it’s been more than a year since george floyd was murdered. more than a year since companies all over the nation made statements indicating their support for black lives matter and a commitment to racial justice.

since last year, we have grieved the losses of many more black people. we watched as a police officer was convicted of a murder that was seen in broad daylight by many around the world.

our work as a nation, as companies, and as individuals is not done. at magoosh we will continue to do the work. we know that it’s action, not words, that count most.

last year, we wrote about our progress and next steps, and we owe you an update.

so what have we done at magoosh since june 2020?

#1: we’ve donated $50,000 to organizations that support movement towards justice for the black community.

we decided to make meaningful donations to a few organizations (as opposed to smaller sums to a lot of organizations). we identified four categories to support, making a donation to one organization in each category:

• organizations that support longer-term police reform
• organizations that train young black organizers and advocates
• organizations that promote racial justice through education
• bail or legal defense funds to support arrested protestors

we also prioritized organizations that are grassroots, are black-led, employ community-based solutions, employ evidence-based interventions, are geographically diverse, and have strong ratings on charity navigator, guidestar, or great nonprofits or have a connection to a magoosh employee who can vouch for the organization’s effectiveness.

we chose the following four organizations and donated $12,500 to each:

• families for justice as healing: fjah is a small grassroots organization connecting formerly incarcerated women and girls working to end mass incarceration. they are led by black women and young organizers based in roxbury, ma.
• black swan academy: bsa’s mission is to empower black youth in under-served communities through civic leadership and engagement, giving them a comprehensive set of tools needed to succeed in life and become active social catalysts in their communities. they are based in washington, dc.
• hip hop for change: hhfc empowers black youth to express and advocate for their vision of justice and change by engaging with the history and culture of hip hop. they are based in oakland, ca.
• national bail fund network: this fund network supports over 70 local bail and legal defense funds to support protesters who have been arrested. the fund is nationwide.

#2: we put more intention and resources into our journey to make magoosh a more equitable and inclusive organization.

• we started employee resource groups (ergs), with the goal of creating spaces where marginalized magooshers can be in community with others who share some of their lived experiences. our ergs are a strategic part of our plans to make magoosh more inclusive and create a greater sense of belonging. we support the work by allocating time and budget for employees to engage in these communities as a part of their normal workload. i’m fortunate to serve as the executive sponsor for our black magooshers all together (bmat) erg.
• we implemented a recognition and compensation plan for our erg and dei committee leads. the work to lead an erg is not only logistically challenging, but emotionally taxing as well. in addition to allocating time for our leads to work on their groups, we compensate them, provide a dedicated professional development stipend, and are formalizing a sponsorship program with their executive sponsors to support their professional advancement. we are also working to add committee work to performance and leveling conversations this year.
• we hired a full-time director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. desiree morton has already worked with our deib committee, people ops team, and erg leads to help us build a more cohesive approach to deib at magoosh. she’s played a major role in ongoing erg support and developing the recognition and compensation program for those doing this work. in addition, she’s challenged us to develop more inclusive management and leadership practices and helped us prioritize educating ourselves about the challenges under-represented employees and students face. i’m beyond grateful to have desiree on the team as a fierce advocate for those who most need that advocacy and support and to help magoosh better fulfill our mission and truly become the kind of workplace i envision.
• we updated our approach to test prep content development by revising our style guides to promote inclusive language, and we gave content creators resources and guidance to draw on diverse histories, perspectives, and representation in our materials. we are auditing and fixing insensitive issues within our existing lessons and marketing content so that it is culturally aware, diverse, and inclusive. we also know that to make the most effective materials, our content creators must come from a wide range of backgrounds and identities, which is why we are committed to fair and unbiased hiring practices and have goals to increase the diversity of our content creators. we want our students to see themselves represented in our content and our instructors, and will continue to focus and invest in these areas moving forward.
• we published our diversity report, and are working on our next one. we want the diversity of our team to represent the diversity of our us student base. several years ago, we set explicit diversity goals across 4 dimensions:
  • gender
  • race
  • first in family to go to college
  • grew up in a non-english-speaking household (primary language).

currently, over 50% of our team identify as women, 19% are from underrepresented groups (including 9% who identify as black and/or african american), 17% are the first to go to college, and 28% grew up in a non-english-speaking household.

we plan to be transparent with our progress, and invite you to hold us accountable.

#3: we’re leveling the playing field in test prep.

• this has always been our mission, but we’ve committed ourselves to learning more about inequitable experiences that our students face before, during, and after their studies with magoosh, including how standardized testing upholds systems of oppression against marginalized communities. in practice, this includes setting time aside for every single magoosh employee to learn about inequality within the education system, and also time to incorporate that learning into our work of building quality and effective test prep that’s affordable and works for every one of our students.
• we’re committing to measuring and sharing the equity impact of our products. specifically, if we want to level the playing field, we need to be sure that our test prep supports our most marginalized students in a meaningful way. we have begun this work with data collection and goal setting prioritized alongside our growth and innovation goals. we look forward to being transparent about the impact we’re having.
• we continue to partner with organizations to provide free and low-cost test prep to students such as smash scholars, oliver scholars, and mcnair scholars.

our values make this work possible

doing this type of work requires a great deal of commitment and investment. we are fortunate that we can lean heavily on our values including challenge > comfort, change > status quo, and learning > knowing to continue to do what is right for our employees, students, and communities. the work will be ongoing, and we know that, even with the steps we have taken leading up to and during this past year, we have a long way to go. we’re here for it.

author’s note: i’d like to acknowledge that this article is the result of a massive team effort. i’d like to thank desiree morton for her significant contributions to the content of this post as well as our reviewers alan day, hannah baker, jessica wan, naomi tepper, trish do, viva asmelash, and all the other magooshers who have made this post (and this work!) possible.

the post the journey continues for our racial justice work — 2021 update appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

over time, we’ve noticed there are some topics that almost everyone wants to know more about, so we’ve compiled the list of most common questions we get asked by candidates, along with the answers that will help you decide if magoosh is the right place for you.

 

table of contents

culture

• what is the culture like at magoosh?
• what are the best parts about working at magoosh?

diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging

• how does magoosh foster a diverse and inclusive environment?

growth opportunities

• are there opportunities to grow at magoosh?

hiring process & practices

• what’s the hiring process?
• do you provide work sponsorship?
• how do i prepare?
• do you actually read the cover letter?
• is the salary negotiable—why not?

mission & values

• can you share more about why your values are inequalities?
• in what ways does magoosh fulfill its mission to level the educational playing field?
• in what ways have you seen magoosh live out the core values?

org structure

• what is an area team?
• what is the org structure?

remote workforce

• what structures are in place to support part-time and remote employees?
• i’m on the east coast, do i have to work west coast hours?
• can part-time employees choose their own hours?

culture

what is the culture like at magoosh?

magoosh’s culture is a reflection of our core values, which, day-to-day, means we’re a friendly bunch who are always challenging ourselves to learn, change, and passionately do everything we can to make test prep accessible to as many students as possible. we prioritize communicating every step of the way, moving quickly, and wow-ing our students and each other as we go.

aside from being friendly, magooshers cheer each other on, are flexible and driven, and provide each other with the feedback we need to grow. we also like getting to know each other better and try to enable folks to be their authentic selves, and do that by having social events and virtual gatherings, like dei book club, games happy hour, holiday extravaganza, wine club, and more!

 
what are the best parts about working at magoosh?

some of the things that make magoosh a great place to work include making an impact and engaging in meaningful work, a genuine commitment to the mission shared by all magooshers, leadership that genuinely cares about people, flexible work schedules, friendly and passionate team members, and fun social events (even virtual ones!).

diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging

how does magoosh foster a diverse and inclusive environment?

this is a work in progress for us! we have done a lot of awesome work so far, like:

• standardizing our interview questions and rubrics (more info here)
• holding ourselves accountable by using the rooney rule
• ensuring part-time, full-time, remote, and in-office team members feel integrated into the magoosh culture
• developing a framework for employee resource groups (ergs), including bmat, aapi, lgbtqia, and minds of all kinds
• building out a pay equity framework (more info here)
• ensuring equitable benefits and perks across our employee groups
• a number of other key results around belonging, voice, inclusion and more that are owned by our director of deib, dei committee, and ergs for an even greater focus and impact

take a look at these blogs for more info about our diversity goals and how we examined deib at magoosh.

we know there is more we can do, and we are actively pushing ourselves to become a more diverse and inclusive organization.

growth opportunities

are there opportunities to grow at magoosh?

yes! there are a ton of opportunities to grow! in the past, we’ve had part-time team members become part-time team leads, part-time team members transition into full-time roles, full-time team members move to new departments (like marketing to engineering), and full-time team members move up to higher-level individual contributor or management roles.

we do periodic evaluations so that magooshers always know where they’re at and what they need to do in order to grow.

if your dreams and goals ultimately take you outside of magoosh, we will support you in that next step of your journey, too! and we are very connected with our magoosh “alumni.”

hiring process & practices

what’s the hiring process?

check out a detailed answer to this question in this blog.

do you provide work sponsorship?

being a small startup, we are unable to provide sponsorship and currently can only employ folks who are authorized to work and live in the u.s.

how do i prepare?

read nicole’s awesome blog on this exact topic here.

do you actually read the cover letter?

yes, we read every single one! after you apply for an open position on our careers page, we review your resume and cover letter. while reading the cover letter, we’re looking for additional signs, beyond what is captured in the resume, that you have the skills needed for the position and that you have a genuine passion for magoosh’s mission and interest in the role you’re applying for.

don’t have all of the requirements for the role? we still encourage you to apply (we especially encourage candidates from historically underrepresented backgrounds to apply). the cover letter is a great way to tell us why you’d be a strong candidate for the role, despite not having all of the qualifications.

