Informational Interview Questions Flashcards
Tell me about yourself.
Currently I’m an Executive Assistant for a small patent preparation and prosecution startup.
I’ve worn many hats in this role including operations manager, project manager, patent searcher, and even YouTube Content Manager. I’m able to balance of all this by creating hyper organized digital workflows–they keep me on track and free up working memory for more urgent or complex issues.
In 2018, my Chief Patent Engineer increased his number of billable projects by 72% compared to the previous year. I was instrumental in this achievement because by this point I was managing ALL of his non-technical work and I had also overhauled our internal workflows.
In 2013, I graduated with honors with a bachelors degree in Communications while working two jobs.
Looking forward, I’m passionate about continuing in an Executive Assistant capacity, I’ve found that this role is aligned with my strengths–managing, organizing, planning and basically becoming a mind reader for the person I support.
I’m interested in contributing to bigger projects in an environment that’s intellectually stimulating and keeps me busy, and I think Amazon is that place.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
In 5 years I imagine that I will be proficient at my job. I think mastery involves a dynamic relationship with my work, one in which I’m constantly improving and learning.
So by that point I hope that my executive will see me as a trusted sounding board. I’d love to be involved strategically with my executive’s work, I think there’s a compelling alignment between strategic management and the scope of work of an executive assistant.
Moreover, I hope that other team members will see me as a go to for help or knowledge.
I think an indicator of my long term success would be if I can make my executive so much more productive that they level up. At that point, I can mentor my new VP to help them get acclimated to their position.
Why should we hire you?
I’m sure most candidates have similar skills so for myself, I would say I’m a great fit for this role because of my life-long passion for coordinating ever since my first logistics internship in high school and my recent experience working in the patent industry alongside my Chief Patent Engineer.
In my current position, I’m like a mini CEO. I think that’s what a competent and motivated executive assistant becomes when they’re empowered to thrive at their job.
What I love about being an executive assistant is becoming a mind reader and being the go to person for information.
Go over your resume for me.
My first internship right out of high school was as a logistics coordinator and facilitator for a conference held by a non profit. To sum up my experience there I would say I was an event planner, I arranged transportation, lodging and catering, I created timelines and agendas, facilitated meetings and coordinated volunteers.
Twice I was the summer legal intern for King County Council member Larry Gossett. In this role I did a lot of research and attended and took notes at a lot of meetings. I also was his stand in administrative assistant.
From 2007-2009 I also held other positions in retail and as a clerical contractor.
In my first years of college I was the administrative assistant for the Academic Success center where I assisted the director with payroll, calls, errands, and appointments.
I volunteered for a non profit called Solid Ground and was soon hired on as a substitute childcare facilitator.
When I continued college at a different school I got a workstudy job as an Admissions Communications Office Assistant.
I also picked up a job as a receptionist for a retirement home where I worked nights and weekends and really honed my multitasking abilities to handle constant interruptions.
After I graduated I had a job at a patent law firm as a filing clerk then moved on to Enterprise where I worked amongst very scrappy fresh out college kids, 50 hours a week, in a highly competitive sales environment where, yes, we washed cars in suits because customer satisfaction was our way of life.
In 2016, I had two short positions as a Yelp Brand Ambassador where I was responsible for setting up and tearing down events. I also was a home care aide where I was basically personal assistant for a very lucid but not very mobile client. I handled all of her shopping, cooking, calendar, I took care of her home and took her to doctor’s appointments. Basically I became a functional version of her and I really loved role but wish that it was more intellectually stimulating.
Then I started with Aux Patents where my daily responsibilities include intake of projects, inputting data into spreadsheets, assigning tasks, managing scope of work, following up with clients, providing status updates, invoicing clients, liaisoning with our accountant, lawyers, contractors.
So that’s an overview of my resume.
Why do you want to work at Amazon?
I want to work at Amazon because having worked in the patent industry it’s inspiring to be around innovation. And not just innovation for the sake of innovation but innovation that’s geared towards creating a legacy of value by meeting needs.
When I look at my Kindle, for example, I think to myself, this is such a simple product that perfectly marries books with technology. Moreover, it’s a frictionless product that doesn’t complicate life.
As an executive assistant, that really resonates with me because my job is to create value by anticipating needs and solving problems in a frictionless manner.
