Sample Answer
I prefer a mix, leaning toward leadership and mentorship for senior roles but still testing individual contributor depth. In my last role leading a five-person analytics pod, I spent about 30% of my time mentoring two junior data scientists while owning model design and productionization. That balance let me coach SQL and model validation practices, while personally delivering a churn model that improved retention by 12% and saved ~$450K annually. When hiring, I ask behavioral questions about mentoring and run a technical take-home to confirm hands-on skills. That combination reveals whether someone can scale impact through others and still write robust code or analyses when needed.
Keywords
On your resume you mention working on a cross-functional project (e.g., involving multiple teams or stakeholders). Describe a situation from that project where priorities conflicted—how did you navigate the trade-offs and what was the final outcome?
Walk me through a recent multi-channel digital marketing campaign you managed end-to-end. How did you set objectives, choose channels, allocate budget, and measure success?
In your resume you note improving or optimizing [a process, KPI, or metric]. What specific baseline metrics did you start from, what steps did you personally take, and how did you verify that the improvement was due to your changes rather than external factors?
Based on your hydrology and irrigation engineering background, explain how you would estimate the irrigation water requirement for a kharif crop in a semi-arid region of Gujarat. Walk me through each step: from reference evapotranspiration estimation, crop coefficient selection, effective rainfall calculation, to arriving at canal discharge for a given command area.
In your civil engineering studies, what specific design coursework or project work did you complete related to irrigation channels or canals (e.g., design of lined/unlined canals, distributaries, minors)? Describe one such design in detail, including how you determined discharge, permissible velocity, section dimensions, and lining choice for Gujarat-type soil and climate conditions.