Answering Facebook's 13 most asked interview questions

13 most asked questions during any Facebook interview is actually the result of her years of a research that I made a few weeks ago and I thought we set here Facebook publishes on the roadside the most commonly as behavioral questions during the interviews however because of the fact that I found some there is well there is some overlap between mine questions and theirs I believe is still worthwhile talking about what I found because I will also give you some hopefully useful tips and tricks on how to answer these questions so without further ado let's just get to the questions and the ions number 13 we have done about the time when you are not able to meet a time commitment and what prevented you from meeting it what was the outcome and what did you learn from it now of course this has been many variations but this is basically the failure to to meet the time commitment and the first thing you should understand about this question is that it's a negative one right with negative questions there are probably two essential things to keep in mind first of all you should have a genuine story you should have a genuine situation will actually fail to meet the time commitment you should be something significant and more often than not you'll spot this if you're successful able to quantify that failure actually the second important thing here is that in any failure story the most relevant part of the story is the learnings that is if you take the star format or rather the star format without the task the results should be the learnings from this now also of course whenever applying for a company such as Facebook Amazon Google or these large companies they rather prefer to talk about experience in in a team context rather than on solo projects why is this well basically because the definition of behavioral interview is that they look at your past past experiences you know to predict your future performance on the job and if you had past experiences in a team context that's a better predictor of your future performance now this being said if you're an exceptional one in a solo project then you should probably go ahead with it what else should be interesting interesting to mention here with respect to not being able to meet the time commitment own your mistake so needless to say here but don't put the blame on on someone else for not being in a mistake probably examples that that would say that you failed to meet a time commitment because of an outside event are weaker stories than failure to meet time commitment because it was actually your fault in the learning section probably you'd want to talk about how you could have spotted each spotted this much sooner by probably looking better into the requirements or probably listening and communicating better with other stakeholders in the project all right next question let's say who you're working on a major project and you're in the weeds how do you find your way out so why would they ask you such a question in the first place because they want to see your problem solving skills and not just that but they want is your interpersonal skills so as I mentioned in a in the other example they would prefer you to talk about this you know in a team context so if you're working on a major project more often than not there are more people involved so how would you how would you find your way out here and actually this is the relevant part besides the fact that it should be of course a relevant example well first of all you do this by acknowledging that sometimes you cannot be you cannot always be the subject matter expert and calling in for help so acknowledging this it's something that is regarded very well but by HR people because more often than happy people don't don't like they just like to focus straight into that thing and only try to fix it all by themselves it's one in in real life situations it does not always feasible so what else could be relevant here of course you know depending on your example you might have spotted something interesting you might have reviewed additional documentation but usually if you if you if you're calling for help or if you schedule the meeting or if you made it transform this into a team effort this actually will showcase you as a great team player and more often than not it's easier to resolve these types of situations in a in team environment so this will be my recommendation of course but this being said if you have an exceptional example where you solve something as an individual contributor you should probably go ahead with that example next give me an example of a time you faced conflict while working on a team how did you handle that now everyone you know from my coaching experience allows it of course we all we all have conflicts and in my 20 years of experience it's impossible if I've had a conflict on my team so let's just just let me think of a proper one and then they stay and they sing for maybe 30 minutes or so and they come up with the rhythm really poor example first of all why would that example be poor that example might be poor more often than not because you say I had a conflict on my team but it was basically someone else who was to blame here so it was he such is the type of thing so if you ever talk about conflicts and stuff like that take ownership it's again it's it's much better to take ownership that and talk about a conflict in which you had nothing to do your bring in by accident because this is how your releases want you if you fail to take responsibility of the situation and basically your answer cannot be strong here if you didn't own this coffee it wasn't your your your stuff why are talking about someone else's experience when going in an interview when you're actually being interviewed so these type of conflicts you used the other important part here would be how you diffuse this conflict and how you diffuse this complete use more often denied by scheduling the one-on-one with that person or in a but never by sending an email hey I'm sorry you know it doesn't work this way so that's why you know again we are talking in a team environment in in a corporate environment where you should be able to make a distinction between cold communication methods such as email or messengers or digital way and a warmer one that is a face-to-face meeting yes this is