MFM Mini - 5 Hacks to Landing Your Dream Job

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  All right. I thought it would be fun to share a few of my hacks for job interviews or getting your dream job. When I was 23, 24 years old, I had just finished doing a startup in Australia. We had gotten funding and it was moving on to the next phase. And I said, all right, do I want to, do I want to keep going with this? Or do I want to bounce? And basically I said, hey, guys, we hit our goal, got our funding, we got to go do this field test. That's going to take years to figure out if this technology works. Good luck to you guys. I want to move to Silicon Valley and I want to see what's in the water there.

• 0:40Shaan Puri?

  Now, the problem was I had none of the experience you needed to get any of the jobs I wanted at tech companies, right? I would go look online and it said, you know, are you an engineer? Nope. Don't know how to code. Designer? Nope. Finance? Well, not really. Don't really have those skills. Okay, you could be a product person, right? Which is sort of code for PM, which was I thought project manager, but it turned out it's product manager. Either way, it's sort of the same thing. It's the person that kind of like shepherds the product along, shepherds the project along. And their job is to make it successful. And they're the person who doesn't code, doesn't design, but they tie together all these pieces. Now, the problem was every job posting said you need,

• 1:24Shaan Puri?

  you know, seven years of PM experience, blah, blah, blah. I had none. I, in fact, as you can tell, I thought it stood for project manager. So I had zero years of experience, zero seconds of experience. But nonetheless, I wanted to apply for these jobs and, and I ended up getting my dream job. I got a job at this idea lab, working for this couple, this sort of billionaire couple. And they were super successful in their past and they were looking for somebody to come in and join this incubator, this idea lab where you would dream up projects and then you'd have a team of people already in-house to build them. And that was, that was the gig. And so, you know,

• 2:05Shaan Puri?

  like this podcast is about spitting out business ideas. That's what I got to do as my job and then actually build them and bring them to life. So anyways, how did I get this job? Well, I'm going to share with you a few of the things, some of these that I did and some of these that I've seen or have stood out to me since then, because I've hired, I don't know, 50, 70 people since then.

• 2:28Shaan Puri?

  Personally, and you know, some people do a good job standing out. So here's my hacks for getting to stand out, to not just be another resume on a pile of resumes on somebody's desk, right? Hoping for the best. So here's what, here's three categories that I'm gonna talk about. First of all, you gotta know that almost all the value happens in the prep. It happens before you even step foot in the office to do a job interview. There's two types of prep. There's prep for yourself and then there's prep for the company. Let's talk about prep for yourself. When you get in there, you are gonna be asked questions. There's three generic questions you need to be prepared for. Number one, so tell me about yourself.

• 3:13Shaan Puri?

  How do you answer the tell me about yourself question? You wanna prep this. You wanna make it sound like it's off the cuff, but it's actually something you've thought about. You kinda knew where you wanted to go with it. You don't wanna bore them with just a series of events of your life. You wanna tell a story, right? So you wanna say, you know, I grew up in a family. I grew up in a small town. You know, we had, our whole town had four traffic lights. That's how small the town was. Both my teachers, both my parents were teachers. I thought for my whole life I would become a teacher until I would turn 21 and realized, you know, teachers make $50,000 a year and hey, I like money. Right? You sort of present some version of, here's my backstory, right?

• 3:58Shaan Puri?

  I grew up, I always thought I wanted to be a doctor. And, uh, and then when the time came that I needed to sign up for eight years of medical school, I thought to myself, well, maybe I should go and, uh, see what a doctor does. And so I shattered a doctor for two weeks and knew at the end of those two weeks, many things. The most important thing I learned was I don't wanna be a doctor. But now here I am, I'm 21 years old and I don't know what to do next, right? So you're telling a bit of a story and the beginning setup should be. I thought X, or not it should be, I should say, easy formula is, I grew up thinking of X, and then bam, I got punched in the face when I realized X is wrong. And that's when I pivoted, or adjusted, or I realized, you know.

