Although she has not been interviewed for her current position, which she has been performing for about a decade, since she is a co-founder of the company, she has had quite a few job interviews during her career and she says that she always saw them as an opportunity. “Thanks to the research I did on the organization, I often surprised hiring managers with the research I did on the organizational structure, hierarchy and people – it improves your position as an interviewee because you did your homework,” she says. Although the popular opinion is that interviewing well is an art, but Asia believes that there is also a lot of science and technique involved.
1 Viewing the gallery
Mor Asia, partner, founder and co-CEO at iAngels
(Photo: Efi Shim)
These are Asia’s answers to popular job interview questions:
1. Hi Moore, tell me about yourself.
“I’ll start with some personal background. I’m 40 years old, mother of five, an entrepreneur and married to an entrepreneur (Yoni Asia, CEO and founder of eToro, MM). All my life I have always been around technology. It’s something that attracted me from a very young age. I started developing at a young age, in high school I did math and computer science, physics, extended English and I was recognized for a professional position in 8200 so I already had a position with a technological orientation in the army. I think that, like many people, you learn to appreciate these opportunities only years later, but it was really one of the most interesting positions in my opinion for women in the army and in general. After the army, I did a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science at the Technion. I started my career as a software engineer, I was developing and leading development teams at SAP in Israel at the innovation lab in Ra’anana, at a time when Shay Agassi was leading all R&D. It was a very interesting time, and I worked there for about four years. After that I went to New York and did a master’s degree in business administration at Columbia with an emphasis on technology and strategy.
After the degree I worked at IBM in New York as a strategic consultant. They have a group that competes from within the house on strategy projects against McKinsey and other leading bodies mainly around the worlds of diversification – that is, expanding the sheet of the company’s technological capabilities and how to find interfaces and synergies with things that IBM has developed in-house. Projects of this type often end up being acquired by other companies.
The eldest son was born in New York and there was something I call ‘moderate physical pressure’ to return to Israel. When I returned to Israel in 2011, I joined Amdocs in a strategy role. At that time there were very few such strategy positions, which work closely with the management, there were something like three companies with such positions in Israel. Today it is already a role that is much more common and accepted. After two years I decided to leave and found IAngels which is actually an investment fund and an investment platform that allows investors from all over the world to be exposed to investments in early startup companies. Me and my partner Shelly Hod-Moyal founded the platform at the beginning as a platform that enables co-investment, that is, investing alongside us in investments that we have done tests on. Later we established two funds: one that specializes in crypto and the other a classic institutional fund in the worlds of venture capital that we established three years ago. To date we have invested in about 100 companies, we manage 400 million dollars, a team of 25 people, we sit in Rothschild, work with entrepreneurs in the entire sectoral spectrum.”
2. Where do you see yourself in five years?
“Basically, what drives me to action is creating partnerships with entrepreneurs, helping them build large and meaningful companies that change the world, and helping them create partnerships that are also fun. Our people are the kind we want to work with and wake up in the morning and consult with. I think we are in a very good place in Israel Unique that also allows us to work and be at the forefront of technology and see how it shapes our future and changes our lives. Therefore, I see myself growing iAngels into a huge organization that manages a billion dollars or more. It is also part of the Israeli success story.
I founded my own company so that I could express all my abilities. Obviously, I see myself here not for five years but for thirty years and I’m constantly thinking how I can increase the pie, how I can bring myself and create more value and grow this organization and give more value to my entrepreneurs. We are really in some kind of intimacy with a lot of entrepreneurs in their journey to grow a company into an international company that has good sales and investors and has a strong product. It’s a long way, and you don’t build a company like this in a year, but in fifteen, fifteen years, so you must have the vision and ability to run the marathon and be here for a long time to see these processes take shape and come to fruition. A year ago we had the chance to stand on the Nasdaq and ring the bell with a portfolio company that issued – it’s a super exciting thing and it’s something that even very, very successful people don’t get. It takes time to build these things and you need patience and drive and that’s where I see myself.”