this is basically how you would start this then depending on situation would branch out into different scenarios maybe you would really there are endless possibilities here it's just that you I gave it the direction here so you hopefully have enough inside to to build a stronger a strong case here tell me about that when it worked with a difficult team member so this is slightly different of over time when you face the conflict while working on a team and basically the the reason why why the they would want to someone would ask you these questions because they wanted to evaluate your interpersonal skills and how well can you cooperate with people and this is often what I mean this is you cannot see this one people get along each other well you can always see this well while cooperating with we're all difficult team members and for example from my own experience when I was involved in age and nature b2b software I was a technical lead and my business partner will was in charge of selling the software and he actually had much to say in the in the interface design of that software because there he was actually the interface with our clients and those grants are very picky their choice of course that they write rightfully so so and I actually learned that you know instead of instead of whenever I had a prototype ready for him to present it to him to rather send it again to developers to make it make another extra round of meetings with my development teams to make it look as much as possible as a finished product before my business partner because otherwise because of the fact that we had often different way of different ways of thinking about this about these things I should better present them with with a finished product as to draft and this is I actually managed to diffuse many many to actually prevent many times situation so this is actually how I sped up speed up things in in our case so this is how I this is how I go about working with a difficult team member next tell me about the time on you recovered from a difficult situation again here I would go with a team example and basically ideally you should think of a situation where you were in order to recover you had to call in for Eastern I'll help you way where you acknowledge that you were you cannot always be the subject matter expertise you cannot always have an answer to any questions so by calling in for help you actually maximize your your chances of of resolving resolving that problem and in terms of HR you show your interpersonal skills and your problem-solving skills and basically score points for and in the behavioural part of of the interview so if you manage to find the situation in which you you addressed its you couldn't really get out of all the situation and you call him for help you set up meeting you set of discussions and you're successfully managed to get through that then basically have a you have a great example try to also quantify the outcome and the way it will be even better next question tell me about the time we had when you came up with a new approach to a problem basically this is a pitch to ask you for time you invented or simplified something and more often than not recent examples are better than older ones so of course you should you should prepare this one in advance I'm sure you you have some interesting innovations inventions that you you came up with you know it doesn't really have to be an in that much of an invention as much as as a as an elegant solution to a problem but of course inventions are always more better regarded way within this sense it should be quantifiable you should be able to quantify the results why why was that why was the your approach useful so what did the company has to had to win what did your team had to had to win from this and yes this basically so next question what's your strengths and what's your weakness this is another one first about your strengths whenever going into the interview should focus on your strengths needless to say but more often than not people do not really know what's their core strengths I know this again from my coaching experience I know that some people prefer to answer what's my strength with giving three examples of more or more about what was their strengths and which is which is fine which is fine an example but just think about what's your main strength what's your core strength what's that one thing that you do best and furthermore think about a situation where you exhibited that strength where that strength made the difference right so think about the situation an action and the result from that strength that would of course advertise you put you know in the best possible spot then with the weakness and here you know the it's tends to be quite problem for many people and why tends to be problematic talking about weaknesses well of course no one was once talked about witnesses like no one enjoys talking about failures but the most common mistake when talking of a weakness is to turn a positive into a negative that is I pay too much attention to detail okay come on how can you apply at the companies such as Facebook and not pay attention to detail and you should go without saying so this is what we call turning your positive into a negative so it's a terrible example don't use these things what are some good examples listen for at Facebook there are some there are some individual contributors tracks that is a highly technical and just technical tracks and there are the so called the management tracks into which it's a blend between technical interviewing and and behavioral interviewing so another for the individual contributors for the inside there's out of the five interviews only one is behavioural for the management tracks it tends to be more to two and a half so it's 50/50 within the behavioral and the technical one so now in terms of going back to the witness for an individual contributor Morphin are your technical guys you don't have sales experience so you could use probably sales experiences up as you as your main asset as a as your main asset as you as a weakness of course in a context where you very much enjoy pitching new ideas to management and all that stuff but still you have never worked in a front-facing sales floor so you're not salesperson the other very probably the most commonly one used by technical people is that they do not really