention of the

interviewer who is waiting for you

to get to the point

• A lot of potentially irrelevant

information

TIPS

Start with

undergrad or prior

Work forwards

with your first job

Virtual goods to

traditional

eCommerce

Wharton

Goal of joining

Amazon

Option #3: Start from undergrad or before

I grew up in California outside of Los Angeles. After graduating from

high school, I went to UCLA where I majored in Marketing at the

Anderson School. While I was at UCLA, I did two internships at Clorox

and Riot Games. After graduating from college I joined Riot Games as

a Producer where I worked closely with our engineering team and our

Community Managers to help connect user insights with new game

features such as virtual goods. While it was interesting to sell virtual

goods, I came to realize that I wanted to move in the direction of

eCommerce and sell actual goods. This lead me to my decision to

come to Wharton for my MBA. At Wharton, I am an organizer for an

analytics panel at the Tech Conference and I am a Student Life fellow.

My goal after Wharton is to join Amazon in the RLD or PM program.


Evidence-Based Best Practices

Wharton Insights from Employer Survey

MBACM conducts yearly post-FRP survey with employers. Built

regression model to understand what drives “overall fit for your

company” for companies interviewing Wharton candidates.


21

Overall Performance Model


22

Overall Performance

Interpersonal (22%)

Initiative/Drive (21%)

Communication (11%)

Technical (20%)

Industry Know. (13%)

Company Know. (13%)

Linear Regression

R-squared = .52

Percent of students scoring “Outstanding”

31%

39%35%

29%

20%

15%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Interpersonal Initiative/Drive Communication Technical Industry Know. Company Know.

Interview Skills


23

5 Outstanding

4 Good

3 Satisfactory

2 Fair

1 Unacceptable

Rating Scale Used in Survey

Ratings of 4s and 5s on skills matter when predicting “Good Fit”

5 Outstanding

4 Good

3 Satisfactory

2 Fair

1 Unacceptable


24

5 is significantly better than 4

4 is significantly better than 3

3, 2, 1 = no difference between

5 Evidence-based Interview Hacks

1. Initial rapport building = higher ratings

2. Eye Contact & Smiling = higher ratings

3. Connect personal contributions to results = higher ratings

4. Embellishing = lower ratings

5. Mini-Case = Opportunity to demonstrate target company’s

values & practices


25

Motivational

Key Motivational Questions


27

Why tech?Why this

company?

Why this

role?

Tips

• Speak to the aspirational nature of tech and its impact

on problems, people and the products we use every day

• Speak to the mission of the company

• Speak to why the role is interesting to you

MBACM Self-Assessment Resources


28

MBACM site > Workshops & Presentations> Self-Assessment

https://students.mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/job-search-resources/self-assessment/self-assessment-workshops/

Behavioral

30

Situation

• Describe the action you took

• Use more “I” than “we” language, even if discussing a group project or

effort

• Don't tell what you might do, tell what you did

• Highlight your skills and expertise most relevant to the interviewer

Action

• What happened?

• How did the event end?

• What did you accomplish?

• What did you learn?

Result

• Describe the context of a specific event or situation from your past

• Establish big picture and background information

• Provide enough detail for the interviewer to understand

• E.g., from a previous job, from a volunteer experience, Wharton

experience, or any relevant event

Task • Summarize your specific role, contribution or obstacle to overcome

STAR Framework

Assumption: past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior

“Tell me about a time that you…”

STAR Framework for Behavioral Questions


Sample Behavioral Questions

Category Questions

Influence Tell me about a time when you had to convince others.

Ambiguity Tell me about a time when you made a decision with limited

data.

Conflict Tell me about a time you had conflict on a team.

Problem

Solving/

Analytics

Tell me about a time when you had to solve a complicated

problem.

Leadership Tell me about a leadership experience.

Accomplishment Tell me about an accomplishment.

Failure Tell me about a time when you failed / made a mistake.


CareerPath > Resource Library > Technology > Company Name


Cases: Mini-Case & Full-Case

Mini-Cases: What Do They Assess?


33

Communication:

Collaborative

Clear and

concise

Knowledge:

Industry- specific

Technical/function

knowledge and

skills

Problem Solving:

Structured Thinking

Creativity

34Sources: Formal Case = Vault; Mini-Case = MBACM

Formal v. Mini-Case Questions


Formal Case

Goal: understand and frame the

problem

Focus: process

1. Take notes

2. Be careful about assumptions

3. Ask questions

4. Listen to the answers you get

5. Maintain eye contact

6. Take your time (20-30 minutes)

7. Lay out a road map for your

interviewer

8. Think out loud

9. Present your thinking in a clear,

logical manner. Where useful,

use frameworks and business

concepts to organize your

answer.