is the salary negotiable—why not?

at magoosh we’re committed to pay equity. we understand that folks with certain identities are more likely to get raises or do better in negotiations than others. we want to ensure that magooshers who are doing the same job at the same level will have the same salaries. we combat pay inequity by making all salaries non-negotiable. if you’re interested in learning more, take a look at this blog post that digs into our approach to salaries!

mission & values

can you share more about why your values are inequalities?

our values help guide our decision-making and how we work, but it’s not to say that one way of doing things is better than another. as you’ve already noticed, we turned our values into inequalities—the left side represents the magoosh way, and the right side represents another good way, just not our way. to learn more about our core values, click here.

in what ways does magoosh fulfill its mission to level the educational playing field?

what differentiates magoosh from so many other companies is our mission. we create high-quality test prep products at an affordable price. test prep can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars, making it impossible for lower-income students to afford. we want all students to have the opportunity to prepare for their standardized exams. on top of our products being incredibly affordable, we also offer a bunch of student discounts and sometimes offer our product for free to community-based organizations that serve some of our most marginalized communities.

in what ways have you seen magoosh live out the core values?

magoosh lives and breathes its core values. they are a part of our everyday workflows. they help guide our decision-making, help us assess candidates in our interview process and employees in their performance, and are used to ensure we continue to live out our mission of leveling the playing field.

a few of the core values a new magoosher would quickly notice are: our teammates are truly some of the friendliest folks around, we really value communication, our leaders take wow > profit seriously, and done > perfect is a way of life here.

during the uncertainties of 2020, magoosh lived out wow > profit in a big way, both for students by allowing flexibility with their memberships and employees by offering flexible/reduced work hours, a covid sick bank (ft & pt employees), and additional paid time off for rest/mental health every quarter (just to name a few).

org structure

what is an area team?

an area team is a cross-functional team that works to drive forward the success of a product. the different areas at magoosh are:

• gre/gmat (grat team)
• sat/act (high school)
• lsat/mcat (lcat)
• ielts/toefl (iefl)
• new products (where we’re incubating new product ideas!)

on an area team, you may find a couple of marketers, a product manager, a curriculum manager, and an engineer.

what is the org structure?

magoosh doesn’t have a heavy top-down structure, meaning we maintain lines of communication open across all levels of the organization and encourage input/questions/ideas from everyone. that said, we do have area and department leads. area leads are responsible for our different products (listed in the answer above) and department leads guide the strategic direction of the department.

the various departments at magoosh include:

• content
• data
• engineering
• marketing
• operations (business ops, hr, recruiting, deib)
• product/ux
• student help

remote workforce

what structures are in place to support part-time and remote employees?

we have done a lot of work to ensure part-time magooshers are just as integrated into the culture as full-time magooshers. our part-time folks receive benefits like sick time, paid time off, 401k, and being part of all the social events that happen at magoosh. we’ve also revamped some of the perks for our part-time teammates! you can find more information here.

before 2020, we were already developing a remote/work-from-home framework to provide our teammates with more flexibility, and the pandemic just put that timeline in fast-forward. throughout most of 2020, our entire team worked remotely, and we anticipate shifting to an office/remote blended work environment for the future (even post-pandemic). magoosh has been supportive by contributing toward home office equipment, offering flexible hours, keeping teams connected through tools like asana and slack, and hosting virtual social events.

i’m on the east coast, do i have to work west coast hours?

you do not have to work west coast hours! we are super flexible when it comes to work schedules, and we want you to work the hours that are best for you while allowing for the overlapping hours that are needed for meetings and check-ins with your manager and team. in general, our ft employees work about 4-5 overlapping hours per day.

can part-time employees choose their own hours?

the ability for our part-time employees to choose their own hours largely depends on the business needs of the team. some of our part-time employees have the flexibility to choose their own work hours, allowing for 2-3 overlapping hours per week for manager/team check-ins and project updates, while other part-time teammates have more set schedules, doing the bulk of their work during standard business hours multiple days per week. your manager will be able to share more role-specific details, but in general, we aim to balance flexibility and role needs.

the post magoosh candidate faq appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

as the coronavirus (covid-19) spreads across the globe, it has already impacted nearly all of our professional and personal plans.

to slow the spread of this pandemic, it is vital that we follow cdc guidelines and best practices. these include social distancing, which involves increasing the physical distance between people to a minimum of six feet.

this recommendation has led to the cancellation of many public events—including the administration of standardized tests.

so what should you do if you have a test coming up?

table of contents

• understanding the effects of covid-19 on your test
• what is the status of your exam? official test-maker responses
• what we currently know
  • sat/act + ap exams + college admissions updates
  • gre
  • gmat
  • ielts
  • toefl
  • lsat
  • mcat
  • other exams
• magoosh’s response

understanding the effects of covid-19 on your test

if you and your loved ones are doing well—and we certainly hope that this is the case—this might be a good time for you to fit in some extra studying. but don’t feel bad if you’re not in the position to do so right now—it’s important to take care of your physical and mental well-being first.

if you’re wondering what to do about the logistics of your exam, ask yourself the following questions:

1. was it canceled? if it was:
   • how do you get a refund?
   • how do you reschedule?
   • can you take it at home?
2. was it postponed? if it was:
   • how do you reschedule?
3. how does this affect application deadlines for college and grad school?

what is the status of your exam? official test-maker responses

• to find out the latest on exam-wide cancellations and postponements, check the test-maker’s official response on their website:
  • sat
  • act
  • gre
  • gmat
  • ielts
  • toefl
  • lsat
  • mcat
• to learn more about your already scheduled test, reach out to your testing center (if applicable).
• to learn more about application deadlines and decision dates, reach out directly to university admissions departments (expect delayed responses).

what we currently know

college admissions + sat/act + ap exams updates

college admissions updates

at the height of the pandemic, droves of colleges have announced changes in their testing policy to test-optional. several continue to do so for at least one more year and many colleges plan to make this change permanent. the university of california system made a huge splash as it relates to standardized testing—first by announcing plans to phase out the use of sat/act for admissions decisions by 2024 and then by receiving a court-ordered mandate barring the uc system from using test scores at all.

as vaccines become more readily available and colleges seek to return to normal, their admissions policies continue to evolve. make sure to refer to the websites of specific schools for the latest information.

>> watch & read: test-optional colleges: what you need to know

sat

the latest updates about how the college board is dealing with covid-19 here. it appears that things may be going back to normal in terms of sat administration; while the college board is still requiring masks and other safety measures, it appears that test closures may not be as common as it was when the pandemic was in full swing. still, it would wise to check the college board’s test center closure page and your email often.

the anticipated dates for the 2021-2022 school year are as follows:

• august 28, 2021
• october 2, 2021
• november 6, 2021
• december 4, 2021
• march 12, 2022
• may 7, 2022
• june 4, 2022

in january, the college board announced they would be discontinuing the optional sat essay and subject tests:

• the optional sat essay will only be offered until june 2021.
• sat subject tests will only be offered to international students until june 2021.

act

not much has been reported as of late on the act website regarding covid-19, indicating that like the sat, the makers of the act are facilitating a return to normalcy. it is unclear whether or not the at-home act test, which was piloted during the crisis, is still under development.

the following are the test dates for the 2021-2022 school year:

• september 11, 2021
• october 23, 2021
• december 11, 2021
• february 12, 2022
• april 2, 2022
• june 11, 2022
• july 16, 2022

ap exams

college board has released 2022 dates for ap testing and they will follow the pre-covid schedule (the first two weeks of may with make-up testing in the third week of may). it is unclear if they will continue with digital administrations, but it appears unlikely for those who don’t need accommodations.

gre

the gre at-home is here to stay permanently. if you’re planning on taking the gre soon, check out our online gre blog post to see what that means for you.

as of july 11, 2020, in mainland china, the national education examinations authority announced that the gre general test has resumed at a few locations.

as of june 15, 2020, gre test centers around the world are beginning to reopen for june and july test dates (with the exception of mainland china, where gre testing has been suspended until june 30, 2020). check here to see if gre test centers near you are open and accepting appointments.

most gre exams, including all computer-based gre testing done by prometric test centers, have been suspended around the globe. check your email and gre account online for specific information about your exam.

you can reschedule your gre exam free of charge if you reschedule via live chat, email (gre-info@ets.org), or phone (1-866-473-4373).if you reschedule by yourself online, you will incur a rescheduling fee (don’t do this!).

>> as of monday, march 23rd, students can register to take the gre general test online at home. while this started as a temporary solution with limited availability, ets has now made the gre general test at home a permanent, widely available option. students can now schedule tests 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. to find out more, check out ets’s official gre at home faq. note also that as of december 2020, ets is temporarily accepting expired identification documents for those taking the gre at home. according to the ets website, “ets is temporarily accepting government-issued ids with expiration dates from february 1, 2020, forward. all other id policies still apply.” also as of december 2020, the gre at home test is scheduled directly through ets’s website; previously test-takers scheduled through proctoru, and ets partner company. proctoru staff still provide proctoring services for this test, even though they no longer handle booking.

note that some programs are waiving gre exam requirements for 2021 applicants. this isn’t widespread, so check with your specific program for updates.