With that in mind, I’m interested in contributing to your team of innovators in an Executive Assistant capacity.
Tell me something interesting you’ve learned recently.
Something interesting about filming that’s maybe counter intuitive. I learned recently is that if you’re filming talking-head type videos that require 30+ minutes of filming it’s actually better to do it in a completely dark room than in a sunny room. I learned this from experience, invest in good lighting and set up a dark room with the lights and you’ll never have issues with filming at odd times of the day and then having a video with inconsistent lighting.
Tell me about why your work experience makes you a good candidate for this job.
My experience interning as logistics coordinator for two different non profits taught me how to be resourceful, finding quick and creative solutions since our budgets were limited.
Working as a home care aide taught me how to be proactive, actively aware and engaged so that I can accurately and timely predict the needs of my client.
My current role as an executive assistant for Aux Patents has taught me how to be strategic in a patent arena. By bringing clarity to each problem and being responsible for important judgement calls.
What is your greatest weakness?
Licorice candy or Twizzlers.
I would say marketing. At my current company, we don’t have a marketing manager, but I see marketing as important to scaling the business. So I took on some marketing responsibility. I watched some courses and did some research. And decided to start a YouTube channel where we provide information to get our name out there. I also researched at contacted patent attorneys and we gained 2 low volume clients from this so I would say that marketing is an area of improvement for me.
I would say an area where I’m growing is managing my impatience. In many ways to helps me stay focused, avoid distractions, and complete projects in a timely manner. But I don’t want my coworkers to see my eagerness to get to work as impatience directed at them. How I’m working on this is by being more aware of my verbal and non verbal communication. Honestly this hasn’t been an issue in all my work environments only more task oriented work environments.
Why are you leaving your current company?
The co-owner and I have a different vision for where the company is headed long term. We were in a fast paced growth mode when I started which I would say for A type personalities like mine is really energizing, you’re always excited to go to work.
Looking forward, I want to join a big company that where I can put to good use all of my restless energy.
Also, I’d love to enhance my project management skills for a growing company and think working with Amazon would be a great fit to do so.
What leadership principle would you add and why?
I would say Amazon could benefit from adding a 15th principle that combines Celebrating and Good Citizenship.
I actually kinda derived these concepts from Whole Foods’ corporate culture values. It was my takeaway from reading their values.
Generally what I remember of their values:
1) Delight Their Customers
2) Promote Team Member Happiness
3) Care About Our Communities And The Environment
4) Practice Win-Win
5) they care about the health of their stakeholders
To me that paints a picture of working hard AND enjoying what you do, AND recognizing the importance of balance and wellness and health AND seeing the benefit of incorporating fun into your mission AND celebrating the wins together.
And also good citizenship, from global to environmental. I think I can also glean this from Whole Food’s values, they care about their communities, the environment and health and wellness not just their monetary wealth.
I think Celebrating and Good Citizenship fulfills people on a deeper level that makes their work even more meaningful.
What inspires you? What inspires you to innovate?
I think perseverance inspires me.
I’m the kind of person that likes to go to the gym and watch someone really give 110% lifting weights, or when I’m running next to someone on the treadmill who’s really crushing it, it motivates me to reach that state of mind over matter.
I’m definitely inspired by people who have all the hurdles in the world against them but they don’t complain, they don’t give up, nothing stands in their way towards reaching their goal.
It’s really powerful to be around people like this in life, I see them working hard and I want to work harder, not to be competitive but just to cultivate and contribute to this sort of nameless society of people who have the discipline and willpower to work harder in the face of adversity.
First working alongside people who have their head in the game really inspires me.
I think that struggling with something inspires me to acquire new knowledge or innovate my work. For example, when my team struggles with a step in our workflow I’m inspired to innovate.
What’s your greatest strength?
I would say my greatest strength is self-sufficiency.
I ran track in high school and felt there was no better sport because I can control and be responsible
for my outcome since I was autonomous. Also I would consider myself and archivist in the sense that I tend to have a mental or physical archive of resources that I can pull from in a moment of need. Which is super unnecessary in this day and age of Google search but you should see my bookmarks bar, I would never hoard stuff but I love hoarding information because it allows me to be self-sufficient.
