I left the US to live in Vietnam in 2006, almost 4 years ago. At the time, I was a 25 year old punk with some management experience at a successful startup who thought he was bad-ass.
Nothing has changed. I’m still a jackass!
My first gig after coming here was over at FPT Software, one of the biggest software firms in Vietnam. At the time, and especially at the time when I first studied here in 2003, FPT was the place all parents would have loved their children to work at. FPT Software was only for the best of Vietnam, equally famous for its great work environment as it was infamous for uh, low salaries. As time has passed, FPT has changed. It’s a lot bigger, not just the software company, but FPT as a whole. There’s FPT University, which educates aspiring professionals under the FPT brand name. FPT is certainly no longer only hiring the best, but at the same time, I’ve heard it’s starting to raise salaries to more closely match market level.
Before coming here, I’d met Chris, who then introduced me to Stefan, who was at FPT, an American like me (but Caucasian). We’d talked for about 3-4 months about a potential gig, and when I finally came here, it was time to close the deal.
So he gave me a test.
How dare he try to test me? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. And as insecure as I was about it, I took it anyway. It was a 1.5 hr test that he emailed to me, told me when to email it back to him, and we’d discuss it immediately over Skype.
Imagine if you were trying to get into Business School, and they said, go take the GMAT this morning, and when you’re done, we’ll review it question by question together- if you do well, you’re probably in. If not, well….
Oh yeah, also imagine if you had never taken the GMAT before, and had never prepared for it. So…I had to take a test I couldn’t prepare for and then have to confront how dumb I was immediately afterwards with another person.
I was a wreck for the test. Really hard questions, and with some of them I barely understood what to do. I knew I’d really blown it. I went through the entire range of negative emotions- sadness/anger/fear in that 1.5 hr time.
Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.
Wait, I already said it was my first gig. I DID get the job!
But it was terrible and evil. I would definitely suggest doing it as a way to evaluate personnel, though- Stefan later told me he had to put me through the test because he’d had some bad experiences before with people he’d hired, and he wanted to make sure I could handle it.
And so I passed. I like to hope that I did a good job for FPT as well.
Here’s the original content of the test and my answers, unedited: (I haven’t looked at this since I took it, so it’s interesting to see it again and actually be a very surprised how I came up with these answers.)
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Analysis Examination
September 9, 2006
Instructions:
- Answer the below questions directly in this document, taking as much space as you need.
- Please do not consult other resources such has the internet.
- Estimated times are just guidelines to help you gage the level of detail I want. They total 80 minutes. Please spend no more than 90 minutes total.
- Have fun!
Question 1: You’re responsible for estimating the number of tennis balls you can fit in a cargo-only Boeing 747 aircraft. Please describe three different ways you might do it. Obviously, the amount of time and resources required to perform the estimate are important and not unlimited.
Estimated time: 10 minutes.
1) For this solution, I have assumed that we know the volume of the aircraft and know the volume of the ball or could guess it by quickly filling it with water and measuring the water taken. From there, I would make a quick division of the two volumes, but subtract another 15-20% of that figure to compensate for the material of the ball itself and the inefficiency in storing solid objects. I think the figure would leave us with extra room, but I think that is better than not having enough.
2)
Question 2: RedOctane has decided to switch its product line from video games to kid-specific foods, and expand to a worldwide customer base. Use your experience and imagination to develop a plan (just tasks, no resources or durations) for this transition.
The result should be around 100 tasks.
Estimated time: 30 minutes.
1) Rebrand (name and logo) to have a more kid/parent friendly image
2) Look through current assets to see if anything can be retained or be used or children food markets
3) Use video game contacts to look for joint promotions or advertising for young children
4) Move offices to more relevant location?
5) Ease layoffs, look for initial hires for high-end tasks (marketing), attempt to outsource or find partners for the rest.
6) Scope out initial markets
7) Find possible government organizations (locally and worldwide) that may led to easier entrance into markets
Focus on 1 market at a time, whether by country, province of a larger company (China), or even city.
9) Worldwide, look into partners for initial advertising campaigns
10) Develop budget for initial market, including cogs of initial run, advertising, and hidden costs for switching to a completely new business
11) Develop four to six month plan on liquidating remaining merchandise
12) Seek additional funding
13) Find a specific type of food for specialization first before general market entry
14) Test foods in local (to x country) focus groups
15) Find partners for distribution, development
16) Look into mail/order distribution rather than retail to increase margins and eliminate barrier to market
17) Find partners for development of food products
18) Initial Test Run
19) Make additional changes
20) Continue developing product for set market, refining mass scale production, cost projections, distribution
Question 3: About your trip to Hanoi, tell me one thing in your travels that could be improved for a better customer experience. It can be anything from the time to left your home, to before you left the Hanoi airport.