• 4:41Shaan Puri?

  I grew up in a family of forty-two engineers, right? Every aunt and uncle I have is an engineer. I thought, you know, the word job was basically the same thing as becoming an engineer. Um, in college, I failed my engineering classes, right? I was terrible, I was such a, like, poor student in engineering. And so, at some point, I realized, hey, uh, mom, dad, it's not gonna work out for me being, uh, becoming an engineer. But the good news was, I figured out one thing I was good at. Talking. I was good at talking to people, I was good at selling, and I, I realized that there's a whole set of jobs. That's how I got into business development, that's how I got into sales. And ever since then, I've sold shoes, I've sold medical equipment, blah blah, right? So you're gonna create this pivot point in your story.

• 5:26Shaan Puri?

  The pivot point says, I used to do X, I used to think about, I used to think I was gonna do X. Then I realized why, so now, that's why, that's how I shifted into Z, that's how I stumbled into Z. And wow, Z has been an amazing ride for me, right? That's what you're essentially trying to say. And that, and you wanna lead them to where you are now, right? Um, and so, since then, I've just been kicking butt and taking names, doing this at all these companies. But, uh, you know, I really be just looking for that next challenge, and I decided that this next chapter of my life is gonna be about working on a product that I truly, truly enjoy. So that's why I applied to this company, right? So, that's when you get to the, a kicked butt phase, and then,

• 6:12Shaan Puri?

  um, then you're gonna say, you know, that's, I had to ask myself, what do I want? What do I really want? And I decided that this next chapter is gonna be about X, learning, gonna be about, you know, challenging myself, gonna be about, uh, making an impact. That's why I'm choosing to apply to work with you guys. Alright, so that's the tell me about yourself question. Hopefully that gives a generic structure that you can plug your life into. And you're gonna discard, cut all the fat, and just tell a story that fits that structure. Alright, second thing.

• 6:43Shaan Puri?

  They're gonna ask you questions about, "Oh, tell me about a time when you dealt with X. Tell me about a time, you know, tell me about some of your strengths. Tell me about some of your weaknesses. Tell me about a time you failed, blah, blah, blah." You can't prepare for all these broad questions specifically, because you don't know which one they're gonna ask. What you can do is you wanna prep three stories, right? So you don't wanna answer the question of, you know, "Tell me about a time with, without a story," right? They're asking you for a story. And these behavioral interview questions are very common. There were, where people are gonna ask you about, you know, "Tell me about a time when this happened." So you wanna come prepared with three times. And the three I would prepare is,

• 7:26Shaan Puri?

  number one, when you overcame an unexpected obstacle. You know, we were doing great. You know, the business was, was doing phenomenal. And then all of a sudden, Facebook changed the rules. And overnight, our revenue went from $250,000 to $42,000. And we were weeks away from going out of business, or whatever, right? So, things were good. And then, an unexpected obstacle came. And here's how we overcame it. That's story number one. Think through your life. And that could be anything. It could be, "I worked at an ice cream shop." Uh, you know, and the, you know, the most inborn part of an ice cream shop is having cold ice cream. And then our freezer broke. And we had to scramble and figure out, what are we gonna do? Do we just close the shop?

• 8:09Shaan Puri?

  No, we went and we, you know, blah, blah, blah. We got ice from the neighboring restaurants. We created a little barricade and blah, blah, blah. You know, we, we, we, the ice cream didn't melt. So you wanna overcome an unexpected obstacle. Number two is, um, you dealt with a team issue, a people issue. So, uh, we were at work and this one person really wasn't pulling their weight. And nobody wanted to address it, but I felt like it was the right thing to do. So here's how I addressed it. Some team issue. Number three is...

• 8:42Shaan Puri?

