Backgrounder

The Backgrounder is effectively your press kit. It captures your About You, career highlights and most recent achievements. You’ll need this throughout the interview process and for all interviews. It contains the following pieces:

About You

Craft three bullets that provide an overview of your career highlights and you as a person (most companies want to hire real people). You should be able to recite it conversationally.

E.g.

The Q&A:

Interviewer: So, tell me about yourself…

You: Sure, I’m a husband and devoted #girldad to three girls between 4 and 10 years old. Professionally, I have 10 years of exceptional product management experience and launched four products. And, I happen to live and volunteer in High Park which has so much green space and some of the best people in the city.

Hint: Think of it as a Twitter bio

Career Highlights (Quantitative)

During the interview process, you’ll need to sell yourself by way of your career achievements. I suggest thinking of your three most impactful, quantifiable achievements (you should have this on your resume already).

E.g.

The Q&A:

Interviewer: So, tell me some of the highlights of your work experience

You: I helped launch [product] and tripled revenue to $10M in the first 12 months. At [company] we now have 3M Monthly Active Users. And, at [company] we grew market share from 10% to 24% in just two years.

Hint: Watch how a CEO interviews on a business show like Bloomberg or CNBC. A good example is Sheryl Sandberg.

Career Highlights (Qualitative)

The best companies will not only focus on your quantifiable achievements but also how you impacted your users because all numerical success relies on solving for the user’s problems. This is where you can show your customer obsession. Think of the three most meaningful ways you improved your user’s life.

E.g.

The Q&A:

Interviewer: So, tell me about some of the products you built…

You: Sure, when I was at [company] we launched [product] that saved accountants an average of 30 minutes every day by unifying payment processing and book balancing in one product. At [company] we helped restaurant owners earn an extra $1M in 2019. And at [company] we enabled our money-savers to reduce expenses for a total of $30M.

You may have noticed that the quantitative highlights are company-focused results whereas the qualitative highlights are user-centric results.

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