When a job search tool, JobScan gets 1.1k Facebook likes, they must be doing something right. JobScan is easily one of my favorite job search tools out there. With the proliferation of applicant tracking systems like Taleo, it’s important that your resume reflects the same keywords listed in the job description. JobScan is a free tool that helps candidates do just that. I had a chance to chat with James Hu, the founder, about JobScan and he was kind enough to provide some additional context below. Try it out!

Jobscan tool aims to better equip job seekers by analyzing job descriptions and helping applicants easily identify what skills and keywords are most important to a given employer. By ranking the most important and most frequently-occurring keywords per job description, this tool can help give applicants a competitive edge in their job search efforts. Here’s a testimonial from one of our customers, fresh from my email inbox.

“Jobscan allowed me to customize my resume for a specific job well beyond what I had considered as sufficient. After using this tool, I was able to land the interest of several potential employers within a short time for several positions at various firms. I highly recommend Jobscan for everyone!”

JobScan screenshot

If you’ve been wanting to get a paperback copy of either one of my books, today would be a great day to do so. Amazon.com is offering a 30% off coupon.

Use promo code: HOLIDAY30. Ends Nov. 30 at 11:59pm PT. Paperback only.

Decode and Conquer: Answers to Product Management Interviews
Rise Above the Noise: How to Standout At the Marketing Interview

Last month, we featured Edmund Lau’s questions to ask after the interview. Today, Business Insider featured some excellent questions to ask after the interview, and I couldn’t resist featuring them below.

Questions to Ask After the Interview

1. “If you were to rank all the people who have done this job in the past, tell me about No. 1 and why you would put them there?”
2. “You’ve described this as a place that welcomes innovation. Can you tell me about a time when you failed at something, or when someone else in the organization failed at something? How did the organization deal with it?”
3. “‘Fast-forward a year, and imagine that you’re looking back on this hiring decision. The two people you hired have exceeded your highest expectations. What did they do that impressed you most?'”
4. “What qualities did the person who held this job previously have that you’d like to maintain? What are the most important qualities that the person filling this job should have? What’s your definition of success?”
5. “As CEO of the company, what worries you and keeps you awake at night?”
6. “The smartest question, hands down, was a candidate who asked me to describe the skills and characteristics of those considered ‘high potentials’ at our company/organization, meaning, those who are known to have excelled through key results and behaviors. In essence, they wanted to know more about my views on the exemplars of my organization.”
7. “How does a leader come into a company like Accenture that has such a strong culture and make an impact, and how does the organization help enable success?”

Photo Credit: Ethan @ SportSuburban

Looking for a list of questions to ask after an interview? Edmund Lau featured an excellent list at the end of his Quora post on this topic. I’ve featured my favorite end-of-interview questions from his blog post here:

Working at the company
What’s your typical work day like?
What’s the process of taking an idea you have from an inception and shipping it to production?
What fraction of your time is spent building new things versus maintaining old ones?
How do product / business / engineering decisions get made at the company?

Team culture
What’s one thing you really like about working at the company and one thing you’d like to improve?
What’s being done about the thing you’d like to improve?
How would you describe the culture of the company?
What are the core values of the company, and what are some examples of how they’re reflected day-to-day?

Product
How did this particular product feature get designed and launched?
Why did you decide to launch this particular version instead of this other one?
How has the product evolved since launch based on user feedback?

Career growth
What’s the most unexpected lesson that you’ve learned on the job?
How is knowledge across projects documented and shared at the company?
What is the onboarding or mentoring process like (if any) for new hires?
What opportunities have you had to work with different people and projects during your time at the company?

Corporate challenges
What are the biggest obstacles to this company becoming massively successful?
What are the current priorities and focus areas at the company?
Where would I be able to add the most value?

—

Addendum: Business Insider featured another set of excellent questions to ask after the interview. I’ve excerpted my favorite ones here.

1. What can I help to clarify that would make hiring me an easy decision? —Dan Pickett, cofounder of Launch Academy

2. How do you see this position evolving in the next three years? —Jared Brown, cofounder of Hubstaff

3. What’s the most frustrating part of working here? —Avery Fisher, president of Remedify

4. Who’s your ideal candidate and how can I make myself more like them? —Phil Laboon, president of Eyeflow Internet Marketing

5. How did you get your start? —Jayna Cooke, CEO of EVENTup

6. What keeps you up at night? —Kofi Kankam, CEO of Admit.me
7. What concerns/reservations do you have about me for this position? —John Berkowitz, cofounder and Chief Revenue Officer of Yodle

8. How will the work I’ll be doing contribute to the organization’s mission? —Dave Kerpen, founder and CEO of Likeable Local.

Photo credit: Ethan Lofton

The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft is laying off more than 5,800 employees tomorrow. The last time Microsoft had such a brutal set of layoffs was back in 2009. Apparently this latest round of cuts was foreshadowed by Microsoft CEO in his internal strategy memo on July 10.

We’ve worked with a lot of current and former Microsoft employees on their next role. If you’re affected by the job cuts, we’d be happy to chat with you and give you a free 15 minute interview analysis.

Photo Credit: LeWeb

Just because your co-workers use jargon, doesn’t mean you should too.

Here’s a great reminder from Richard Branson, Founder at the Virigin Group, on why you should do away with jargon. My favorite quote from his article:

Some people love speaking in jargon, using fancy words and turning everything into acronyms. Personally, I find this simply slows things down, confuses people and causes them to lose interest. It’s far better to use a simple term and commonplace words that everyone will understand, rather than showing off and annoying your audience.

Don’t get lazy, and don’t try to impress with fancy words. Take the time to simplify what you’re saying, using words that the listener knows well. The interviewer will appreciate the effort you’ve made to make their lives easier.

And with clearer speech, you will make a bigger impact and stand out from others.

Photo credit: Andy Mabbett

For those of you preparing for a Google product manager interview, here’s what Google recruiting is sending to its product manager candidates:

Interviewing can be scary and intimidating. At Google, we hope the interviews will be challenging and enjoyable. As we aim to hire generalists, you can expect to interview with APMs and PMs working on any number of our products – our interviews are centered on problem solving ability so there won’t be many questions about specific experiences or domains.

In preparation, you can expect discussions around the following:

*Product design – Thinking creatively/critically about products – eg. how to monetize twitter, how to change Gmail, design an app for the Louvre. Give feedback and analysis on features (think of how to best delight the user), technical design, UI design.

*Product strategy – Understand Google’s competitive landscape and discuss the vision for Google, the mobile market, the ad market, the internet, and technology in general. Discuss long term product roadmaps and strategies to increase market share.

*Analytical – May be a market analysis, problem solving or brain teaser question, eg. how would you store all the phone calls in the world? Most important is attention to detail and communication of how you’d break the problem into smaller nuggets to reach an overall solution.

*Technical – You could be asked architecture/design (eg. multi-tiered web apps, data storage in databases) or conceptual questions (eg. internet technologies and protocols). Possibly even an algorithm/coding or two.

Photo credit: Jurvetson

I gave a talk yesterday on How to Ace the Product Management Interview at Product Camp 2013, hosted here in Seattle. For those of you who are looking for slides, I’ve uploaded them to Slideshare and embedded them below.

If you’re preparing for a product management interview, you’ll encounter case interview questions. I’ve included 12 case interview questions relating to strategic, business, and product design issues here.

Strategic & Business Issues

Thanks for all the interest and positive feedback on my article. I’ve updated the original article to reflect the latest questions, eyewitness reports, and analysis on how one can succeed in their Google product marketing manager interviews.

You can find the updated article at this new location here:

How to Prepare for the Google Product Marketing Manager Interview