Product Case Interviews for Data Science Jobs: Dos and Don'ts Explained

hey guys welcome back to my channel in this video we are going to talk about one of the interviews particular to data scientists especially product designers at tech companies the product case

interview product case interviews are a mixture of technical and non-technical skills so cracking those interviews requires you to be at your best in both areas

this video will explore both tips and red flags to help you do just that these suggestions come from my own time as interview candidates as well as my experience interviewing candidates and

doing mock interviews by the time you finish this video you will know what to do and what to avoid the next time you find yourself in a product case interview let's get started with tips

for product case interviews before we dive in too deeply i want to start with a slightly unconventional tip it's okay to make mistakes yes you heard

me right it's okay to make mistakes if you bring up a concept that you thought would make sense then turns out it's not the best way is to admit it sometimes

your first solution will prove flawed and it's far better to admit that rather than continuing to pursue a bad answer for example you get a question on which

metric to use to measure the success of a new feature and you realize the metric you just mentioned does not make too much sense after second thought you could say something like i now realize

it's a little arbitrary it does not reflect what we really want to measure here and i think a bad magic is something else it can feel awkward to omit a mistake in an interview but you do not want to

waste time talking about things you don't fully believe in now if you consistently make mistakes and frequently have to correct yourself it will leave an impression that you are

not able to defend your ideas however making one or two mistakes during interview is not the end of the world or your chances as a candidate next quality is more important than

quantity what i mean by this is that there's no need to provide too many ideas for example when you're asked to come up with a metrics for an ape test providing five metrics is not as good as

providing three solid metrics what i mean by solid is that you have a clear definition of the metric for instance when you say customer retention you need to define what an

active user is in what time period you are measuring the retention and why rather than just briefly say i'll use customer retention to major success it shows a lack of understanding and a

lack of rigor typically providing three ideas for questions is good enough instead of trying to add too many ideas focus on having a clear description for each of them the next tip is to ensure

that you interact with the interviewer the interviewer is the only person you want to convince during that limited amount of time so make sure that the interviewer fully understands you

remember an interview is not a report you want to engage the interviewer they may not agree with every single idea you have but you want to showcase your problem solving skills and strong

communication skills but how do you achieve this you could start by briefly sharing multiple ideas first and then ask the interviewer where to share more details for example if a question is a

broad question such as how do you design an experiment you can say i can think of selecting the right metric obtaining the minimum detectable effect choosing the

randomization unit calculating the sample size etc is there anything you want me to talk about specifically then let the interviewer choose which part to dive into

this is an effective approach because time is limited during interviews also if you spend a minute or two explaining your ideas you could check in with the interviewer by asking things like

does it make sense to you and do you want me to explain more about it interacting with the interviewer and asking these kind of questions can help you provide answers to the point

next always clarify questions it's so important i'm going to say it twice always clarify questions you need to make sure you fully understand the question before answering so that you

and the interviewer are on the same page in fact this is not only important in interviews it's also important in reality when you get a question from other people or other teams you don't

just react to it you want to understand the context and where the question comes from before providing suggestions anyways that's a different topic let's focus on the tip and let me give you an

example one common use metric clicks rate is used to measure the performance of advertisements normally it is calculated by the total number of clicks over the total number

of impressions however in reality sometimes it may refer to the percentage of users who click out of all the users who view an advertisement

it's worth clarifying which definition the interviewer would like to use you could simply say just to confirm when we say clicks rate the definition we define it as a number of clicks over

the number of impressions rather than the percentage of users who click out of all users who wield that ad clarifying can go beyond just the definition of a metric though a few other clarifying

questions you could ask are what is the goal of a feature or a product how does a particular feature work what data do we have to support a finding etc the information you get from the

interviewer is important sometimes the interviewers may not answer your questions directly instead they may ask what do you think in that case you can talk about your

understanding and assumptions and ask if it makes sense for example you can say my understanding of the goal of this new feature is twofold one is to increase

engagement on the platform and the other one is to drive long-term revenue is my understanding correct note that this doesn't mean you want to ask obvious questions questions that you

can easily find answers online for example if you interview with facebook don't ask what is facebook news feed or what is a facebook group if you interview with quora don't ask if

you can upload or download an answer that shows that you haven't done enough research on accounting or its products but it's totally fine to confirm your understanding of a specific feature for

