8 Behavioral and prior experience
Product data science interviews tend to allocate 45 minutes to an hour on behavioral questions. The value of this session increases as the level increases, as senior+ level roles need to show leadership, ability to work with others, and ability to handle pressure, trade-offs, etc. It is very common that the behavioral session defines your level. Hence, doing well might get you upleveled, and doing badly might get you downleveled. The difference in comp between the two extremes can be chaotic.
8.1 Questions worksheet (behavioral)
Question: How should you prepare for the behavioral session? (see solution for relevant worksheet)
Answer: Preparing for the behavioral process will (and should) take a significant amount of time. You should prepare responses for the following questions:
- Tell me about a project that you led.
- How do you make sure projects and tasks stay on schedule?
- How would you handle disagreements within the team?
- Start with a short overview, describing whether you’ve experienced both technical and incentive-based disagreements
- For technical disagreements, we can try multiple options and fail fast
- On incentive disagreements, I focus on agreeing on principles
- Are there times that you changed your view/adjusted based on feedback/pushback?
- Tell me about a difficult decision you made as a leader (or an unpopular decision)?
- Tell me about a time you faced a leadership challenge and how you overcame it?
- Tell me about a time when priorities were removed/changed/adjusted.
- Trade-offs | Leadership challenge and how I overcame | Competing priorities
- How do you help an underperforming team member improve their work quality?
- How would you advise a team member who complained about a coworker’s behavior?
- Tell me about a project that you discovered.
- Tell me about a project that had a high degree of ambiguity.
- Tell me about your biggest accomplishment.
- Tell me about a time you faced an ethical issue at work.
- Tell me about your biggest setback.
- Tell me how you approached solving a very hard problem.
- Tell me about a time that you lead through a crisis and under pressure.
- Have you ever faced a conflict of interest during a cross-departmental project? What did you do?
- Tell me about your mentoring approach; how do you grow your juniors?
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker’s idea on a project you were both working on together. How did you express your opposition, and what happened? How would you convince other teams to support your idea?
- Tell me about a time that you had to collaborate with someone you didn’t get along.
- Tell me about a time you gave upward feedback.
- Why do you want to work in XFN role?
- What are your soft strengths?
- What are your technical/other strengths?
- What are your weaknesses? (make sure you mention something that was a real weakness but you worked on it and improved over time)
- Tell me about a time when you were participating in a project with unclear ownership.
- Tell me about a time that you saw an inefficiency and took action proactively.
Do not make the same mistake I did when it comes to behavioral interview prep. One of the most embarrassing interview moments for me happened during my first virtual onsite interview ever when a director of a top-tier company asked me “what are your weaknesses” and “why should we hire you” and I gave him blank stares. Needless to say, I did not get that offer. Put the time and prepare.