10. Quickly summarize your

conclusions

Mini-Case

Goal: present a plausible solution

Focus: smart content (demonstrate

knowledge of their business, tech

trends, tech products) creatively

(combine outside knowledge with the

problem) communicated (clear, concise,

passion)

1. Take notes

2. Articulate assumptions – it is not

just about asking the right questions

3. Ask some questions

4. Listen to the answers you get

5. Maintain eye contact

6. Take your time (5-10 min.)

7. Quickly frame your response (1

sentence)

8. Think out loud

9. Present your thinking in a clear,

logical manner. Where useful, use

frameworks and business concepts

to organize your answer. (Use a

framework, but don’t sound like a

textbook, flow naturally)

10. Quickly summarize your

conclusions (one or two sentences)

Tech Mini - Case Sample Questions

Function Sample Questions

Product You are designing a new UI for Google Maps, what metrics would

you track?

Marketing How would you market the Surface tablet to an 80 year old senior

citizen?

Operations Why would we ship iMacs via sea, but iPhones via airplane? (What's

the motivation behind that?)

Finance Pretend I'm the product manager for Bing Maps, and you are a

finance person who is thinking about shutting down Maps, if its

projected profitability is too low. I have all the data you need. What

would you ask me?

Business

Development

Who should Facebook think about partnering with?

Corporate

Development

What factors would you think about when evaluating a private

company? Public? What are some of the areas Cisco should think

about expanding into for growth?

Corporate

Strategy

Talk me through a go-to-market strategy for new software product.


Wharton Podcast – Tech Interview Prep


MBACM site > Research > Research by Industry > Tech

https://students.mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/job-search-resources/research/research-industry/technology-industries/tech-interview-podcast-learn-educate-discover/

Sample Mini-Case

Sample Mini-Case

38

Question: How would you market the Surface tablet to an 80-year old senior citizen?

1. Let’s think about the end user and make some assumptions about who is our customer

within this demographic

•Mid to high socio-economic bracket (=access to broadband, cost of device)

•Retired (likely not using the Surface for work purposes)

•Open to new experiences (willing to learn how to use the device)

•Aspiration of live full and textured lives in senior years

2. Most probable uses

•Communication (keeping up with family members)

-Skype

-Email

-Social Networks

•Entertainment

-Film & TV

-Games

•News & Information

Answer provided by an alumnus who interviews using tech mini-cases


Sample Mini-Case (cont.)

39

Questions: How would you market the Surface tablet to an 80 year old senior citizen?

3. Advertising campaign

•TV commercial of a grandfather communicating through Skype using a Surface tablet

with his grandson in a college dorm room using Skype on his Xbox.

•Magazine print of same narrative of grandfather connecting with grandson

•Newspaper print ad of female senior citizen sitting at her outside patio with flower bed

in the background using Bing on her Surface to look up some gardening tips.

4. To give a quick summary. I would target mid-high socio-economic seniors with TV and

print campaigns showing active senior citizens using the Surface to connect with family,

and enjoy learning and leisure activities.

Answer provided by an alumnus who interviews using tech mini-cases


Sample Formal Case

Sample Formal Case

41

Question: If LinkedIn wanted to develop an offering for college admissions

officers to help facilitate undergraduate admissions, what product features

would you include?

Tip: In general I like to structure my thoughts in terms of the following frameworks:

1. Industry (5 forces) 2. 5 C’s of Marketing / running a business in general

(Customer, Competitor, Company, Collaborator, Context) 3. 4 P’s of Implementation

(Product, Price, Promotion, Place)

1. Understand College Admissions Officers – Always start by understanding the

customer

Size the total addressable market of college admissions budgets in different

regions / countries. Estimate revenue to LinkedIn.

Research into admission officers pain points (Focus group to understand what’s

broken about undergrad admission process and why, surveys to get broader

feedback, perhaps an ethnographic study to dig into day-in-the-life)

Understand the industry: What other players are there, what is the industry size,

5 forces of colleges recruitment industry

Answer provided by an alumnus who interviews using formal tech cases


Sample Formal Case (cont.)

42



would you include?

2. Competitive Analysis

Identify competitors, what they do, how much they charge, compare products &

services to LinkedIn’s

Identify potential collaborators and partners in adjacent services (i.e. admissions

consultants, college applicant tracking systems), how they would interact with

LinkedIn




43

Question: If LinkedIn wanted to develop an offering for college admissions officers to

help facilitate undergraduate admissions, what product features would you include?

3. Product

Do we have existing products at LinkedIn that can be repurposed for admissions officers?

What do we need to create from scratch, what companies are doing this that we could

acquire?

