Reduce the Cognitive Load for your Listener
Many product management interview candidates become so single-mindedly focused on interview frameworks that they lose focus on the interviewer. When we get overly focused on the framework, we can forget about our listeners.
In this article, I want to address the concept of Cognitive Load and how you can reduce the cognitive load for your interviewer, thus increasing your chances of success during your product management interviews.
Let’s Start with a Definitions
Cognitive Load refers to the amount of working memory resources used.
Working Memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily.
Cognitive Load Theory was developed to help understand how people learn. It helps course designers reduce the demands on learners' working memory, so that they learn more effectively.
When I talk about reducing the cognitive load on your interviewer, that means being sensitive to what they can hold in their working memory. They don’t know you or what you intend to say. While they have heard the answers to your prompt maybe hundreds of times, they are trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and are trying to see the answer through your eyes. They are also trying to take notes and determine if you are a fit.
Common Problems
Rambling
Rambling without a Summary
Using: This, That, The Other
Using: The First, The Second, and the Third
Forgetting to Summarize
Forgetting to Introduce Concepts
Forgetting to Share Basic Assumptions
How to Compensate
Share your Structure/Framework from the beginning
Drip your Framework After each shift to a new part of the framework, both summarize what you just said and introduce what you will say.
Give Things Short Names Don’t use first, last, etc. I can’t remember and sometimes I have no idea what you said and/or you got nervous and called the second thing the third thing.
Summarize Always try to summarize when you realize you just rambled
Check-in Always check in regularly to make sure the interviewer can ask questions without feeling rude, this also avoids giving the interviewer the sense that they being talked at rather than having a conversation.
These five tips to compensate for interview nerves and ramblings will increase your product management interview communication skills.