  The world was going a one way and nobody really knew where the, you know, everybody sort of thought the world looked like X, but then I realized I saw this, had this insight Y. So what you're saying is how you found a new opportunity. You know, we only used to do this, but then one day I noticed this and it got me thinking, maybe we could try this new thing. And boom, that new thing worked. So, you know, the three story structures, you overcame an unexpected obstacle. You dealt with a team or people issue. And then lastly, you found a new opportunity or you observed a new opportunity. Okay. So those are the things you're going to prepare about yourself. Then how do you prepare for the company? Well, there's two things I think people should do here.

• 9:26Shaan Puri?

  Number one, a lot of people forget like the table stakes. You should definitely come in having looked up what the company does. But I think furthermore, you should have an opinion about what they're good at, what they're bad at. Now, this can be you kind of auditing their product. So you can go through their product. You could take screenshots. You can make a presentation. You can make a list of the three things you think that could be improved, that could be better. And you notice them by playing with the product. We had somebody once who has gone on to become a very successful founder. You know, sold a company 20 million bucks and is very well known. They, they came in and they said, yeah, actually I saw your product. I really liked it. But I wanted to understand what customers thought about it.

• 10:11Shaan Puri?

  So I actually reached out and I sent this message to about 10 customers and I asked them these three questions. And would you guys like to hear kind of like what your customers said? And we're like salivating at this point. Wow, this person did the work. They showed me they could do the job by doing the job beforehand. That is the easiest way to paint a picture in my head that you can do it is by having already done it. Right? Talk to the customers, audit the product. That's the easy thing to do. Last thing is they're gonna ask you a question. So, do you have any questions for us? What do you say, right? You've been sitting there for 50 minutes. They've been bombarding you with questions. And then they give you this little opening at the end. Hey, last five minutes, do you want to ask us any questions? And you're like, dude, I just want to go to the bathroom.

• 10:55Shaan Puri?

  I need a pee break, but I know I, I know I need to come up with something here. Cause this is part of the test. This isn't you being kind. This is part of the test where you're trying to see where my head's at. And I could ask about the job, blah, blah, blah. Here's the little hack that I would do. So what I would do is I would say, uh, you know, I think I've got a really good sense of what you're looking for. Um, but I'm curious, you know, if you think forward six months from here, a year from now, and you picture that whoever you hire for this role, the person you hire for this role, they're doing a awesome job. What do you picture them doing? Um, that, that would let you, that would tell you that they've knocked this out of the park. Right? What would it feel like? What would have changed if somebody really knocked this job out of the park?

• 11:42Shaan Puri?

  That does two things. It tells them you're sort of thinking forward about how you're going to, um, please them essentially, how you're going to solve their problem. Which is why they're hiring you in the first place. They have a problem. And you're getting them to articulate what winning looks like. So you know, how to position yourself. You know what? I think I could do that. I think that if I came in, I'd be able to do X, Y, Z and get to that, get to that outcome you want. Right? Uh, but you get them to state the dream. And if they, even them just saying out loud, what they think a killer job looks like while staring at your face, there's sort of this association that happens. Uh, and they, they appreciate that that's where your head's at. You're not thinking about, well, what are your hours like? What's your vacation policy? That's about me.

• 12:27Shaan Puri?

  Instead, I'm making it about the role. I'm making it about the company to say, um, what would winning look like? And I'm trying to ask questions, probing questions to figure that out. So I think that's the most important question to ask at the end. Um, when it comes to what questions do you have for me? The, um,

• 12:47Shaan Puri?

  You know, the other one I like to ask here is, let's say, uh, let's say this goes great. You hire me and I come into work and it's my first kind of like 30 days on the job, my first 90 days of the job. What do you think would be the most important thing for me to focus on during those first 30 days, those first 90 days? Or opposite could be, um, what do you think would be a trap that would be easy for me to fall into, but, uh, you know, should be avoided? And you, you're sort of going with presumed assumption that you're getting the job and you get them to, to think outside the box and, and sort of highlight a priority or highlight a, a common trap that, that you would avoid. Just asking that question will, uh, tell them that you are a, a sort of sharp, clear thinker who is, you know, team first. Um, okay.