they do not enjoy very much public speaking that is speaking in front of large crowds of well-known people and probably half of candidates talking about this mentioned Toastmasters as an improvement method not the very efficient one from my experience but still so public speaking could be one but it's a very generic one and I I would suspect that people got bored about this one but still a valid one many people are introverts and you would pitch it in a way that early in my career I noticed that I troubles you know starting conversation ever since I try to improve and I try to you know have that make that first take the initiative whenever whenever I had to you know instead of waiting for the others to happen now for the more management roles you could go you could go with deep technical expertise as the relative weakness and you would pitch in such a way that hey whenever I had something truly technical I always make sure that I have my team of experts that I would call in and learn how hard how to get these this solved and of course also for the management part that could be sales very often that people don't have time to work in sales when applying for for these types of roles pets especially technology roles at Facebook so this could work as well so remember one thing just whenever you're pitching these things both strengths and weaknesses to have the story that would highlight is so to have a pitch there is nothing being it in a star format let's say it's less relevant for the weakness part but still so long as it makes sense so long as quantifiable I would say you you should be fine here so let's move on tell me about the time when you took the lead on difficult project why would they ask you this question in the first place the reason why someone would ask you these questions because they want to see how to take ownership or if you take ownership because what happens some candidates before to say I was assigned of this project despite the fact I didn't have time to do it now I will read again the question tell me about the tammany took the lead on a difficult project right so these actually begs for for an answer back to you actually you actually let the project you are a leader in the project you are not a follower you didn't follow your boss in with their orders you didn't disagree and commit with them but you think you took the lead on difficult project and this is basically the most common pitfall with these types of questions then of course make sure you and sure how many people working what was the goal of the project how you let the project and you should you of course be a successful project because why would you go with the negative why would you take the lead on a project that failed I mean why would you advertise in the job interview so yes this would be that the main things now let me also give an al piece of advice yourself when you took when when when being asked a behavior question the interviewer might be looking for one or more of the following three things the first one is are you someone that they enjoy working with in their team think about it could you do something more maybe to look like you to score more points on this one the second one are someone that has the necessary toughness to get the job done because unless you don't know working Indians of high performance can be super challenging at times because the difference of opinion you know are maybe the the lightest form of conflict those teams then you know you could be you know you could be an extraordinary person but if you don't if you don't know how to get out of these tense situations you will always basically have to follow the follow everyone else and your ideas will never get yet implemented unless you know how to sell them unless you know you know that there isn't necessarily nothing about politics here but still about leadership so you should be able to lead and so this would be what we have the toughness the second reason the third reason is whether it's someone that's really interested in the job because of course there are many many candidates who apply for maybe five opportunities at once and if you're going into let's say an on-site interview every other day I'm not sure you'll be able to perform as well as someone that applies at one job every two months or every five years so if someone you know a similar word simple words someone prepared only for the Facebook interval for the past two months and you will be preparing for five job interviews for the pyv past two months and you help them in consecutive days the difference in performance will will will play a role here here actually so be careful with these things you know whether you show them that you really tell them that you really want the job I mean it's not unheard of like as odd as it might seem telling them and it really want the job might actually do you a lot of good if you say it in the right circumstances you feel like they they they don't believe you that they really want to jump by saying it you will actually emphasize on it and actually it's not me who advice is these things I just also heard this advice I think from Suzy Suzy Welch or I cannot remember her name it she's quite famous on CNBC and she does the the HR videos I probably put a link to to her materials in in the video description so these are the three things that they are looking they are scanning one of these three things will be scanning each and every answer that you give so this could be this could be actually a good time to to think about these when answering tell me about the time when you took the lead on a difficult project right number four number five most asked question in a job interview at Fay's because we all deal with difficult customers from time to time tell me about the challenging client facing situation how you handle it now you might think hey how is it possible for me to have a client if I'm applying for a technical role at Facebook and we all have clients and we all have primary clients and we all have secondary ones and if you don't know what a primary client is that's the one you are actually working for your stakeholder is the one you you know if you if you're a developer probably your client would be a project manager it in other words as compared to not the user of the of Facebook right sort of the user the Facebook user would be an indirect client of