Not Safe For Interviews (NSFI)

Today I debated with a client about behavioral interviews and what is safe for interviews. The following questions came up:

• Do you pick a fundamental screwup and admit it?

• Are some stories better for some jobs than others?

• How honest should I be?

• How do I tell a story when the real problem was politics?

• What about stories where I was right in the end but the only story I have from the time I was in the role is failure?

We all face these problems in interviews. The TL;DR is that you need to know your audience, practice your stories and pick your failures carefully. There are some stories that are not safe for interviews in their raw form.

Some Examples:

• If boomeranging (going back to a company after years away), know your audience. If there was a problem with leadership when you were last there, you can’t tell the story in the same way you would for other companies.

• If you are going to discuss a huge failure from early in your career, set up the story carefully.

  • Remind the interviewer how old the story is but how fundamentally it changed you.

  • Give important context about your stage in product.

  • Showcase some of what you did right.

  • Understand trigger issues for the company you are speaking with.

  • Test it out with others.

• If you have to discuss decisions with data at a company that wasn’t data-driven, think about how to tell the story without throwing your former colleagues under the bus. Think about how you would have done things differently.

All this said, it is important not to tell weak stories. Many people trying to avoid stories that have an ugly side just share weak stories.

When the story is tough or a real significant failure, keep in control of the narrative and think about how you look when telling the story. Test out the story with people at the level you will be interviewing at. (Some junior PMs who aren’t used to admitting failure will tell you not to share a story where you are at fault when a senior leader wants to hear that story to see how you have grown.)

Remember, failure stories show a growth mindset if you start with what you learned.