• 13:31Shaan Puri?

  Last thing that I would say is little, little hacks, little tips that, that work well. Use a whiteboard if they have one. This works great when you're in person and I know a lot of interviews right now on Zoom. I would still try it on Zoom. I would have a piece of paper in front of me. I would draw something or I would use the whiteboard feature in Zoom or whatever.

• 13:48Shaan Puri?

  There's something about when you say, can, uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a visual person. I'm a visual thinker. Can I draw something here? And all of a sudden it just breaks the pattern of this sort of looking down at my paper and asking you a question to like, oh, something exciting is going to happen. What is he going to draw? What picture does he have it said? And it could be anything. You could just draw, you know, here's my understanding of how the business works. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I have the right picture, you got your suppliers over here and then you have your customers over here. You have two segments. You have, let's call it the high end and the low end segment. And, uh, and you just draw some diagram. This get, this is, I don't know. It has this swagger and confidence that just exudes here. And in doing so, you turn it more into a brainstorm versus an evaluation versus a judgment that they're putting on you.

• 14:33Shaan Puri?

  Um, okay. So those are my, my, my very basic, very, very, very basic things. And then obviously follow up, uh, follow up strong. So say, hey, I had a great time, um, you know, in our conversation. And by the way, you know, after our conversation, I was looking up this thing. Check this out. It's pretty cool. Right? Just add value and you're not sitting there begging for a job. It's a two-way investigation of is this the right fit? That's how high, you know, winning players evaluate jobs. Is this the right thing for me? And are, am I the right thing for you? And we're going to both opt in for this to happen. It's not just a one-way thing where pick me, pick me, pick me. Okay, so those are the, those are the tips that I got. Hopefully that's helpful to those

• 15:14Shaan Puri?

  of you who are looking for jobs. But of course, my preference as always is be the person creating the jobs. Start a business, own a piece of equity in a business. That is the way to go. But if you're looking for a job, hopefully this was helpful. All right, I'm Sean, and if you like this, let me know. You can tweet at me, Sean VP, or go to my website, email me, [email protected]. All right, I'm out of here.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Hey, my first million listeners, this is Steph from trends.co. If you know trends, you know our bread and butter is our newsletter, where we share trends and how to capitalize on them. But after working on this thing for nearly two years, I gotta say that one of the coolest things is when people in our community actually build businesses from these trends. And one example is an article we wrote in October 2019, and it was called the A to Z of SaaS. And SaaS is spelled X-A-A-S, because it meant anything as a service. And we walked through literally from A to Z, or A to Z in Canada, 40 different models of something as a service, including analytics as a service, clothing as a service, compliance as a service, egg freezing as a service, legal as a service, malware as a service, testing as a service. There were so many different business models that we found, which

• 16:24Speaker 01

  all framed around this idea of something as a service, which basically means that you create something that's hard enough for someone to build in their own company, so they're willing to pay for it as a service. And we covered specific examples of companies in each one of these models and the money that they had raised. Now, one of our trends members, Chris Corner, saw this article, and he saw an opportunity. Shortly after, he launched something called Send eats, which he calls EAAS, which is e-commerce as a service. He basically helps companies fulfill their e-commerce, and he bought a domain for $8. You can go to it at send eats.com. And fast forward to today, Chris and Send eats just raised their Series A at a $17 million valuation. Chris also recently tweeted that his warehouse is growing from 10,000 square feet to 36,000 square feet, and his orders shipped in June

• 17:08Speaker 01

  were growing 45% month over month. They're basically out of space. Send eats is one of many success stories from trends, so much so that I was recently asked why I'm still at trends instead of pursuing these businesses on my own. So if you want in on these trends before they actually get big, sign up at trends.co/mfm. We've got a special deal for you. That's trends.co/mfm, and we'll see you on the inside.