>> watch: gre at home: a real student’s experience & tips
>> watch: ets online gre: a good experience with unexpected surprises
>> read: was your gre canceled? you can take it at home
>> read: a student’s guide to taking the gre online with proctoru
>> read: magoosh gre prep during covid-19
 

gmat

the gmat online exam will be a permanent testing option alongside the in-person gmat. gmac will also be rolling out these changes to the gmat online for appointments on april 8, 2021, and onward:

• return of the awa (gmat essay) section
• choose your own section order (just like the in-person gmat)
• two optional 8-minute breaks
• view your unofficial score as soon as you finish

registration for this enhanced gmat online format will open on february 17, 2021. exams taken before april 8, 2021, will have the current gmat online format.

starting september 23, 2020, at 12:01 est, you have the option to retake the gmat online exam. the online exam option is also being offered until february 2021. the gmat online exam price is $250 usd, and rescheduling and exam cancellation fees will be reinstated at $25 and $100 usd respectively. gmat online exams taken on or after september 23rd will also begin counting towards your overall 12-month and lifetime gmat attempt limits.

as of june 15, 2020, many gmat test centers are reopening with increased safety measures in place to protect test-takers and proctors (see the updated list of open test centers by clicking here). safety measures include the use of face masks, frequent sanitation of check-in and testing equipment, and easily accessible hand sanitizer throughout the test center.

starting may 12, 2020, all test-takers are required to wear a face mask for the duration of the exam (with the exception of test centers in australia and the united kingdom). you may also wear disposable gloves if you wish. please check your nearest test center location for rules and regulations.

all gmat exams at us and canadian pearson vue centers have been suspended until further notice. if you have a gmat scheduled outside of the us/canada, you can check the status of your exam here.

if your exam has been affected, it will be either rescheduled or canceled, with fees waived. you will receive notifications via email, and the organization asks that you do not try to reschedule or cancel your appointment online but instead contact customer service.

note that some business school programs are waiving gmat exam requirements for 2021 applicants. this isn’t widespread, so check with your specific program for updates.

>> read: gmat canceled? you can take the gmat online exam at home
>> watch: gmat at home: real experience and tips
>> read: online gmat exam experience and tips

ielts

to help students whose test centers are closed as well as those would prefer to test from the safety of their home during the pandemic, ielts partners has introduced ielts indicator. ielts indicator is an online test created for students who want to take the ielts. at this time, it is not a full substitution for the ielts, as it is not accepted at all institutions. however, the ielts does list the growing number of schools that accept the ielts indicator worldwide.

check out our ielts blog (especially the “read” article linked below), where we’ll update with more information about ielts indicator as it comes in.

ielts has is opening more and more locations, although testing is still limited or cancelled in some countries or regions. to find out more, go to the official ielts booking site, or contact your local test center with questions. but do not go to ielts’ covid-news web page. this page is outdated, even though ielts hasn’t taken it down.

while ielts is reopening test centers around the world, the makers of the exam are sensitive to the new dangers of in-person testing during the pandemic. re-opened test centers often take number of safety and social distancing precautions. these requirements vary form region to region, so you’ll want to contact your local test center for any onsite covid safety requirements.

in addition, to address the need for home study during the pandemic, the ielts now offers a number of home study options:

• the ielts has partnered with kaplan to provide official online ielts preparation courses for students who currently reside in the united states. and of coruse, our magoosh ielts courses remain available worldwide!
• students can now take a free ielts masterclass, online or in person. these 90 minute sessions allow studnetys to learn more about the exam and ask questions of a live ielts instructor. recordings of past materclasses are available online as well. for details, see the official ielts masterclass website.
• in addition to the masterclasses, the ielts test-makers offer a number of other study-from home educational resources, including ielts webinars and the courses linked under the “ielts online courses” heading on the ielts idp preparation web page.
• the ielts also now provides a paid practice test that can be taken online. students who complete this test will have their results scored by actual ielts examiners. this practice test is called the ielts progress check, and it costs $49.95 usd.

>> read:

• • • what to do if your ielts study plans have been disrupted due to coronavirus (covid-19)

• • i took the ielts indicator. here’s everything you need to know

toefl

although test centers are continuing to reopen around the world, some toefl exams are still cancelled or less available. check both your email and your toefl account online for more information about your specific exam.

as of december 2020, a number of changes have been made to the toefl home edition:

• the toefl home edition, initially created as a temporary home-based testing option for the pandemic, is now being offered permanently. according to ets’s toefl home edition faq: “the toefl ibt home edition is now a standard option for test takers and will be available for the foreseeable future, along with the option of testing at a test center.”
• also per the toefl home edition faq, ets is temporarily accepting expired ids for toefl home edition registration. from the faq: “ets is temporarily accepting government-issued ids with expiration dates from february 1, 2020, forward. all other id policies still apply.”
• although proctoru’s staff still provide proctoring for the toefl home edition, you no longer book the home edition through proctoru’s website. booking and scheduling for the home version of this exam are now handled entirely on the ets website, through the same platform that you’d use to book a test-center toefl.
• for all toefl tests, including the toefl home edition, there is now a $60 fee for rescheduling the exam, and all exams must be rescheduled at least four days in advance. for more information, see this page from the official toefl website.

the toefl home edition test was originally created as a safe way to take a real toefl exam from home during the pandemic; it is now being offered on a permanent basis.

this at-home test is available everywhere except mainland china and iran. if you are able to take the toefl home edition outside of mainland china or iran, you can register with ets here.

in addition to the home edition, the toefl has also unveiled a completely new version of the exam that can also be taken online: the toefl essentials test. the format is slightly different than the ibt, although many of the details on this exam have yet to be announced. for more info, read this magoosh toefl blog post.

one covid-era alternative to the regular toefl has been discontinued. now that the standard toefl is increasingly available in mainland china, the toefl itp plus, which was created specifically to address the pandemic, has been discontinued. the good news is that if you’ve taken the itp plus, you can still use your score report when applying for work or study. read here for details.

last but certainly not least, ets has reopened test centers in various countries, regions and cities in the americas, europe, the middle east, africa, and asia pacific. to see toefl availability in your test or region, use the toefl’s test center and date lookup service.

>> read:

• • • what to do if your toefl study plans have been disrupted due to coronavirus (covid-19)

• • i took the toefl home edition. here’s how it went.

lsat

in 2020, lsac began to offer a new, remote-proctored, at-home lsat exam: lsat-flex. a remote version of the exam will continue to replace the in-person lsat through at least june 2022. however, as of august 2021, the 3-section lsat-flex will change into a remote lsat with 3 scored sections and 1 unscored section. like the lsat-flex, the remote lsat uses real lsat questions and is monitored by live proctors.

as of august, 2021, the remote lsat will:

• have 3 scored sections and 1 un-scored, experimental section,
• include a 10-minute break between sections 2 and 3,
• and be scored on the standard 120-180 lsat range.

magoosh lsat prep is customizable for remote lsat studiers, and includes official full-length practice tests with flex timing, study schedules, and a score predictor.

>> watch: lsat-flex review & tips: a student’s experience
>> read: taking the lsat-flex exam: online at-home lsat testing
>> read: lsat-flex score conversion table (how to predict your lsat flex score!)

mcat

mcat & coronavirus in 2021

on october 7, 2020, aamc announced their plans to return to regularly scheduled programming in 2021. that means administering mcat exams on the typical full-year schedule, and holding only in-person administrations of the full-length exam. aamc added a new january testing option, and began offering an afternoon testing session (non-morning-people rejoice!).

there are updated health and safety standards at testing centers, to help keep testers safe during their exam. you can learn more in aamc’s faqs: the mcat and covid-19.

what happened with the mcat & coronavirus in 2020?

at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, aamc cancelled mcat exams and then offered a shortened mcat for the remainder of 2020. this exam was 5 hours and 45 minutes long, as opposed to the normal 7 and a half hours. aamc also added three new test dates: june 28, september 27, and september 28, and expedited score release timelines. if you were scheduled to take one of the cancelled exams, you should have received a cancellation email.

>> read: what to do if your mcat study plans have been disrupted due to coronavirus
>> watch: message to mcat students from an mcat expert re: coronavirus (covid-19) and med school admissions
>> watch: study with me live – medkinza & kat from magoosh mcat

other tests

the praxis exam now has a home edition! for teachers seeking licensure, the praxis portion of that path is now safer and more convenient. for more information, see ets’s press release on the home-based praxis tests.

if you live in a state where the hiset is accepted as a high school equivalency exam, then you’re in luck. you can now take the hiset from home as well! check out the ets website for more information.

the widely accepted ged high school quivalency exam is also now available in a home-based format for those unable to take the traditional ged due to covid-19. click this link for more information on the home-based ged.

magoosh’s response

students with a magoosh account

if you are a current magoosh student, we know that your studying plans may be disrupted. we are offering all of our existing students the option to pause or extend your magoosh account free of charge. please send a message to our team at help@www.catharsisit.com if you’ve been impacted.

new magoosh students

are you thinking of purchasing magoosh prep but worried your standardized test will be affected due to the implications of coronavirus?

after completing your purchase, email us at help@www.catharsisit.com and we will pause or extend your magoosh subscription plan for free.

take care

we wish everyone the best at this stressful time! please take good care of yourselves, your loved ones, and your community.

the post live updates: effects of covid-19 on standardized testing appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

getting a job in tech isn’t easy—especially if you come from a historically marginalized group, like me. i was acutely aware that biases, conscious and unconscious, can seep their way into every stage of a hiring process, starting from the resume review all the way through the final interview stages.

the knowledge of these barriers made getting a job in this industry feel daunting. if your experience in job seeking has been anything like mine, i’m here to share all the things i didn’t know about interviewing for a job in tech. i want to try and lessen that nervousness and lower some of those barriers for you.

i will be your #1 cheerleader. you got this.

table of contents

• my magoosh story
• our hiring process (part-time/contractor and full-time)
• how to prepare for the magoosh interview process
  • application stage
  • phone interview stage
  • assessment stage
  • final interview stage
• final thoughts

my magoosh story

when i began looking for jobs, i wanted to find a company that did hiring differently. i wanted to be at a place that did more than just talk about their commitment to diversity. i wanted to be somewhere that was actively engaging in ways to break these forms of bias that so easily impact marginalized groups’ chances of getting the job.

