Help ! job interview tomorrow !!

James33

Member
Hi guys

I have a job interview tomorrow and I am now preparing myself for some expected interview questions... how would you answer below questions if you were me ?


  1. What is an affiliate program on the Internet? Describe in your own words
  2. When might an affiliate program compromise the quality of search engine results?
  3. Lets say you had to design a comparison shopping website. Which three features would you add to ensure that the user finds a good offer for the product he is looking for?



 
Hi guys

I have a job interview tomorrow and I am now preparing myself for some expected interview questions... how would you answer below questions if you were me ?


  1. What is an affiliate program on the Internet? Describe in your own words
  2. When might an affiliate program compromise the quality of search engine results?
  3. Lets say you had to design a comparison shopping website. Which three features would you add to ensure that the user finds a good offer for the product he is looking for?


If your going for the interview you should already know the answer to these without paraphrasing one of us?
 
I just would like to hear everyone`s opinions , some of yous may have better answers than mine so why not to use them ? If the question was 2x2 = ? you would be right and it would be silly to ask it here.

Thanks
 
If you aren't comfortable about what you might answer, you're probably not the right person in the first place.
Understand the terms, technologies, and just be yourself, stay calm, and confident. Don't worry about testing them as well, and prepare a few questions you can ask them. Showing motivation and initiative without being a douche is perhaps just what they're looking for.
 
Would anyone have anything to say about the questions rather than criticising my candidacy :D

@ Floris do not worry this is not my first job interview and I already have a job so I would not be crying if I do not get this one :)
 
The affiliate programs I am familiar with function on commission sales or referrals, like CafePress or vB's affiliate program which gives you a commission for referred license sales. So I might call it incentivized commerce.

I don't know what an affiliate program has to do with search results. If asked that question I might press the interviewer for specific context.

I would look to Amazon as a model for a good shopping site. Their review system and review ratings to filter out bad reviews are very effective. They also have automatic product suggestions based on your browsing history. <3 Amazon.

The thing to consider about job interviews is the mindset of the interviewer. Most interviewers are bad at their job. Those are the ones that interview based on qualifications in which case your approach should be one of selling yourself for the position. E.g. "I am good for this job because I can do all of these things." The better interviewers will pose questions designed to test the applicant's personality and general fit for the work environment. For example, you don't want an antisocial candidate in a position that requires group work. Here are some personality questions:

http://partnerit.com/2009/04/7-interview-questions-to-determine-personality-fit/

I am also fond of interviewers who pose real job questions. For example, you ask the applicant how they would work to resolve a real problem that your company is dealing with. Answers to these types of questions can be very insightful for the interviewer.

I personally don't believe in selling myself for a job. Rather I look for jobs that I am personally interested in or ones that I would enjoy doing. Then I don't have to work to sell myself for the position because I bring that genuine interest and motivation to the interview which guarantees me the job. I have had 3 real jobs in the last 14 years. In each case the job I ended up getting was the only one I applied for.
 
1. I might describe it in the shopping sense as other sites which promote an item which is then sold by the "root" site with a commission going to the affiliate. In some cases, the order may even go completely through the affiliate, but the fulfillment comes from the "root" store.

2. Such a program might compromise SEO if all the sites selling the product had the exact same descriptions and keywords and price. The more differences that exist, the more chance search will pick them up as somewhat separate entities.

3. A trusted site can easily be gleamed from a couple experiences. Example: I go to Kayak.com to shop hotels and find a certain price. If I then go straight to the hotel itself or orbitz and see a much better price, I would stop using Kayak and find a service that seemed to consistently find ALL the possibly prices out there.
In short, if I felt a shopping engine burned me once...I'd never use it again.

There are lots of variations on these themes - putting it bluntly, there is the normal Bell Curve at work, with some people being clueless enough to use a service or shopping site because (example) they might have a drawing for a $100,000 prize and you get entered every time you buy something from their shopping link.....there have been all kinds of such schemes and I'm sure there are still a lot of them. It all depends on the target audience.
 
  1. What is an affiliate program on the Internet? Describe in your own words
  2. When might an affiliate program compromise the quality of search engine results?
  3. Lets say you had to design a comparison shopping website. Which three features would you add to ensure that the user finds a good offer for the product he is looking for?

1. where people receive goods (money, discounts) for referring people to purchase products on the internet. Referrals are usually tracked with an affiliate ID number.
2. When websites (often with a good page rank) link to inferior products because of higher expected returns (more affiliate money per successful referral) vs. actual quality of the product in question ... the "financially motivated" link will increase the page rank of the inferior product ... leading to inaccurate search results (ie. the page rank of the inferior product gets inflated). To illustrate a point, use an example. There are 3 competitors: product 1, 2 and 3. All offer affiliate programs that pay 20% of the initial sale. Product 3 wanted to boost sales as Product 1 and 2 were starting to gain market share ... so they boosted their affiliate pay to 90% of the initial sale. As webmasters of product comparison sites heard about this "great deal" they might be swayed to link to Product 3 - even though it is inferior. Product 3's page rank will increase as the number of external sites linking to it increases.

3. compare by: price, similar products, availability. ie. shopbot.ca
 
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