It seems that when you apply to a UX Researcher job at Facebook, after the initial screening call with the recruiter, you are advanced to a 45-minute interview video-conferencing interview (usually via a BlueJeans online meeting) with a current Facebook UX researcher. In this 45-minute session, the interviewer (who only tells you her first name and job title) gives you a hypothetical scenario. You are then asked to talk through how you would design a study to diagnose the problem. I failed one of these hypothetical-situation interviews (i.e, they did not invite me to the next phase, which is what they call a “virtual on-site interview” where you do a presentation of your past research), which was a bit saddening to me given that I really wanted to work at Facebook. I find these types of interview questions devilishly difficult, in that you never quite know what the nature of the hypothetical problem (they don’t define it clearly) or what might constitute a good answer to this type of question. In real life, you’re always bouncing around ideas with people about what research you’ll do, building on one another’s ideas, but in this interview, there is none of that; the Facebook UX researcher remains impassive, just taking notes on your thoughts and asking lots of “why” questions. Does anyone have any tips, advice, or thoughts on cracking these difficult, hypothetical-scenario interview questions? Here are some variants of the hypothetical (collected from Glassdoor) all of which sound pretty similar to the hypothetical situation I was given: =>He asked me to name my favorite app, and then describe what it does well, and bad. Next, he told me to walk him through how I would go about researching what user pain points were if I only had 3 weeks. =>Choose one app from the list and then imagine you want to research X problem. How would you plan research to solve those questions and why do you choose particular methods? Explain why. =>They will ask you to select an app that you’re familiar with (not Facebook-related) and will ask you questions about improving an experience on there. What would you do if you had just two weeks =>Pick an app, lets say you work for that company, a bunch of users signed up for the app and then quickly left. How would you study it to determine why they left and how to get them back? What methods or processes would you use, who would you try to talk to, and in the end what do you think your insights might be that you'd present to relevant stakeholders. Also, lets say the stakeholders find your insights interesting, but have issues with the sample size/makeup, what would you say? =>Name a non-Facebook application. After answering, the interviewer asked "How would you conduct a study to understand the pain points people face using this application and low engagement?" given that you only have 3 weeks to do so. =>Based on your answer, the interviewer would push for further details and nudge you on how exactly you would do things. The purpose. The purpose is to understand how you think, so it's encouraged to think out loud. I would so much appreciate any advice you can provide on how to crack this type of interview!
You can practice these. You need to internalize the range of possible research methods and understand when to apply them. What is the question asking for? Identify usability issues? Usability study or diary study, or if you need to be scrappy search forums, support tickets, etc. Understand an opportunity space? Discovery interviews. Etc. at a more senior level think about multiple approaches and triangulation or studies that build upon each other. I agree with other reply that Norman Nielsen blog is a good free resource. Also, always do stakeholder interviews and push the interviewer for more details on goals of the study, try to get more specific on what is needed for the study. It never hurts to do a quick lit review to see what you can learn without doing primary research (see support tickets idea above for usability)
Btw you'd be asked the same kinds of questions for any faang ux researcher interview
If it were me… Refresh your understanding of human-centered design and research methodologies. How will you understand what the actual pain points are for people? Interviews? Empathy building using the app as a prop? How will you source your participants? Craigslist? Personal network? How will you screen them to ensure you get answers from the correct audience? What synthesis activities would you conduct to derive insights from the info you gather? How would you quickly create and test a hypothesis for a solution? How will you prioritize which insights you choose to pursue? You should be able to answer each of these questions and probably more both conceptually and tactically. If you are having difficulty with that then, fortunately, there a plenty of great resources online. I love the depth and breadth of content on the Nielsen Norman Group website and highly recommend that as a starting point to study. If you can answer all of these questions and are still not making it then maybe it’s in your delivery. Are you practicing your answers on front of a mirror or recording and rewatching? I have never worked at FB, but I have hired for similar roles.