We could think about college recruitment as a 3 stage cycle. Possible ideas to address

each stage:

Attract the right candidates: Targeted advertisements to high school students on

LinkedIn homepage and profile pages, LinkedIn Career Pages can be used to

dynamically target the right high school candidates, Use LinkedIn Recruiter product to

identify ideal candidates and invite them to events, Admissions officers can use

LinkedIn’s Mobile CheckIn tool to record all candidates they meet

Select the right candidates: LinkedIn doesn’t have many offerings in the interview /

applicant tracking space. Do we need to explore whether to create something, acquire

a product, etc?

Retain the right candidates: LinkedIn Groups – how do college admissions officers

want to use these to market to those who have been admitted?




44



would you include?

4. Price:

Figure out customers’ willingness to pay in different customer segments /

countries (focus groups, experiments)

Benchmark against competitor pricing

Calculate marginal cost to LinkedIn of up-keeping this product, as the floor




45



would you include?

5. Packaging:

Instead of offering a bunch of separate products, how can we package them

altogether as one product + service offering targeted toward college admissions

officers?

Will packages be segmented by spend level, customer needs, or some other

criteria? Can we create dynamic packages that change depending on your

segment?

What country / regional variation do we need to consider for packages?

6. Place / Distribution: What % do college admissions officers travel? Would a mobile

version of these products / services help?



Technical Questions

When and How Many?

47



Mix Strat.

Beha.

Tech

Tech

Option 1 Option 2

Mix

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3

Generally there’s one technical interview during final rounds, but earlier

(and different types of) assessments are becoming more common

Online Test

Possible

Proof That

You understand design

tradeoffs and their impact

on the customer

You understand and can

manage the development

process (and engineers)

…problem solving?

…Why?Types of Questions

48


Algorithm/Coding

“Write an algorithm to sort these…”

Systems Design

“Design Twitter…”

Technical Comfort

“How do you know a product is ready to be

launched?”

Sample: Algorithm/Coding

49


“Write an algorithm to sort these…”

• Write out an algorithm that will solve the

problem given

• Want to describe how and why your

algorithm works well for the problem. Might

also discuss alternative approaches and

their pros and cons

• LeetCode is the best place to practice

• Often times pseudo code is good enough,

but sometimes you will be asked for a

language you prefer prior to interview (SQL

is NOT a language that works)

• Generally python is a good language since it

is syntax “light” and commonly used

Goal

Pro Tips

Given an array of 0s and 1s,

what is the most efficient way

to sort it?

input: array (of 0’s and 1’s)

return: sorted array

sum = 0

for i in array

sum += I

create new array (array_new)

of size n

add (n-sum) 0’s to array_new

add sum 1’s to array_new

return array_new

O(n) run time

Sample: Systems Design

50


“Design Twitter…”

Client

Load Balancer

Timelines(Redis)

Server

Followers(Redis)

User requests timeline

• Diagram out (and talk through) a design for a

particular product or subset of features

• Want to describe the architecture

components (e.g. Load Balancers, CDNs)

and the tradeoffs associated with them (e.g.

availability vs consistency)

• Best practice for case interviews works well

here – ask interviewer about assumptions

and describe your thinking as you go

• Only pick a few core features of any product;

attempting to design the whole product is

impossible and will distract you

• Start with the customer – how do they use

the product (e.g. read:write ratio)?

Goal

Pro Tips

Refreshers

51


• Topics to Google:

• System Design & Architecture (e.g. horizontal vs vertical scaling)

• Agile Development (e.g. sprints, backlog)

• Software Development Process (e.g. dev vs prod)

• Testing (e.g. user acceptance, integrating, unit, etc.)

• Algorithm Run Time / Big-O Notation

• Classes worth sitting in next semester (or getting the slides):

• CIT596: Algorithms (question 1)

• CIS555: Web Systems (question 2) https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~cis455/

• Websites:

• LeetCode (question 1)

• YouTube (questions 1 and 2)

• HighScalability (question 2) http://highscalability.com/amazon-architecture

• Books:

• Cracking the Coding Interview

Come to my workshop to learn more about product interviews

(Tech and non-tech)

https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~cis455/

http://highscalability.com/amazon-architecture

Resources


52

Link Link

Practice with someone who is

technical and from your target

company, if possible.

https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-PM-Interview-Product-Technology/dp/0984782818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508839203&sr=8-1&keywords=cracking+the+pm+interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CshJxTcsgvo

Follow-up

Thank You and Follow-up

• Finish the interview by reiterating that you are very interested in

the job

• Thank the interviewer

• Follow up with a brief email:

Play back a key point you learned from the interviewer about

the company or role

Share something that resonated with you. (e.g., “When

you talked about the goals of the Economic Graph it really

resonated with me because …)

Do not evaluate the interview or interviewer (e.g., “You

asked excellent questions.”)

Restate your interest in the job


Questions?

Interview Prep Session: Tech - University of Pennsylvania · will connect your resume to their role Work backwards Virtual goads to traditional eCommerce Option #1: Start with the

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