orientation. rules. guide.

Coach’s Mock Interview Sessions

The Approach

These coaching sessions are designed to give you a sense of what you need to be doing in Product Sense/Design, Execution and Behavioral Interviews by watching and listening as a coach goes through the process.

The session will be broken into 3 core parts:

  • 5-min Product Sense Lesson : Lesson from Daily Life

  • Mock Interview : Coach Answers a Mock Interview

  • Debrief : No mock is 100% perfect, we discuss what went well or poorly.

Interviewer Rules

At least one person in the room will need to play the role of the interviewer. If no one volunteers, there is no session. If the group is small, you might be voluntold.

When you are playing the role of interviewer you must:

  • At least say. Ok. Sounds good. etc if asked. “Does that sound good, or fair.”

  • Ask at least 3 probing or follow up questions throughout the interview, to mimic a real interview.

  • Your questions must be realistic, think would this be where an interviewer might ask a probing question?

You must NOT:

  • Ask a question just because you are curious about something you personally struggle with, save that for the debrief.

    • i.e. Why did you segment by X instead of Y? (That is a debrief question.)

    • i.e. Why did you prioritize by frequency and severity? Again, a debrief question.

  • Be too scared to ask any questions.

Advice

Advice on what to ask for Product Sense mocks if you are the interviewer:

  • Here is some grading advice for product sense prompts.

  • Since I will not make most of those mistakes, consider my known weaknesses:

    • Rambling in the strategic setup. If I lost you, ask for clarity. If I am on my game, don’t ask a question just to ask.

    • Forget the Goal. Did I forget to share a goal before moving onto the user section? If so, you are free to ask.

    • Narrowing the space before segmenting. If the prompt is very broad (i.e. education) and I didn’t narrow at all, you could ask what I think is the best opportunity space the space. Or I narrowed but you are struggling to follow my logic.

    • Multiple Layers of segmenation. In narrowing user groupings, if I don’t stage it right, I might have to correct myself and in the process lose you with what sounds like two layers of segmenation that I wasn’t clear on. If I do that, asking for clarity is fair game.

    • Pain Point Prioritization. Did my short list include a pain point that belongs to a group I deprioritized? If yes, there is a great poking question.

    • Product Solution. Can you follow my user experience? Did you follow it but are curious about something I said but didn’t elaborate on?

    • Prioritization Logic Throughout. At Users, Pain Points or Solutions, did my prioritization sound handwavvy? If yes, poke.

I shouldn’t be making all those mistakes at once, but those are common areas where I might fall down and you can practice thinking like an interviewer trying to catch me in these pitfalls.

Access

Did you find this page and want to know how to sign up for the mocks?