Speaker: Chris Garabedian, CEO at Xontogeny
What questions should I prepare to determine if I like the organization?
Chris Garabedian: So I'm going to address the, what question should I prepare to determine if I like the company or, I like to also say, what are the characteristics that are important in deciding if the company is one I want to join? So first I say, look at the history of the company from inception to its current stage and what is their current focus and activities? This will vary greatly depending on if it is a larger, profitable, long standing public company versus if it's a small privately funded venture backed company. Now, there is more security and predictable career paths in larger companies. But the roles tend to be more narrowly focused and harder to see the big picture in a large organization. These companies also tend to be publicly traded and are required to share a lot more information that is accessible to anyone. So you can do a lot more research on these larger companies. In these companies, it is important to understand how they develop and train their new employees to enable growth and expand their employees skill sets and how can you get exposure beyond the role in which you're interviewing. In these situations it is important to ask about the vision and priorities of the management team over the next several years or if they will likely be in a growth mode. Joining a company that has the potential to grow and expand usually leads to better and more predictable career growth opportunities. In larger organizations it is more important to feel comfortable and have alignment with the hiring manager who will you be reporting to and will they support your growth and career goals and prioritize giving you exposure to other department staff and positions. Conversely, privately held companies or VC backed smaller companies, they tend to be smaller dependent on venture capital (VC) funding to allow them to grow and hire more staff. So when evaluating a private earlier stage company, which often has less than 100 employees, definitely less than 1,000 employees, you need to understand their financial situation. How much runway do they have on their balance sheet before they have to raise another round of funding? How are they using their money that they have raised? What is the catalyst that's going to drive value for the company and create more opportunities? This will make it easier for the company to attract new investors and hire more people and create career opportunities for you. And as in larger companies, it is important that you have a good rapport and alignment with the hiring manager in a small company. But it is also important to understand the background and experience of the CEO and management team. Do they have a track record of success at other companies? Were they able to attract reputable investors? Do they have an experienced and capable board of directors that can guide the company to success? These elements are usually a vote of confidence in the underlying technology and the confidence that investors and board members have in its likely success. Now, even with a great management team, reputable investors and a strong board of directors, companies can still fail and you may find yourself looking for work if that technology fails, but you will have experience that offers that others will look at with credibility because of who was involved in the company despite the failed technology.
What hard and soft skills do I need to have?
Chris Garabedian: What skills do I need to have to successfully land the job that I'm seeking, or another way to put it is, what skills will employers be looking for to consider me a viable candidate? So first, if you are earlier in your career and don't have extensive experience, most employers will not expect you to be fully qualified to step into a role and be expert at it for any given role you might be interviewing for. But they will be asking themselves if a given candidate has the raw skills to be shaped into an effective worker. If you have done an internship in the same focused area that you're interviewing for whether that be clinical development or regulatory affairs or manufacturing or commercial roles, that will be considered and notable. But most employers will be focusing on how well you communicate. Assessing your drive to learn and your drive to work hard and how much you understand about the company and the reasons why you are interested in a given job at that particular company. There are three basic areas to focus on in preparing to showcase your skills, both hard skills and soft skills. When preparing for interviews in your job search. Number one is whatever experience you've gained through prior employment, internships, school projects, even projects you've worked on independently that showcase your interest and understanding of the industry or the job in which you're pursuing is important. You must work on a strong narrative, telling your story on what you did, how this fits into the bigger picture of the organization you were supporting or the project, you were a part of. What contributions did you personally make or discover that influenced the success of the project and how it fit into the larger goals and objectives of the organization or the goal of the project. This is important to have a good narrative for the role you play that you understand how it fits into the big picture and really an opportunity to show that you can make things happen and get things done. Number two is be sure to research the company by consuming any and all available information in the public domain. If it's a company with a long history and voluminous publicly available information, focus on the last year of communications. Where you can listen to earnings calls or read SEC filings, download corporate presentations that are often on their website. If it's a private company, be sure to read all their press releases for the last few years. Listen to any videos of the CEO speaking about the company's technology and vision. Read any articles that were written around their financing or data readouts. Number three is research, the management team's background, the investors and the board of directors. So not just what the company is about, but the people who are part of a company so that you can ask more thoughtful questions during the interview process and demonstrate that you have a good grasp on the origins of the company, their vision and also their competition where understanding where the company fits into the broader competitive landscape is another way to show that you understand what the company is facing and that you are excited about where they sit in the industry. And of course, this will position you favorably as being able to contribute in a role if they're convinced that you don't have a big learning curve to come up in understanding what the company is trying to achieve and what the company is about. Lastly, practice and role play potential scenarios in an interview setting. Having good questions conveys as much in terms of how well prepared you are than having good answers to the questions that they may be posing to you. Good preparation will put you in a more relaxed, less anxious state when you interview and this can exude confidence and establish a strong rapport and chemistry with whoever is interviewing you and tailor your questions to the background of the person who is interviewing. You don't ask a detailed scientific question if you're speaking to a head of human resources and you probably shouldn't ask about vacation time and flexible hours if you're speaking to a senior scientist in the organization. They will be more impressed if your questions pertain directly to their role and expertise within the organization.
