Interviewing

Strengthen interview preparation by crafting STAR stories that leverage

story-telling and quantifiable results, to communicate alignment with the
desired role.
Types of interviews:

· Behavioral
● Typically part of any interview process, as a main evaluation or during initial HR
screening
● Usually 1:1, or as panel or group interview
● Many questions during behavioral interview begin with ‘Tell me about a time when…’
● Interviewer wants to learn about self-awareness, competency, and cultural fit
● Technical
● Technical interviews will usually be part of the hiring process within technical fields that
require specific skills
● Focus on problem-solving, strategy and logic
● Interviewer wants to learn more about hard skills and methodology
● If you are in a field that would like require a technical interview, reach out to your
Mentor for preparation assistance.
· Technical
● Technical interviews will usually be part of the hiring process within technical fields that
require specific skills
● Focus on problem-solving, strategy and logic
● Interviewer wants to learn more about hard skills and methodology
● If you are in a field that would like require a technical interview, reach out to your
Mentor for preparation assistance
● Typically part of the process for consultancy or financial roles
● Interviewer is assessing how you might handle specific job scenario
● Difficult to prepare for, but a variety of potential case scenarios can be found online to
review, consider, and practice your responses based on your job goals
· Case
● Typically part of the process for consultancy or financial roles
● Interviewer is assessing how you might handle specific job scenario
● Difficult to prepare for, but a variety of potential case scenarios can be found online to
review, consider, and practice your responses based on your job goals
How to prepare:

Research

● Understand the company (mission, products, history, recent news, staff, etc.)
● Learn about the individuals conducting the interview
o Use LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and company website

Stories

STAR Stories: Situation + Task + Action + Result

Questions

Generate a list of questions you have about the company, the culture, the position,etc.

Practice!

STAR Stories:

Situation

● Provide context to paint a picture

● In what role or company did this happen?
● What was going on at the time?

Task

● Highlight your responsibility or what was necessary to complete

● What was the problem you set out to solve?

Action

● Highlight what was done to solve this problem

● How were your contributions or solutions impactful in solving this problem?

Result

● Add the results of the work whenever possible

● What happened afterward? Was there a long-term change or improvement? Can you
quantify or provide scope or timelines?
 INTERVIEWING
Frequently Asked Interview Questions/Prompts:

● Tell me about yourself

● Why are you interested in this role?
● Tell me about a recent project you worked on
● How would your current or previous colleagues describe you?
● How do you handle stress?
● Who do you admire in the field?
● Tell me about a time when…
o Tell me about a time you explained technical results to a non-technical person.
o Tell me about a time you improved a process.
o Tell me about a time with a difficult stakeholder, and how it was resolved.

Interview Etiquette:

● Prepare post-interview questions

● Behave and dress appropriately based on audience
● Your answers and questions should be relevant for the role rather than too general or
non-specific
● Craft questions to demonstrate your research of the company and the position
● Pay attention! Don’t ask questions the interviewer has already addressed the answer
● General best practices:
o Be early, but not too early
o Ask about the hiring timeline and next steps
o Send individual, unique ‘thank you’ messages within 24 hours

LINKEDIN PROFILE
Sample “About” Section:

Currently a Data Scientist at Wayfair. Formerly a senior investment analyst on the CLO &
Consumer ABS team of a Structured Credit focused hedge fund. I specialized in CLO investments
in primary and secondary markets, at the mezzanine and equity tranche level. Over the years I
have enjoyed mentoring junior staff and leading teams of quantitative analysts, developers and
data providers in France, the USA and India on extensive modeling projects.
I studied mathematics and physics at leading French universities and attended MIT on a research
exchange program during my master’s degree in engineering at Mines ParisTech. I graduated with
an MBA from Harvard Business School where I focused on Economics and Finance and a MS in
data science from ENSAE. I am a native citizen of the European Union and the USA.

I enjoy solving problems in probability, statistics, machine learning, deep learning and distributed
computing. Generally, I am interested in mathematical and computer science theory.

Computer Science Thesis: Probabilistic Error Upper Bounds for Distributed Statistical Estimation.
Adviser: Amit Chakrabarti.

Received high honors, the highest accolade for undergraduate theses.

Experienced data science/analytics professional with extensive knowledge on predictive

modelling, big data architecture, machine learning, experiment design, channels & markets
analytics. I enjoy applying analytical thinking to solving complex business problems and learning
state-of-art technologies to tackle new challenges.

Projects I have done in the past:

● Natural Language understanding (NLU) statistical models

● Data processing and sampling through bootstrapping, FSTs
● Real-time predictive modelling and product recommender systems

Resources:

How to Prepare the Perfect Elevator Pitch

(This article is focused on entrepreneurs, but is good information for everyone)

How to Give an Elevator Pitch

 INTERVIEW

Resources

Sample behavioral interview prompt:

Tell me about a time when you explained technical results to a non-technical person.

Sample STAR Story:

While working for Vistaprint as a data scientist, I was asked to create a data driven
segmentation of the customer base and present my results to stakeholders. I utilized k-means
to divide the customer base into 5 segments based on their behaviors. When it came time to
create the presentation, I kicked the results up a level. Instead of discussing the technical
details of what’s under the hood with k-means, I discussed the size of the opportunity, how we
could target these customers, and the behaviors that would have landed them in a particular
segment. This resulted in building trust with stakeholders in my work through speaking in
non-technical terms that the marketing department could follow.

Optional Exercises:

● Write three to five STAR stories (1 hour)

o Practice verbally sharing STAR stories
● Practice STAR stories with a mentor, colleague, or friend in mock interview (1 hour)
● Rehearse your interview pitch (30 min)
o Be sure to include your progress in this program!
● Draft three to five follow-up questions (e.g., culture, diversity, focus and scope
questions) (30 min)
o Try to use the criteria we’ve outlined, but also reflect on what really is important
to you to know about a role and company.
● Research technical interview best practices
● Identify important follow-up questions to ask interviewers based on your priorities