Product Manager Interview Tips

Here are my 3 best suggestions for improving your next product management job interview:

Here are my 3 best suggestions for improving your next product management job interview:

Number 1 Best Tip
Make a list of interesting experiences you’ve had that relate to core PM skills. You could start with these: Estimation, prioritization/tradeoffs, research, partnering with design, partnering with engineering.

Behavioral questions are very common, e.g. “Tell me about a time you had to do [PM thing].” Regardless, having stories like this at the ready is solid gold in terms of preparation to discuss the craft.

For each skill, write up one or two brief narratives describing an interesting or insightful specific experience: What was the situation, what did you do, what impact did it have?

Practice reading out these stories to your partner or pet. Or, send me your stories! I want to read them and give feedback.

Number 2 Best Tip:
For every question you are asked, try to give a “framework” answer. Put another way, try to always give answers that use structured thinking to present an organized response that references a best practice.

For example: “How do you balance feedback from customers with the priorities on your roadmap?”

A good response is a structured response. “We allocate budget each quarter to investment areas balanced between feedback vs. bugs vs. roadmap priorities” or “We use a matrix to feedback along with roadmap items and they compete based on their customer impact as measured by X.”

A bad answer: “It’s hard, because reasons.” Life is messy and it’s ok to say so. But pivot into an answer about the structured approach that you’ll take once you get this amazing new job with these thoughtful new people.

Google on “Product Management Framework.” Pick a few favorites, write them down, memorize a few key facts about each one, and develop your own opinions about them.

I never interviewed a PM whose opinions on frameworks I did not want to hear.

Number 3 Best Tip:
Have a consistent theme. The first words out of your mouth should establish who you are and what you stand for, and you should reinforce that theme throughout the conversation.

Your key theme (“I love social media!”) can have two little bullets underneath it (“I have an engineering background” and “I’m an expert in mobile.”)

So, “I’m a Product Manager who loves social media, has an engineering background, and is an expert in mobile.” Make these the first words out of your mouth, no matter what the question is.

For me, my key theme is “leading teams through customer focus.” If I get a chance, I also try to talk about elevating the product/design partnership, and using data to quantify customer impact.

BONUS TIP
Your key theme and little bullets should be woven through the stories you develop from Tip #1!

Send me your Themes, Bullets, and Stories — I want to read them!