Have you been asked this question when interviewing for jobs in the past?
“Yes, this is a classic question. I think in general when people are interviewed and show fashion about a role you want to see how they think about that role five years from now. If I were interviewing someone for a role and they said that in five years they would want to do something completely different So I would ask – if so, how do we create this partnership that we are talking about here.
When I was asked this I would answer in the context of the role with another step or two forward. You need to be humble and understand why you are being interviewed. Do enough research and understand the role on all its levels and the organizational structure and to what purpose this role contributes. So explain how you as a candidate can grow together with the position and together with the organization.”
Asia says that she often surprised interviewers with her answers and once when she was interviewed she presented an ambitious answer to where she wants to be in five years video that she knows what position she is interviewing for. “It is extremely important to me to convey to the person sitting in front of you the experience you went through when you thought about it and drew conclusions and insights – it is very helpful. It is also good in negotiations and an interview is a type of negotiation.”
3. Why are you interested in this job?
“There are several reasons. First of all, I think that I have proven abilities because of the career I have gone through that can really bring significant value to the position. To our entrepreneurs, to the companies we are growing, to our investors, to our business. It is possible to generate real shared value from this and grow these things together in order to generate Something that is a win win. I think that my desire to constantly look for the next challenge and push, to be creative and to create new things can definitely motivate me to the position. I think that this job contains and brings to light the personal abilities, drive and desire as well as the opportunity – the market The entrepreneurs and the investors – to create a very interesting partnership and a unique opportunity.”
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
“Some will testify to me,” says Asya with a smile, “that I am very creative, both in terms of thinking and in conducting negotiations. I am a deal maker, I think that always, even if it seems impossible to reach the equal valley, I will find a way to produce the deal that is in harmony with my mentality This win-win. I will never tell someone to do something or give up something if I don’t feel like I could do it if I were in their shoes. I have the ability to see the other person in the situation. For example, I strongly believe that I would never introduce The entrepreneur has a deal that I don’t think is good for him, that I wouldn’t take if I were sitting in his place. I think that as an entrepreneur I have also experienced firsthand the whole issue of raising capital, building a company, a product, a team. I really know where the entrepreneur sits on the other side. If I I don’t feel like I can put something on the table that is really a good deal, I probably won’t want to be there.
Another thing I’m really good at is multitasking. Probably because I have a lot of ideas and I move fast and talk fast – there are always a lot of balls in the air. I have learned over the years to deal with it because it is quite a challenge and also quite an administrative challenge. Everyone has challenges and a place where they know they are constantly growing and developing. When you are constantly running at many extreme points, then the right thing to do is to constantly make sure that a quality delegation is made. Make sure that there is a handshake – that the person understands what he is supposed to do, when and what he is supposed to return and to make sure that all these things run at the same time and that there is quality coordination of all tasks. It’s something that is a challenge for every CEO and for me too – it’s something I’m trying to get better at.”
Your disadvantage is that you have a hard time with delegation?
“It’s not a matter of hard or not hard, it’s a challenge. The other side of the fact that I’m good at multitasking is that there are a lot of people working with you and for you and you need to know at any given moment what’s going on and who’s responsible and who’s working on what and also make sure it happens. Sometimes as managers we seem to that we were really clear and threw the hot potato at someone but immediately they get it. It doesn’t always close. These are things that you have to make sure are hermetically closed in order to get the best performance. I think it’s a place that’s definitely very challenging on a daily basis and it’s definitely a place where I constantly strive to improve.”
5. Why should we hire you?
“There is a high match between my abilities and the requirements of the position. Without a doubt, I feel that I can hit the ground running and beyond the personal challenge that I think is super relevant and interesting, in the end the organization should feel that I am the person who can add the most value to it in this position. I know that I can bring significant value to the role that is measurable and real, and I think I’m also a person who brings good energy every day, lifts and can really move mountains, deal with many challenges and make a change for the better. And I think this is a really good reason to hire me.”