A friend sent me a message on LinkedIn this week. She was going for a 2nd round interview, and she found out that part of the interview would involve a practical application exercise provided by the hiring manager. So she was looking for some advice on how to prepare for this.

I told her that hiring managers are more interested in your thought process than getting the right answers. So show your work and/or tell the hiring manager why you chose this method or made these recommendations.

Often these exercises are designed to test your problem solving skills or your ability to extract useful information from a complex set of data. How you approach the problem is really key.

Any other suggestions on how to prepare for a practical application exercise as part of a job interview? Let me know in the comments!