i came across a job post on linkedin for an associate recruiter and thought, i have some of the experience they are looking for, but not all. i scrolled further and read, “don’t meet all the requirements for the position? that’s okay. we encourage you to still apply.” i mean, hey, if they are telling me to still apply, why not! what did i have to lose?

i hit send on the application and my nervousness set in. the fear of rejection felt just as overwhelming as the fear of getting the interview and having to figure out how to make it through the interview process. i didn’t really know anyone in tech, and i lacked the networks to help me prepare for this process.

despite my concerns, i was invited to the next stage of the process and went through about a month of interviewing with magoosh. i nervously made my way through each step, wondering, do i have what they’re looking for, will this organization be able to hold my identity as a black woman, how will they evaluate me, and will my identity impact their perception?

spoiler alert. i got the job!

the magoosh interview process can feel long and honestly a little intimidating, especially if you have never gone through a process like this before. there were a lot of things i wish i knew, and i want to share some tips to help you prepare for your magoosh interview (and really, any tech interview)!

interviews take a lot of time and emotional energy and unfortunately some interview processes you enter will end with a rejection. i can tell you, i have definitely received more rejection emails than interview invites. rejection is hard and it can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re excited for a job or are going through hard times and need to catch a break. i have always tried to frame each rejection as an opportunity to learn and grow, but honestly, it can be hard to bounce back, especially if you have experienced multiple rejections. as we dig into interview tips, i’ll also share some ways i have bounced back and learned from rejection.

first, let’s talk about the hiring process

at magoosh, we run two hiring processes depending on the type of role.

our part-time/contractor process:

• application→ assessment → final interview

and our full-time process:

• application → phone interview → assessment → final interview

the primary difference between the two is that part-time/contractor roles will move straight into the assessment stage after the application, and the final interview process is generally shorter. please note, these are generally our two processes but if you have a different process for your role, the information below should still be helpful!

as i shared earlier, i wanted to find a place that did hiring differently, and i found that in magoosh. one of the first blog posts i read was bhavin’s article on diversity and the magoosh approach to addressing unconscious bias. i was impressed and excited that magoosh was taking steps to mitigate unconscious bias, but i also had many questions. during my interview i was able to gain clarity into the practices bhavin writes about in the article but there was one tool i had lingering feelings about, even as i started in my role and that was the rooney rule.

the rooney rule

the rooney rule is an accountability tool we use to ensure we engage a diverse group of candidates. we don’t move forward with final interviews until we know we have a diverse group in that final stage of the process. as a black woman, i didn’t really know how to feel about the rooney rule. i liked that magoosh was doing the work to ensure their pipeline was diverse, but i also wondered, am i being interviewed because i identify as an underrepresented minority? am i the “token”? if you are wondering this or have these feelings after learning about the rooney rule, i get it.

i want to let you know that we are interviewing you because you are the best fit for the job. the demographic data you submit with your application will never be tied to any identifying information you provide to us in the interview process (i.e. name, email, resume, etc.) and it will never be used to make a hiring decision.

we know there is a considerable diversity gap in tech and education and that we work at the unique intersection of two institutions with barriers to entry for underrepresented minorities (urm). the rooney rule helps us track our efforts in addressing those gaps, and it holds us accountable to our goals of having a team that’s representative of our student base.

image credit: lankogal (licensed via shutterstock)

here’s how to prepare for the magoosh interview process!

the stages will be outlined based on our full-time process, but a lot of the recommendations apply to our part-time process as well!

application stage

what we’re looking for:

• passion for magoosh’s mission and role
• resume, cover letter and screening questions are complete and reflect a potential skill fit for the role

quick tips:

1. apply even if you don’t meet all the requirements! this can feel a little vulnerable, especially if you don’t think you check all the boxes. i know i was really nervous about hitting submit, especially since i didn’t think i met all the qualifications! when we evaluate candidates’ applications, we are not just looking at relevant job experience. we are looking for candidates who demonstrate a passion for our mission, excitement to learn, and eagerness to take on new challenges. a resume sometimes doesn’t tell the full story, so my next piece of advice is to…
2. write a cover letter. at magoosh, we read every cover letter that comes to us. this helps us learn a little more about you and the “why” behind your interest in the role. sometimes a meaningful cover letter can be the difference between moving forward or not in this stage of the process. please note that meaningful doesn’t necessarily mean long! i know cover letters are very time-consuming to write, especially if you are applying for multiple roles. what we’re looking for is a genuine passion for our mission and interest in the role you’re applying for.we have had a lot of conversations about cover letters and whether or not to require them for our applications. we see them as an opportunity to learn more about you beyond the points on your resume. we don’t want you to spend too much time crafting the perfect cover letter. my recommendation would be to share a little bit about why you’re excited about the role and mission, provide some interesting insights into your experience that we don’t see in your resume, and then build in some connections between your experience and the role you’re applying for. aim for a length of around 3-4 paragraphs.
3. answer all the screening questions, even if you don’t know all the answers! finally, answer all the screening questions! as you are filling out your application, you may notice open-ended questions. those are our screening questions. we use screening questions to assess the baseline skills needed for the role. if you don’t have a great answer for the screening questions, do your best, acknowledge the knowledge gap, and share some ways you would bridge that gap in the role.i know. screening questions, a tailored cover letter, and a tailored resume is a lot just for the application stage. i was definitely a little apprehensive about all the pieces i needed to put together just to submit an application. i can tell you that everything we ask you to submit, we review. we know that we ask a lot of our candidates, and we have constant conversations about how to make sure we are being thoughtful about your time investment. we only ask for information that we need, and we want to make sure we are assessing candidates from multiple angles.

if you’re rejected in this phase…

check your resume and cover letter again. are you demonstrating why and how you’re a fit for the role? sometimes even the simplest changes in the language i was using shifted the number of interviews i was able to get after this stage.

for me, this is the stage where i most commonly faced rejection. if you get hit with multiple rejections in this phase, keep pushing! sometimes it takes multiple applications and multiple tweaks of your resume and cover letter before you finally get a callback.

phone interview stage

what we’re looking for:

• passion for the role and mission
• experiences that highlight magoosh core values
• ways you might add to our culture and values

quick tips:

1. review the core values. you made it to the next stage! congrats! to prepare for your phone interview, take some time to review the magoosh core values. many of the questions we will ask are directly tied to those values. we’re super committed to our mission of increasing equity and access, so we want to learn about how you might add to our culture and values. i was really nervous about this interview, but i also really enjoyed it! there are no right or wrong answers for this interview, we genuinely just want to learn about you. brainstorm some of the unique qualities and perspectives you can bring to the team. to give you a little more preparation support, here’s some questions we might ask during your interview!
2. prepare real life examples. a lot of our interview questions ask for real-life examples from past work experiences. have some examples that connect to our core values top of mind (bonus tip: structure your responses using the star interview method). i struggled coming up with examples on the spot during my interview and could have benefited from taking some time to think through a few before the interview. you’ll want to specifically think about examples of times when projects went well, when they didn’t go well, times you had to give and receive challenging feedback, and times when you learned something and grew from it. you could script the answers out before time and practice with a friend or in front of a mirror to build confidence!
3. assess mutual fit. finally, the phone interview stage is an excellent opportunity for you to learn more about magoosh. we believe in mutual fit. we want you to be just as excited about us as we are about you! we leave about 10 minutes at the end of the phone interview for you to ask any questions you have about magoosh.when i interviewed with amrita, i asked a bunch of questions! i specifically wanted to learn more about magoosh’s deib efforts—as i shared earlier, that was a major area of interest and concern for me, and i wanted to know i was stepping into a space that was ready to do the work. it’s okay to ask tough questions. a question i commonly get is about the diversity of magoosh. some candidates who interview with us come to our team page and don’t see enough representations of themselves and feel uneasy about it. know it’s okay to name that and learn how we are addressing it. don’t hesitate to gain the clarity you need on the team, the role, or the larger organization!

if you’re rejected in this phase…

ask for feedback on how you can improve and what gaps the interviewer saw in your skills. were your examples clear and relevant to the role? did you demonstrate a passion for the mission? did the examples you shared align with core values?

also, check in with yourself. did you give yourself enough time to prepare? how did you feel about the interview? where did you think you really shined and what moments were weaker? for your next interview, build on what went well and work on the things you thought could have gone better. practicing responses out loud in areas that i commonly struggle with has always been super helpful for me!

assessment stage

what we’re looking for:

• subject matter knowledge
• clear and thoughtful approach to the exercise
• problem solving skills

quick tips:

1. assess mutual fit, again the assessment stage gives you an opportunity to get a feel for the type of work you will be doing at magoosh! when we create the assessment, we try and replicate a bite-sized piece of the role so you can get a feel for what you’d be doing. the assessment focuses on a problem we have addressed in the past, and any data we share with you to complete the assessment is either old or made up. the assessment is another great place for you to assess a mutual fit. if you are excited about the exercise, it’s usually a good sign that you will be excited about the work you do in the role. on the flip side, if you receive the assessment and find the exercise boring or draining, that’s okay! just reach out to the recruiter and let them know that this is not something you’re interested in.
2. if you are feeling stretched, focus on approaching the assessment with a growth mindset. the assessment is about problem-solving skills and subject matter knowledge. the expectation isn’t that you know how to do everything in the same way we do it at magoosh, but that you are thinking creatively and demonstrating a growth mindset in your approach. we are much more interested in how you get to your solution than the solution itself. i felt unsure about how to approach some questions in the assessment. i leaned on how i would approach the questions if i were in the role, even if i hadn’t done that exact task in the past. we don’t expect your submission to be perfect! in this stage, we mainly want to learn about how you approach your work.
3. ask questions! when i received the assessment, i had so many questions! the fear of looking unqualified held me back from asking those questions. now i know that couldn’t be further from the truth. if you have questions about the assessment, please reach out to your recruiter. we are a resource for you, and we genuinely want to see you do well in the interview process.