Estimated time: 5 minutes.
A problem I found once I left the United States was understanding what I would do in different airports or countries when I had a connecting flight. I originally left for San Francisco to Taiwan. Once I hit Taiwan, I do not feel it was immediately clear where I was going next, so I generally followed people around. Once I arrived in Hanoi, a similar feeling hit, and I feel that if I were a non-Vietnamese speaking tourist, I could easily be led astray by another person from whom I had sought assistance. Perhaps airlines could provide how-to brochures in the traveler’s native language along with the original boarding pass that would explain what to expect, where to go, etc. Even a map would be extremely helpful and would gain additional revenue for airports as people who want to shop or eat food during their stop could look at the map rather than feel uncomfortable about leaving their assigned gate at risk of getting lost.
Question 4: Explain the difference between prepaid and post paid cell phone service in a manner that could instruct an 8 year old child.
Estimated time: 10 minutes.
I feel that a post-paid service is like a promise. Young children can understand the concept of a promise, and I believe it can be explained that post-paid is like asking a friend to borrow money to buy candy and then promising to pay him back. If you do not pay the friend back, he will be very angry, not let you borrow money again, and may even tell his parents or teacher on you. For phones, you have promised someone to pay him back if you use his phone service.
As for prepaid, that seems like the standard method of payment that a child would be familiar with. When you go to a store to buy a toy, you have to pay first. If you do not have money, then you will not get into trouble; you will simply not be allowed to have the toy. A prepaid phone service is the same way in that you pay for the amount of phone service you want (number of toys) beforehand. If you do not have enough, you simply do not get any service.
Question 5: What is your personal approach to identifying the critical path on a project? How do you adjust when things change? How do you manage those tasks you can’t get to?
Estimated time: 10 minutes.
I believe the key to identifying the critical path on a project lies in an understanding of how the project lies with the company’s central mission. For this you need to see your own manager to get a bigger sense of the picture. Having this allows you to have a high level of transparency with your own team members (assuming you are a project leader or manager). That will help the other members of the team think along the same paths or at least have a concept of your primary motivations.
From there, adjusting to changes and maintaining the path requires constant focus on these central objectives. From my experience, there are parts of projects that you do and then do not want to do. For me, the things I want to do are the ones that if successful, will be a great gain for the company but are not truly mandatory to the project. They are the risky, but more “fun” sides of a project. I keep progress on my work but maintain side notes about what I have done so far along with new ideas. The new ideas tend to divert the project so I will have a primary reminder of the main goals that I frequently look over so that I have the proper mindset to understand how things need to be prioritized.
I may need to discuss my progress with a supervisor or with the team to get feedback on what we can implement and when I am being unrealistic.
In managing tasks I cannot get to, I must look at the work situation. If I am in a team or am managing others, I will communicate what tasks I would like finished but cannot get to. The team or other employees can pitch their own thoughts, solutions, or perhaps pick up the tasks themselves. In a leadership position, however, I have to maintain an awareness of others’ work and understand where lost tasks can be resumed by others. Again, having the bigger picture in mind whether for the project or for the scope of the company/division, must be of primary importance at all times.
Question 6: You are responsible for training 20,000 users on Microsoft Office. They are already users of Lotus Notes. Please describe how you would train them with:
- Unlimited budget
- A budget that is just slightly short of optimal
- A budget that is 50% short of optimal
Estimated time: 15 minutes.
C) With a limited budget, I would focus more on digital tools rather than human resources to ease the transition. From my experience in Customer Service, the more you can proactively document and address problems through things like FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions), the less the required investment in personnel. With 20,000 users already familiar with one platform and moving uniformly to another, we at least know the background of the users, what they are expecting, and how we can adjust the Office experience to ease the transition.
Using Wikis or a working knowledge database allows users to seek answers at any time at their own convenience but also allows the support/training staff to gradually add information as they come across and solve problems. A custom-built wiki or knowledge database also allows the training staff to mine searches to see which types of employees are having certain types of problems, determine if solutions need to be improved, and generally understand the difficulties in the transition.
B) With the slightly increased budget, we could add more of a focus on human training interaction. We could add initial training sessions, and then meet for workshops occasionally in larger groups to address questions or concerns people may have had.
Depending on the requirements for the transition, training personnel could help with data backup and data migration themselves to avoid problems.
Being able to digitally teach through downloadable or CD-ROM lessons may be an alternative.
A) With a full budget, I would incorporate the digital tools from problem C and increase the training to a full classroom initiative. The tools from B may also be helpful here, and I believe the finding the core problems that users are likely to face and showing the users how to complete them through coursework (relevant case studies) and repetition would best aid the training.
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Tags: fpt, interview, redoctane, stress, Vietnam, Work
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