secondary tertiary client to direct your first client your main client is she the one that you know way to go with the person with whom you're interacting with now something else that's interesting with difficult customers from time to time you see it basically wants to see on whether you were challenged to work with a difficult customer and the best possible answers are the answers where you did what's best for the company or for the goal for the higher purpose of the company this is this is the reference that you must stay here so whether whether you disagreed or you agreed with the customer is a secondary thing but you must have followed the vision and the mission of the company this is the main thing here of course how you negotiated with that customer is is important and this varies by situation and no it will be it will be premature for me to talk about these things because I don't know what's there can be so many scenarios but it's very important that you talk about the higher purpose of the company you should be someone that's motivated by these things and you should genuinely believe in the inner core values and yes in the in the mission statement of the company or you know you should show that you are you are the type who gets excited of solving challenging problems right and of course in the best interest of the company all right number four everyone starts somewhere talk about the time when you were new on the job and had a lot to learn how did you manage that yes so basically talks about whenever you had to get started in a new role you it's only normal that you have to make it a learning experience for the most part how you how you do this well you do it by being curious so long as your curiosity throughout the process and you know don't just use the company intranet in this case Facebook to you know to say hey I'm here you know whomever wants to contact me please go ahead you know you should go out talk to people you know get out of your comfort zone if you're if you're an introvert and try to accumulate as much information as well so this the interpersonal skills are also something that you should be really really paying a lot of attention to here of course if you can add some spice with some you know some mistakes not probably not the biggest ones but try to make it an interesting experience try to try to think of the of the following question are you someone they'd enjoy working with try to answer this query to score points here because I bet this is the best this is the best context like and if it is the best type of help that I can give you here number three tell me about the situation we had to solve a difficult problem so needless to say this is about your problem-solving skills we previously touch upon this one somewhat so whenever you deal with something difficult basically you have to assess the situation and if it's something really difficult to see its it's only human you know that you cannot solve these things all the time by the ourselves so you could probably also make it a group challenge you could also set up scheduled meetings call in some experts and see what what could be done but also also besides these problem-solving skills you should also emphasize on the on actually delivering the the results despite the fact that the problem was well it was very difficult so saying this in a context where you know you should you shouldn't make it an example where you talk to the talk all the time about how you how you resolved how how you worked on resolving the problem but you should talk you should put in a star format with quantifiable results so make it a quantifiable example here and you know it's it's of course from depending from role to role what that what type of problem is solved but once you find the best example make sure it's in a star format so they can properly evaluate and you can probably score score points on this one the second most asked question that Facebook tell me about the team project that you worked on actually this is you know a unique opportunity for you to self advertise because it's a synonym to was the most successful project you've ever worked on assuming of course it was in a team context which is always as I said multiple times throughout this video team projects are preferred this I believe is part of the preparation of another question tell me about yourself which you'd answer by highlight by talking about the main highlights in your career which should be again projects one or two projects basically one of the one of those highlights in your career should be this example of the team project that you worked on it also stage should be in a star format should be quantifiable it should focus on your strengths and you should say it with energy and positivity you know interpersonal skills maybe show curiosity if it is the case and all that stuff but really try to keep it within two minutes if you can or maybe even 1/2 minutes would be ideal because you know shorter answers are better one so long as they they they fit into the star format and are quality are really quantifiable so this is how you probably go with these things and don't be surprised if this takes you half a day to come up with to you know to tune up this this sole answer because more often than not these things are hard in the beginning but get easier as you as you move on and and the most asked question by far in face book interviews is why Facebook and actually I'm going to do another video for this simply because I find that the question is too important optimist and I want to give some good and some bad examples here in order to other to prepare strong answer for this one because it's honestly it's like it's almost as asked as the other as the other 12 combines of there you go these are the 13 most asked questions during any Facebook interview as you see that there is some overlap between the Facebook what Facebook Publishing's on on their website and while I'm saying here but hopefully you know why I give you some interesting insight here and please if you have any questions I'll be happy to hear from you and as always I hope you found my content interesting and thank you very much for watching

Channel: Dan Croitor

Views: 107,620

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Id: XZackwz_Shk

Length: 30min 38sec (1838 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019