if you’re rejected in this phase…

this is another great time to ask for feedback! since this exercise is specifically assessing skills for the role, i’d recommend specifically asking for feedback on where your skill set could improve.

final interview stage

what we’re looking for:

• passion for the role and mission
• subject matter expertise
• problem-solving skills
• growth mindset and the ability to take on new challenges

our final round of interviews can run from 4 to 6 hours. we try to make the final interview as fun and engaging as possible, but it can be exhausting. two to three days before your interview, you will receive an agenda outlining what you can expect on your interview day. we usually add at least two breaks and a lunch period into that agenda; however, if you would like to add some additional time to take a breath between interviews, let us know! we want to make sure you feel as comfortable as possible. our goal is to set you up for success. we want the best person for the job, not the best interviewer.

we also give candidates the option to do a prep/pep talk with the recruiter prior to the interview. i think i can speak for the entire recruiting team when i say, we want you to take advantage of this! we are more than happy to share some more details about team members you will be meeting with, the interview day, or anything else that is on your mind as you get ready for the interview. again, we are rooting for you and want to see you succeed.

the interview is usually comprised of:

• 90-minute culture interview (similar to the phone interview). the culture interview asks questions that are closely tied to magoosh’s core values. in preparation for that interview, i’d recommend taking some time to review the core values again, but also to think through some examples of:
  • giving and receiving feedback
  • positive and challenging work relationships
  • past projects
  • ways you have grown and continued to learn throughout your career.

  similar to the phone interview, we will be asking you to draw from past work experiences, so have some examples ready to go.

• one or two 45-60 minute, skill-based exercises. prior to the interview, we will send over some prep materials for the skills-based interview and details about the exercises you will be working on. once you have reviewed those materials, please reach out with any questions!as part of the skill-based interview, we normally include an exercise that revolves around collaboration or giving/receiving feedback. for these exercises, we want you to be able to ask questions and engage in the exercise authentically, so don’t hold back! your interviewer is anticipating questions and doesn’t expect you to know everything. similar to the assessment, this is more about how you work and think through problems than the actual end product.
• a 30-min reverse interview. the reverse interview gives you the opportunity to interview us! to prep for this interview, i wrote down a couple of lingering questions that i had. you’ll be paired with someone who works in your department (or very closely with your department), and we do our best to choose someone who would also share the same manager as you. your reverse interviewer will not be a part of the evaluation team, so please feel comfortable asking any and all questions—we want to make sure you leave the interview with the clarity you need!

if you’re rejected in this phase…

if you make it to this stage in a magoosh interview, you generally would get feedback, but if not, reach out to the hiring manager or your recruiter and ask for feedback. since this interview is assessing deeper core values, mission and skill fit, try to find out where the red flags came up. you can also ask for any words of advice or gaps to address before your next interview if you’re applying for a similar position.

finally, know that you did your best no matter the outcome!

no matter if you got the job or not, you applied and you hopefully learned from the experience. i have always tried to frame my failures and my successes as an opportunity to dig into where i can grow and how i can be even better. if you get rejected after applying for a role at magoosh or elsewhere, take what you can from the experience, allow yourself to process, and press forward. there’s another opportunity waiting for you!

our hiring process isn’t perfect. we are always looking for ways to learn and grow, so if you have any feedback on how we can improve please share it with us here.

these are just a few of the things i wish i knew before my interview. i hope that it has been helpful for you! if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. like i shared earlier, we are a resource and are always happy to help.

now hit “send” on that application. we can’t wait to meet you.

the post is there room for me in tech? appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

today, i’m still proud to work at magoosh and for all that we’ve accomplished in the last 7 years i’ve been here, but i’ve also learned in the last year that we have a long road ahead. this article will share how and why we decided to dig deeper into deib (even when the data ‘looked good’), what steps we took, and what our specific action plan and roadmap ahead look like.

if you’re interested in going straight to our deib audit results, click here.

background: why did we dig deeper into deib?

in q4 2019, we created an annual plan for 2020. that plan centered around the theme of creating more cohesive strategies–if our processes were built from the ground up (instead of scrappily put together like we had done for years past when we had fewer resources), what would they look like? as a natural step one to that plan, it made sense to thoroughly audit all of our processes including hr, business operations, and dei.

as we were thinking about our annual plan, trish and nicole on our recruiting team encouraged us to take a more intentional approach to deib. at the time, we were honestly a bit dismissive, pointing to our strong engagement data across all demographic groups. what we failed to realize at the time was that when two people — particularly women of color who interact with all of our prospective employees — say we should focus on deib, that in itself is a critical data point. thankfully, they continued to push.

it can be hard to call out that data might be missing, that just because our engagement data looks good doesn’t mean it’s fully capturing all the deib factors– it can be especially hard to voice that when you’re at a company that values “data>intuition.”

in february 2020 (q1), we took on a project around diversity, equity, and inclusion—specifically, to collect more data as it relates to our people operations processes. that was step number one.

how did we go about it?

1. finding the right people

going back in time to q4 2019 (november/december), we were originally planning on collecting this data ourselves internally. our goal was to find a way to conduct a thorough deib audit to figure out where there were gaps in our systems and where we had room to grow.

we hoped to do this by applying a dei lens to our internal practices. however, we realized while investigating past practices (the internal surveys) that we weren’t getting the information we needed. we were sorely lacking the expertise needed in this area.

luckily for us, trish, our recruiting lead, had already previously vetted peoplism for some recruiting specific work we had halted in 2019. everything clicked into place and peoplism signed on to take on the work of providing us with an audit.

2. running the audit

so what do we mean by audit? this process involved a few different pieces:

• group sessions: first, this included group ‘office hours.’ peoplism representatives hosted sessions that anyone could join (minus leadership) that centered around specific topics (what did people like the most, did they feel seen, etc).
• individual interviews: next this also included individual interviews with an assortment of folks across the company with peoplism. the hope was that folks might feel more comfortable being completely honest given they were talking to someone outside the company.
• data analysis: then, in addition to the in-person discussions, we also gave them access to the raw data in cultureamp so that they could conduct further analysis—something that we don’t have access to within the company to protect the anonymity of our employees.

so all in all, there was a lot of information for them to collect and dive into.

3. getting the results

we got the results from peoplism over the course of two, three-hour meetings. truly the meetings could have been much, much longer if we’d all had the time, given the passionate discussion, the great insights, and the countless questions on how to put all of their ideas into practice and decide how and what to prioritize.

4. communicating the results to the team

one of our values is communication>efficiency and, given our learning that we could have communicated our processes better, we wanted to ensure we communicated our findings well and with the whole company. we wanted a solid foundation on which to take the next steps.

we shared a cleaned up, shortened version of what peoplism had shared with us. in addition, we had a live, recorded zoom meeting where folks could ask questions. they could share these questions either live or via an anonymous google form, whichever format felt most comfortable.

we also created public tasks around the plan with due dates and assignees, so if anyone wants to ask a question or see where we are at, they know how and where to follow up.

the feedback we’ve gotten here has been positive.

5. taking action/building the roadmap

to recap:

1. in q1 2020 we founded the team to help us in this charge to get more data around dei.
2. in q2, we got that data, developed a plan of action, and communicated it.
3. and now, here we are in q3! here is the link to our action steps roadmap mentioned above. we have made some progress but have quite the road ahead!

so far, we have:

• collected information for our eeo-1 report which has also enabled us to track our internal demographics better and ensure we’re applying our processes equitably.
• shared out a process for creating employee resource groups and have some of our amazing magooshers have already set a few ergs up (bmat- black magooshers all together, aapi- asian american and pacific islander, and an lgbtq+ one in the works, and more to come).
• added our part-time employees to our team page which is really exciting as well.

what does the future hold?

i’m really excited about a number of these action items that we have ahead, in particular the underrepresented minority mentorship program as well as the employee referral program.

but i also know that this is only scratching the surface and only focused on our operations efforts and there’s more to be done not only in this space but for our students and for the community we work in as well. my hope is that i can write an update to this article a year from now to show how far we’ve come, how much learning we’ve done and will continue to do, and what more we have to work towards.

the post peoplism roadmap: how we examined deib at magoosh appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

first, why is diversity at work important for us? our mission is to help level the playing field in education, and we’ll only be able to achieve that mission if our products serve all students equitably. that’s why we believe it’s important to ensure our company and workplace culture reflect our students and their lived experiences.

this journey has been an incredible learning process for our people teams here at magoosh, and we’ve made a ton of progress. looking back, it’s clear that we did not get everything right. we hope that by publicly sharing our successes and our failures, we can hold ourselves accountable (and help other companies) to create a diverse and equitable workplace for all. together, we can work collectively on diversity and inclusion in tech and higher education.
 

vision of diversity at magoosh

magoosh students are a broadly diverse group. in order for magoosh to best serve its students and to grow as a business, our team must reflect the diversity of our students. our long term goal is to have a magoosh team that reflects the diversity of our us-based students.

here’s what we know about our students:

race/ethnicity: 46% white, 17% hispanic or latino, 16% black or african american, 13% asian, 6% two or more races, 1% american indian or alaskan native, 1% prefer not to say
 

first-generation college student: 23.2% yes, 75.8% no, 1% prefer not to say
 

first language: 34% not english, 65% english, 1% prefer not to say
 

gender: 63% female, 35% male, 1% other/nonconforming

the benefits of diverse teams have been widely researched: diverse teams tend to have better outcomes. we want magoosh to be a more diverse company, not only because doing so is aligned with our mission, but also because a diverse team will set us up for continued growth and success. at magoosh, we are treating diversity at work like any other area of our business and setting specific, measurable goals to ensure that we achieve our vision.
 

