Figure out what the company needs and do a project for them that fills that need. 

Step 2: Outline what you’ll be doing on the job

By getting a good understanding of what you’ll be doing everyday on the job, you’ll know exactly what the perfect pre-interview project should be to prove that you’d be the right fit.

The only thing you really need at hand to figure this out is the job description.

Make a special note of the day to day tasks you can do right away. For example, “analyzing churn data” isn’t something you can immediately do (because you need a good amount of internal information for that) but “form partnerships with local businesses” definitely is something you can help do without already being at the company.

Step 3: Do one pre-interview project per company

Now that you know what the company expects you to do day to day, you can actually do it ahead of time and prove to them that you can solve their problems.

When I was applying for a business development role for Kiip, I pitched a few companies on forming partnerships with them, and introduced them to the biz dev team. I ended up getting an offer.

When I was applying for product development related positions, I ran quick usability tests on companies’ products, documented my process, created some design suggestions and sent it to the head of each design team. Here’s an example of what I did for Airbnb.

This sort of thing got me interviews at major tech companies like Quora, and it even led to Shutterstock creating a position specifically for me.

My friend Francine Lee did something similar (but MUCH more in depth) for Dropbox, and then got a job there.