example some facebook groups allow any users to join but some groups are invite only the final tip is to ask the interviewer for a couple minutes to write something

down and structure your communication before answering typically less than three minutes is fine once you have a rough idea of what you will talk about you could provide a

structure and a summary before dive into details this is very helpful to keep the interviewer on track if you cannot think of anything to talk about after three minutes you can take more time to think

about it it's better to be silent than to talk about random ideas or ideas you don't believe in you may be wondering what if i spend five minutes and i still don't have any

ideas if that happens it is a pretty good indication that you needed more training and practice before the interview if you take time to study and prepare

you will have some ideas and interviews front load the work with your preparation so that you can avoid this scenario now that we have talked about tips i want to share with you a few red flags

in product case interviews so that you know what things to avoid in this kind of interview the biggest red flag is that you have no idea at all how to approach the problem

even after you spend a few minutes thinking about it you still say i don't know or you keep saying can i get a hint for multiple questions this almost guarantees that you will get a no from

the interviewer now to clarify this is different from the situation that you don't have any idea the moment you get the question this is normal and you can start by

asking clarifying questions and using the information given by the interviewer to come up with some ideas i know some people become so nervous during an interview that they cannot

think logically if you are this kind of person i have two tips for you one is to remember that an interview is a conversation try to forget about the fact that the interviewer determines if

you get an offer or not you can tell yourself that it's a conversation with a colleague or a friend and there's nothing to be afraid of by talking with a friend the other tip is simply that you need

more practice try to do many mock interviews with different people before the real interview i know some people who are very good at product case interviews have done dozens of mock interviews before the actual

interview once you can overcome the fear and nervousness you can talk about your ideas with ease and even enjoy explaining your ideas another red flag is actually the

opposite of the first one candidates who have too many ideas this is also a huge red flag but why one reason is that when you share many ideas your ideas may sound random and

the interviewer may feel overwhelmed the other reason is that if you share too many ideas it results in a lack of depth in each of them during product case interviews the goal

is to showcase your deep understanding of a company's product and your problem solving skills so depth is more important than breath if you have many ideas you can say something like this is

very good question and i can think of four ideas a b c and d let me know which one you want me to dive into the next red flag is making it obvious

that you are using a framework and following your framework blindly you may even have learned some helpful frameworks from me but you never want to make it obvious that you are using a

framework without considering the context of the problem if you do many interviewers will try to distract you and see how you are able to perform

following frameworks is also a problem because frameworks are generic and questions are specific thinking about solutions to solve a particular problem is more important than following a framework

in fact this goes back to the tips we already discussed ask clarifying questions and interact with the interviewer the context and information you get from the interviewer is much more important than following framework

blindly the last reflect i want to share with you is not being able to defend yourself this refers to being unable to answer followable questions feeling unsure

about your ideas or frequently changing your arguments for instance when the interviewer asks you why you choose metric a over metric b you see something like oh i think

metric b is better yet when the interviewer asks you why you change it back to metric a or don't have a good reason another example is the interviewer asking you about why you

think the network effect makes a treatment effect and underestimation you don't know how to analyze it or you become too nervous and you say maybe it's an overestimation

this gives the impression that you did not think your answer is true you will not convince the interviewer that you have strong problem solving skills if you cannot defend yourself

now you have learned the top 4 red flags in product case interviews don't be stressed out if you find you are making those mistakes when you practice with mock interviews that's the goal of

practice right practice help you to identify where you are doing great and where you can improve the good thing is that you catch the red flag before the real interview the more practice you do

the more aware you will be about your mistakes and the more chances you have to crack them we have covered a lot in this video so let's do a quick recap of the tips and

reflects for product case interviews my top five tips for product case interviews are it's okay to make mistakes quality is better than quantity interact with the interviewer always ask

clarifying questions and ask the interviewer some time to structure your answer with these tips you can ensure that you deliver quality answers and keep you an interviewer on the same page

now moving on to the things to avoid the four red flags from this video are not being able to answer at all having too many ideas following a framework blindly

and not being able to defend yourself if you want to put your best foot forward in a product case interview you should avoid these things the best way to learn to use these tips and avoid these red flags is with

practice mock interviews are great way to learn your strengths and weaknesses so that you can improve before it really counts i hope you guys have enjoyed this video

and stay tuned by subscribing to my channel for more videos on interview preparation and job searching thank you so much for watching i will see you in the next video