our 2020 diversity at work goals

to reach the longer-term vision of magoosh reflecting the diversity of its students, we set benchmark goals for 2020.

we recognize that there are many ways for groups to be diverse and that no set of diversity goals will ever fully encompass all of the aspects of our students. furthermore, different dimensions of diversity are not discrete line items; they intersect in important ways that have a significant impact both at the systemic and the individual levels. we also know from experience that we are most likely to see change when we set specific, measurable goals and consistently track our progress towards them.

to build a team that reflects the diversity of our students, we set the following goals for 2020 as part of our three-year plan:

1. 20% of magoosh employees will identify as a member of an underrepresented minority (urm) ethnic/racial group.
2. 16% of magoosh employees will identify as the first in their family to go to college.
3. 23% of magoosh employees will have grown up in a home where the primary language spoken was not english.
4. on every team made up of seven or more people, there will be at least two people of non-majority gender identities.

we’ll be sharing our process for setting these goals in a future blog post.

these goals are benchmarks, not goalposts. we’re measuring ourselves against these goals in 2020, but also looking ahead to future years where we will continue to push ourselves to better represent our students.
 

where we started

we started the process of setting diversity at work goals in late 2017, and our first step was to get accurate data on our current team. here is a snapshot of how we stacked up against our diversity goals at that time:

• 7% of employees identified as a member of an underrepresented minority group.
• 10% of employees identified as the first in their family to go to college.
• 28% of employees identified as growing up in a home where the primary language spoken was not english.
• half of our teams with more than seven employees had at least two people of non-majority gender identities.

where we are now

on our recent survey of employees, here were the results:

*additionally, for our gender goal, 100% of teams of size seven or more have at least two members of the non-majority gender identity.

looking at these results, we can see we’ve made substantial progress towards our 2020 goals, hitting them in two areas and coming quite close in the other two. however, we still have a long way to go to achieve our vision of reflecting the diversity of our students. we’ll be pushing forward that work into 2021 and beyond to ensure we achieve that vision.
 

diversity at work: addressing inclusion, equity, and belonging

of course, hiring a diverse team is not enough to ensure that magoosh and our students benefit from the results. members of historically underrepresented communities need to:

• be included and engaged in their work
• feel a sense of belonging
• be treated equitably
• be given equal opportunities for promotion and advancement.

as we grow (and grow more diverse), we are challenging ourselves to think more critically about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace, and we’ll be sharing more about our progress in future blog posts.
 

the post magoosh’s diversity goals appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

george floyd. breonna taylor. tony mcdade. ahmaud arbery—four black americans who were senselessly murdered at the hands of police officers and vigilantes this year alone. these murders, among so many others that have occurred over the years, are unequivocally unacceptable. this should not happen.

we at magoosh stand with those protesting and with the black community against racism and violence. we know that the u.s. systems that claim to support all individuals actually oppress and harm the black community. we also acknowledge that racism has existed for many decades prior to this moment and sadly will exist into the future. the fight is long and difficult. we’ve been taking action, and we’ll continue to do so.

the work we’re doing today

we’re donating to organizations that uplift the black community and fight against racial injustice.

we’ve committed $50k towards organizations that uplift the black community and fight against social injustice. more broadly, we donate at 1% of our revenue each year using a combination of employee donation matching and corporate philanthropy towards organizations that help with education equity and access. later this year, we will share the organizations that we chose to support and why.

we’re building upon the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work already started.

we’re committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment. representation matters.

we know that in order to achieve our mission, the makeup of our team needs to represent the diversity of our student base. several years ago, we created specific and measurable diversity goals among several axes including race. since then, we’ve heavily audited our hiring process: we increased the number of black and under-represented applicants in our pool through active sourcing, anonymized and standardized steps in our hiring process, and shared with candidates what each interview would entail and how it’s representative of the role.

• we also have policies that combat pay disparity such as structured approach to salary and equity and share those policies with candidates, including posting the salary range on the job description. these changes among many others have helped us attract and hire more black employees who contribute to our mission and who help inform our policies.
• earlier this year, we engaged a 3rd party company (peoplism) to conduct a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging audit to further review all our processes including hiring, performance, pay, and more. with the audit now in hand, we’re planning further changes to support our employees, especially those underrepresented in tech.

we’re committed to fully living out our mission.

over ten years ago, magoosh was founded to level the education playing field and solve for the inequities that have prevented so many underserved individuals from achieving their educational aspirations. we’ve created one of the most accessible and affordable test preparation products to help students overcome the barriers of standardized tests—and we know these barriers disproportionately impact black students.

• we offer free and heavily discounted prep to non-profit organizations many of whom serve the black community, such as smash scholars, oliver scholars, and mcnair scholars.
• currently, we estimate that we serve 10,000+ black students each year. we’ll continue to serve this population and challenge ourselves to do more and do better.

there’s more work to do going forward

we’re examining how we can do better for our employees, students, and community.

we know we’re lacking in a number of areas, and here’s some of what we need to do:

• create employee resource groups for black employees (and other groups).
• better support our black and minority students by ensuring that our products are inclusive and by hiring instructors who are also black and minority and who more accurately reflect the diversity and experience of our student base.
• proactively partner with organizations that are already experts in and actively pursuing diversity and racial justice work within our communities.

lastly, and possibly most notably, we have no black or under-represented minority representation in senior leadership. we recognize that diversity in our leadership team may be the most impactful way to create lasting change across all groups: employees, students, and community.

we’re actively working on these areas and know there’s a lot more work to do as well. we look forward to updating the magoosh community on our progress.

what else are we doing (and what can you do)?

we realize each person experiences these tragedies and the associated trauma differently. as individuals and employees—particularly those of us with racial or ethnic privilege—we aim to do the following:

• we need to listen to voices in the black community and amplify and elevate those voices.
• we need to educate ourselves and learn to become better allies—this burden should not be on the black community.
• we need to educate others, especially white and non-black people of color.
• we need to discuss race and its implications at work and in our work.

many of our employees are taking additional independent and collective actions. if you’re looking for guidance you can start with this resource compiled by the magoosh diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. if you know of other actions or causes that support the black community, or if you need support in providing test prep to black and under-represented communities, we’d love to hear from you. please reach out in the comments below or email us at help@www.catharsisit.com

the post the journey ahead for our racial justice work — a letter from the ceo of magoosh appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

update as of 9/10/2020:

we’re taking an additional paid week off as a company (rotating by team) in the month of september and early october! we are naming this time off “fall leaves”, because 1) they’re days off in fall and 2) we’re leaving work! given the stress of the pandemic and 2020 craziness has continued, folks have continued to take on a lot and we want to make sure folks have time to recharge and avoid burnout.

update as of 4/28/2020:

we’re taking one paid week off as a company (rotating by team) in the month of may! peter, our vp of operations, proposed a company week off, aptly named “may days,” because 1) they’re days off in may and 2) that’s the message you send out when you need help! given that everyone is working in addition to balancing the stress of the pandemic, taking care of their health, and supporting their loved ones, folks have been taking on a lot and we wanted to give everyone some time to breathe.

here are some of the other ways magoosh is supporting our employees and extended community during this uncertain time:

strong leadership through the times of covid

one of the keys for supporting our team has been to ensure that there is centralized messaging and clear communication. our leadership team has been vocal and unified in providing magooshers with a sense of direction during this time.

• one of the first messages about covid after shelter in place began in the bay area was from our ceo, bhavin parikh. he shared how the expectations were that everyone would be at a reduced capacity—whether due to childcare needs or taking care of their mental health, and that was not only ok but also encouraged
• additionally, peter started an internal weekly covid newsletter to share how the business is doing, new policy information, and updates to our office and remote work situation. this has provided our team with a level of consistency during an otherwise very uncertain time.
• finally, while we would normally have a monthly meeting to discuss the specifics of our work, bhavin used our last meeting to instead to provide reassurance to our employees, to share how magoosh as a business may or may not be impacted by this crisis, and as a townhall to answer any questions folks might have and to alleviate concerns.

adapting our sense of community to a remote world

one of the reasons i have worked at magoosh as long as i have (currently 6 going on 7 years!) is because of the sense of community and camaraderie that we have. we’ve worked together to translate that sense of kinship to an all-remote setting and facilitate that feeling of togetherness during these otherwise isolating times.

• we set up additional communication channels such as a covid specific slack channel to provide folks a space to get updates, ask questions, and share advice and learnings with one another.
• morgan, our amazing associate office/operations manager, has planned some incredible social events from a kids talent show to virtual pet happy hour to matching folks for 1:1 coffee chats.
• we have a watercooler google meet link where folks can hang out and just chit chat as they would have in a normal office environment.
• we’ve provided calendly links to our hr to make it easier for folks to get in touch.

providing accessibility and security to our employees

making sure people have what they need—from time off to flexibility—has been critical to ensuring folks can focus what bandwidth they have on the work at hand instead of spending their precious mindspace on worrying about logistics.

• iris, our senior hr manager, has gone above and beyond to set up our processes for remote work, such as creating a remote onboarding process for our incoming new teammates.
• our operations team has made trips to the berkeley office to grab equipment folks might need and drop it off at their homes.
• we immediately provided additional sick days for anyone who needs the time during this period as well as the hr support to facilitate that.
• we’ve provided additional flexibility and enabled folks to take advantage of, and encouraged, more time off and reduced schedules.
• we’ve created exceptions to our policies such as enabling folks to reschedule their sabbaticals if they were interrupted due to covid.
• we’ve sent out resources—for both mental and physical health—to help folks cope with the anxiety and stress, as well as any physical ailments during this time.

delivering on our values of passion and wow

ultimately, one of the ways in which magoosh has been so lucky with this crisis is not only due to our business but also due to our amazing, driven workforce. they have gone above and beyond to support one another, and have found ways to work more creatively and strategically during this time.

