Jacob Warwick: evaluation

Transcript context

…So it seems like a big part of your process and advice is to flip the interview as much as you can to extract information so that you can build a case of how you will solve their pain. Say you're like an IC product manager interviewing at Meta. What are the odds you can flip these conversations or take a big chunk of that talk from them asking you their standard questions to you, asking them, "What are the biggest problems? What would be awesome if I came in?" Like all that stuff you shared about it takes track to build this case later. One of the things I found frustrated about IC roles is they're not often rewarded as well as leadership roles, which is frustrating because there are a lot of very talented ICs. Now I have seen specifically with Meta, I actually interviewed for a Meta IC manager role, like I9 it was like 1.2 million a year. They were specifically hiring former CEOs and I found that to be interesting. They hired 150 growth PMs at this I9 level and they were rewarding them very well. I don't think it changes. I think that whether you're a leader of people or you're a leader of process, you're still a leader. And the reason I propose taking ownership of the conversation isn't to be steamrolling or talking over people or completely... I'm not saying do this devoid of context. You don't just blow out and like talk over somebody and ramble, right? Which I'm one to talk apparently. But you go into this conversation and you ebb and flow with them, right? But the reason I want you to take ownership is because I can't control who you're going to get on the other side of the line. I can't control the mood they're in. I can't control their motivations. So as a coach, I can't control how they show up, but you can control how you show up and we can work to navigate. And then you start to get some, I guess, nuanced skills where you read body language and you feel comfortable saying, "Lenny, I saw that that maybe wasn't the right thing to say. Can you tell me more about that?" Then you start getting confidence and I say assertiveness, not aggressiveness. There's a difference. And so that comes across as confidence. And so I don't think there's a difference between being an IC and being a leader in terms of how you approach this, but I have noticed a difference in the pay and that can be frustrating. So that means that if I were working with more IC folks, I would ask questions like, "It sounds like independent contributor roles are very valuable at Meta. Can you share a little bit about how they're valued compared to leaders on the team?" I might ask a question like that because, again, they can't say, "We value you less." I've given them a reputation where they have to say, "We value you." Then you get your offer, you check levels or you check some of these benchmarks because we all do it. Look, we want to know. Maybe we call about a couple of friends that are a similar level. Then you can use objective criteria against them. You're like, "You mentioned that you valued ICs as much as leaders. I just got curious so I did a little digging and it looks like this is like about 30% under what a leader would make. Is that normal? I appreciate you being an advocate for me and pushing back. Can you help me understand if we could lift this to be more equitable?" I'm using information I gathered for them and I'm not just beating them up with it. I'm just saying, "You said we treat this fairly. Prove it or prove to me that you lied." And this works is what you're saying because if I was the hiring manager, be like, "No, I'm sorry. That's just not how it is."…

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