• most video calls i’ve recently had have involved at least one parent in the meeting having a child with them or interrupting at some point. this is the norm and is not to be apologized for. it is incredible to see parents balancing their additional childcare responsibilities with passion for their work.
• folks have been more strategic in their prioritization of projects and found ways to structure their time so that they are able to make the most of the limited time that they do have devoted to work
• we’ve had employees going above and beyond for one another—whether dropping off groceries or equipment, or providing a listening ear and links to resources. it’s been incredible to see magooshers stepping up in support of one another.
• morgan added some surpise and delight to our weeks by getting everyone some incredibly cozy slippers to add some comfiness to our new wfh normal.

helping our students and our communities

ultimately, our mission is to make the world more accessible which means not only supporting those who work for us but going beyond that and providing support to our students and our communities during these difficult times.

• our students: magooshers have found ways to go out of their way to help our students. from tireless efforts to test out the experience of remote exams to providing webinars on how to deal with studying during such an uncertain and unstructured time, from blog posts with advice on how to handle test cancellations to proactively providing product extensions—i’ve been blown away by how all of our teams have quickly focused on ways to be there for our students.
• our community: magoosh has had a large presence in the berkeley community for over ten years and as such has donated $50,000 to the berkeley relief fund. iris found masks that we had from the fires and donated those along with our office hand sanitizer and cleaning wipes. morgan donated the money we would have spent on a team dinner this month to a charity helping fund meals for essential employees working to save lives right now.

when times are tough, a real spotlight shines on how companies and individuals react. my hope is that we as a company can look back on this response and feel good about the responsibility that we took and the togetherness and sense of safety that we were able to foster. it is times like these that i feel most proud to work at magoosh.

the post covid-19: working through the new normal appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

(note: this next paragraph contains a reference to self-harm; if that’s something you struggle with, you might want to skip it.)

i have a vivid memory of walking to the school i taught at one morning and thinking “hmm, that car isn’t going too fast. i bet if i jumped out in front of it i’d get hurt enough to get some time off. it’d be bad, but not too bad.” at the time i remember laughing at how preposterous that thought was and (thankfully!) did not jump in front of moving traffic.

with the perspective of time, i can now recognize that this was a completely unhealthy thought that should have indicated i was in a seriously rough state.

i was experiencing burnout.

image credit: nickvector (licensed via shutterstock)

i ended up leaving the teaching profession, going to business school, and getting a job at magoosh. but i never forgot that feeling of burnout, and i try to be aware if i see it in others.

fortunately, magoosh is a company that prioritizes the whole lives of its employees. we have a flexible vacation policy, generous benefits and parental leave, and a culture that specifically eschews perfectionism. but we’re still a startup, and that means there’s always more to do than there is time to do it. work is often a sprint, and you just can’t sprint forever. i want to make sure no one who works at magoosh ever feels that same sense of burnout i felt in dc.

that’s why we’re introducing sabbaticals at magoosh.

magoosh now offers six-week fully-paid sabbaticals for qualifying full-time and part-time employees who have worked at magoosh for five years or longer, averaging at least 24 hours per week.

you can take a look at our sabbatical policy (the document we shared with all employees when we rolled this benefit out back in october) here if you’re curious about the specifics.

why offer sabbatical to our employees (especially as a small company)?

the goal of magoosh’s sabbatical benefit is to encourage longevity with the company, prevent and alleviate burnout, and help longer-tenured employees get a fresh perspective on work.

in addition to this being good for the individuals who take it, there is some compelling research that a sabbatical policy can be good for the company overall.

magoosh employees have also shown an interest in having a sabbatical policy. we have an “ideas and brainstorming” section of our company asana, and offering a sabbatical benefit has been a proposed idea for quite some time.

so, for a company wanting to attract and retain great employees — and help them do their best work — offering a sabbatical benefit seemed like a great next step.

but why now? well, magoosh grew substantially in 2013 and 2014, adding many new employees in that time (including me!). a lot of us are still working at magoosh, and some of us are in need of a break. after having conversations with a few long-tenured employees, we decided that 2019 was the right time to prioritize creating a sabbatical policy.

how we structured our sabbatical program (and challenges we’ve faced so far)

when we first set out to make a sabbatical policy, we thought that the biggest issues would be hammering out the specific rules (length of service, length of sabbatical, etc.). it turned out those questions were pretty easy to answer, but then others were surprisingly tricky!

let’s start with the easy stuff.

length of service. we pretty quickly settled on five years as a good length of time. when we looked at other companies that offered sabbatical, five years was the most common requirement. i’ll admit, as a linguistic purist, i really wanted to keep to the traditional seven year duration (“sabbatical” comes from the biblical “sabbath”, as in “on the seventh day, he rested”). but five years is far more common in corporate sabbatical, and is also a nice round number.

length of sabbatical. we chose six weeks as the length of time for a couple of reasons. again, this length is comparable to length of sabbaticals at several other companies that offer them. additionally, it feels long enough to be meaningful, but not so long that it would be particularly difficult for our teams to plan around.

eligibility criteria. everyone at magoosh was aligned on the idea that we wanted to be able to provide sabbatical benefits to both our part-time and full-time employees. we have several part-time employees who have worked at magoosh for many years, helping literally thousands of students individually. we modeled our part-time sabbatical requirements after adobe’s, offering the benefit to folks who work the majority of their week at magoosh (three out of five days, or 24 hours per week).

these points came together pretty quickly. but, as i said, it was the other questions that came up that really made us think. “can i take a sabbatical in smaller chunks?” “can i save up sabbaticals and take twelve weeks after ten years?” “can i combine sabbatical with other pto, unpaid time, or leave?”

we really struggled with some of these questions! on the one hand, we want employees to do what is best for them and don’t want to put up arbitrary restraints or rules. on the other hand, sabbatical really only benefits the company when employees take the time in a way that is restorative.

we decided to align our approach to these trickier questions around a guiding principle: the purpose of sabbatical is to give employees lengthy, uninterrupted time away from work so that they come back to magoosh with a fresh perspective and renewed energy. if an employee wants to use their sabbatical time in a way that is in alignment with that principle, then we’re generally ok with it.

image credit: alena ozerova (licensed via shutterstock)

our first employee to take sabbatical will go out in december 2019, and we have four more already scheduled for 2020 (including our ceo’s in late summer — have fun bhavin, we may or may not fold our bagels in half while you’re away!). while our sabbatical is optional, we do hope that everyone who is eligible takes it.

i’m sure we’ll have more challenges and bumps along the way as we prepare for and go through our first employee sabbaticals. if you’ve taken a sabbatical, let us know in the comments what challenges you and your organization faced. and if you’ve never worked at a company with a sabbatical policy, maybe now’s the time. check out our careers page for open roles and join our team!

the post away they go: introducing paid sabbaticals at magoosh appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

spend enough time in startup land and you’ll stumble upon one of the holy commandments of saas (software as a service) businesses: thou shalt talk to your users early and often.

that means not just doing usability testing (putting a mockup or a new feature in front of users to see how they interact with it), but also picking up the phone to learn about users and potential customers before you build, mock, or even brainstorm.

unfortunately, implementing a consistent user research practice is like building a regular fitness routine: we all know we should do it because it’ll be good for our short- and long-term (business) health, it’ll give us iterative and actionable feedback that will help us improve more quickly, and it has a tendency to spread positive ripple effects to other areas of our lives (and our companies).

and yet, too many startups do the equivalent of driving past the gym every morning by putting user research on the back burner for an ever-distant “someday.” if you’re at a small startup like ours, the justification is often a lack of resources — with a tiny team (that already wears multiple hats) and limited capital (that takes a lot of sweat equity to raise), user research can understandably feel like a “nice to have” luxury, one meant to be saved for the day when your company finally makes it and can afford to hire a snazzy ux researcher.

well, we’re here to channel our best richard simmons-esque level of encouragement and let you know that the benefits of asking your customers for feedback are well worth the work, even and especially if you’re on a team that lacks a dedicated ux researcher. here’s how we’ve approached user interviews at magoosh from the very start, how they’ve helped our business grow, and tips and advice for getting started.

three benefits we’ve gained from conducting user interviews with our students

image credit: thinglass (licensed via shutterstock)

we’ve conducted user interviews in some iteration for nearly every quarter over the past ten years. there are three main motivations—and resulting benefits—behind our prolific user research habit:

reason/benefit #1 – offer better products

as a relatively young startup with a global student population, achieving product-market fit has been crucial to our growth and success.

it’s allowed us to make it to profitability on just one seed round of funding, grow our product line from our staple gre offering to products helping students prep for over nine standardized tests, and invest in expanding our team, fostering great company culture along the way.

throughout our now decade-long journey, our growth has been catalyzed by product feedback from our users, from our recent addition of text-message reminders to our act and sat products, to our 2010 decision to switch from user-generated to expert-written content. today, though our products can always continue to be improved, we’re stoked to see our net promoter (nps) scores overall on the rise, and our student numbers continuing to climb from eight million served.

reason/benefit #2 – check our assumptions

we’ll be the first to admit that, even amidst the fiercely proud-nerd culture of magoosh, there’s still so much we don’t know!

when we first entered the sat market, we assumed parents would be the louder voices we’d need to listen to. a round of user interviews later, we realized the story was actually much more nuanced: many students were studying on their own, with little or no parent involvement.

it’s in the spirit of one of our core company values, learning > knowing, that we acknowledge our blind spots and seek to listen to our students in the hopes of learning what they can teach us or broaden our perspective around.

reason/benefit #3 – deepen empathy for our customers

the world of education is rapidly changing, and even as lifelong learners, it can be incredibly hard to keep up.

this is especially true as the college admissions landscape becomes more complex and less accessible to students and, in line with our mission, user interviews have afforded us a personal, humanizing means of empathizing with our customers and their wildly diverse lived experiences. we would never have known what it’s like to prepare for the toefl in iran if we didn’t talk with people doing exactly that.

when – and how – to start conducting user interviews

image credit: notto yeez (licensed via shutterstock)

when should you conduct user interviews?

it’s important to learn to differentiate between when a user interview is the best path for learning, and when it might actually be a distraction. generally, user interviews are better for focused learning over open exploration, such as talking through challenges and problems with your users. the more specific the info you’re trying to get, the better a user interview can help you inform next steps.

some points to consider:

should it be a user call?
whether you are trying to identify a problem, get more information about a known problem, or see if a solution will work, you should consider whether user calls are the best tool to get what you’re looking for. does the information you want already exist somewhere, or are there better methods (like a survey) to collect it? user calls may or may not be the route you want to go.

define your purpose
are you conducting “discovery calls” to try and understand problem spaces, or have you defined a problem space and want to do a deeper dive into how users may be solving this problem already? this will additionally inform who you reach out to and the questions you ask.

what does success look like?
user interviews are a means, not an end. if the sum of your user calls leads you to the next stage of your work, and that work is successful, then the calls were a success.

how to recruit (the right) participants for user interviews

image credit: ollyy (licensed via shutterstock)

so you’ve gotten clear on the information you’re trying to learn and decided that user interviews are indeed the best route. now, who in your customer pool should you reach out to?

• who you recruit for a user interview depends on what questions you are trying to answer
  recruit users who will provide the “best” source of information for the problem you are tackling. take into account the various stages of your customer journey (for example, users already aware of your brand who have yet to purchase? trial users? power users? users whose engagement has dropped off recently? blog readers who never engage with your product?) to inform what subset of your users makes the most sense.
• match your research group proportionately to your customer population
  working on your core product? well, if 70% of your customers are domestic and about 30% are from india, then aim to recruit a cohort of users that matches this 70/30 breakdown. if you can’t get there, do more recruitment, and don’t hesitate to turn some volunteers from over-represented groups down when you need to (kindly, of course!). self-selection is a real thing that can skew the makeup of your pool of users so you’ll need to find ways to target your outreach so that your research is proportionate to your user base.
• plan a funnel to determine how many users to recruit
  start with how many users you ultimately want to talk to. next, estimate the percent of users who you think will sign up and not show. then, the percent of users who will open your email and percent who click through to sign up. play around with this funnel (using historical data on the sign up and open rates of your customers, if available) until you understand how much outreach you’ll need to reach your target number of interviewees.
  
  note: this initial outreach number might be bigger than your pool of potential candidates. if that’s the case, you may need to sweeten the deal a bit with (bigger) incentives or build out a more robust campaign to increase open and sign-up rates.

 

• talk to as many users as you have time for, prioritizing the recent customers
  to find useful themes, you’re going to need to talk to more than 5 customers. we’ve found 10 works as a minimum for a lot of purposes, but shorter, less dense calls may warrant 20 or 30. for most interviews, recency matters. aim to recruit active customers from the past few weeks as opposed to the past few years. they are in the midst of using your product and not trying to remember what it was like. oh, and if you happen to be talking with low-intent or low-engagement users, get them on the phone immediately. the longer you wait after booking, the more likely it is that they won’t show up for the call.

tips and tools to streamline your user interview process

we’ve made a lot of mistakes conducting user interviews over the past 5 years (and discovered a lot of useful habits along the way!). here are seven tips and tricks:

• create a script and have someone review it
  having a script will help you avoid leading questions, control your time, and stay focused on your goals. but be prepared to shuffle the order of your questions and ask follow up questions.
• find a notetaker and tell them what type of notes to take
  humans are actually really bad multitaskers. understandably, it’s hard to have a high-level picture of a conversation when you are in the middle of it. to make the most of each of your user interviews, it’s best to have one person focused on asking questions, listening, and responding while someone else primarily takes notes.be clear about the type of notes each person should take—verbatim, paraphrasing, or highlights. when you have two people, you can take two different approaches. it’s inevitable that you’ll forget some details, so if you have one person taking notes as close to verbatim as they can get, you’ll be able to return to exact phrasing after the fact, which will help prevent false memories. but if there’s only one person in the room, conducting the interview, taking verbatim notes, and seeing the big picture becomes impossible.
• spreadsheet tracker, not a bad idea!
  with multiple calls, and potentially multiple people making calls, having a spreadsheet with the users, relevant info, and recaps from the user calls is a great way to stay organized—and know who needs to have a gift card or other reward sent to them.
• ask users for multiple modes of contact
  technical difficulties will happen, and it’s helpful to plan for them in advance. when recruiting users, ask for their phone number (or other additional contact method) so you can call them instead of having them call you.
• schedule smart, schedule often, and send reminders
  schedule less engaged users as soon as possible in your interview window to mitigate against no-shows. in that same vein, overbook more users than you ultimately need to talk to because people will flake. to account for the faulty nature of human memories, text reminders to users an hour before the scheduled call to verify they’re still available.
• plan for a debrief + aim for 2-4 takeaways
  ideally, you discuss the call immediately after the call, so make sure to reserve time in your schedule before the next one. discuss what stood out and arrive at 2-4 takeaways. if you’re pulling out more than 4 highlights, they’re probably not equally important—try to keep it to only the meaty points so you can focus on what really counts.
• know thyself
  some people can rock through eight user calls in a day. others may find it challenging to do more than a few in a day. plan the interviews so that you don’t burn out.

troubleshooting common user interview challenges

image credit: juergen priewe (licensed via shutterstock)

you’ve checked off all the right things (defined a clear purpose and outcome, recruited the best users from your customers, set up a solid process and roles) but find that your questions are falling flat during the interview. what gives?

not convinced you’re framing the right questions during your user interviews? avoid these common mistakes.

avoid asking leading questions
asking leading questions is the best way to invalidate a response or even an entire call. if you ask a leading question (even one!), you may have to throw out the entire interview, so practice as much as you can to not ask leading questions. no yes/no questions. ask who, what, where, when, why, and how questions. “can you tell me about x?” and “can you tell me more about y?” are good! also, practice might just mean conducting interviews where you make mistakes and the results are thrown out, assuming that you use those learnings to improve future interviews.

priming is not the same as leading
it can be helpful to start broad and narrow into the questions you want to ask. start with something concrete and that will make it easier for them to answer questions later. instead of “how did you use magoosh to study for the sat?”, start with, “tell me about the last time you studied a new topic.”

take answers to quantitative questions with a grain of salt
people tend to search for the “right” answer or provide an answer that you want to hear. so you won’t get an honest response if you are asking for something on a scale. the nps question (“how likely are you to refer…”) when asked on a phone call is likely going to result in a higher score than the same question asked in another medium—your interviewees will try to make you happy, and may not give the most accurate response. these kinds of questions can be helpful to lead into follow-up questions, but they’re dangerous when used on their own.

covered all of your bases? here are a few bonus tips to be double sure you’re not leaving insights (and honesty) on the table during your user interviews.

you won’t hurt my feelings
start the call with why you are conducting the calls. and tell them you want them to be brutally honest, and that they can’t say anything to offend you. people will unconsciously provide answers that they think you want to hear or that they think true of themselves. prime them with a statement at the beginning that hopefully dampens this.

i know what you did last summer (or last week)
similar to setting the stage, let the user know you have their usage history in front of you, if you do. starting with a quick “i see you spend a few hours using [our product] each week”—or whatever happens to be true for the particular interviewee—can help avoid situations where people claim to have done much more or much less than they actually have. not everybody wants to admit how much time they spend on an entertainment service, and many of us will claim to have used that exercise app as much as we wished we had, not how much we really did.

silence is golden
sometimes the best way to get someone to talk is with silence. let there be a space so people can talk, and think, and talk some more. the impulse to respond right away can be a difficult one to fight, but there’s very often something more that will come out unprompted (with no danger of having led them to it, to boot!)

ready? set? research!

image credit: yummyphotos (licensed via shutterstock)

starting to conduct user interviews (and doing them well) can seem like a lot of hassle and upfront effort, especially when you’re working with limited resources, but the barrier to entry is not as high as you might think. they’re also a tremendous amount of fun! for us here at magoosh, we most appreciate them as a way to connect with and build even greater empathy towards our students.

even if you’re not ready to lead a user interview project yourself, we’d highly recommend you volunteer to be a notetaker for someone else at your company conducting user interviews, as it’ll help you be better prepared when your time comes.

we hope you find these suggestions helpful, and welcome any thoughts or questions in the comments below!

if you’d like even more resources on user research, here are a few of our favorites:

further reading on how to conduct user interviews

quick reads: tips for user calls

user research interview tips – brad dalrymple

the art of the user interview – nick babich

how to conduct user interviews – interaction design foundation

6 tips for better user interviews – veronica cámara

starter questions for user research – sarah doody

never ask what they want — 3 better questions to ask in user interviews – chuck liu

longer, in-depth guides

interviewing users: how to uncover compelling insights – steve portigal

talking to humans – giff constable

this guide was co-written by hannah baker, kevin rocci, and lucas fink.

the post no, you don’t have to be a ux researcher to conduct a (good) user interview appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.