Get prepared for a PM interview
It's no secret that interviews for the same position can vary significantly from company to company. The position of a Product Manager is no exception. However, regardless of how many stages of interviews you may have to go through, there are several key points to pay attention to. Today, we will talk about them.
Organizational Questions
Depending on the company, the interview process for a Product Manager position may include from 4 to 7 stages, which can collectively take up to a month, and in some cases, even longer.
It's worth noting that in almost all major companies, interviewers undergo special training, a kind of calibration. This is done to standardize the interview process, ensuring that the evaluation criteria for candidates are consistent.
Interview Stages
In most companies, Product Sense and Product Execution interviews are typical ones. Additionally, almost all companies conduct a Leadership or Communication interview (i.e., asking questions related to your previous experience, resolving problematic and conflict situations within a team, prioritizing tasks). In general, the following interview stages can be identified for the Product Manager position:
The Technical interview is usually present in companies with a high engineering component in their product. In this case, a Product Manager must have a solid grasp of technical aspects like design and architecture of the technical solution, and so on. Of course, they won't ask the PM to write code, but you need to have a fundamental understanding of technical design and architecture. Questions about APIs are common, and sometimes you may be asked to create a flowchart for a product or service.
Let's delve deeper into some of the most common types of interviews.
Product Sense Interview
For a candidate, the most crucial stage of the interview is arguably the Product Sense interview. It primarily assesses your understanding of the problem at hand, how you break it down, what ideas you propose, and how you choose solution options. An important criteria for companies is empathy towards the user, ability to address their interests and pain points.
Typically, questions in the Product Sense interview present hypothetical situations/problems that you, as a product manager, need to address.
When answering Product Sense interview questions, it's best to use frameworks to help you structure your answer. This way, your response will be logically structured, making it easier for the interviewer to follow your thought process. One such framework is BUS - Business objectives, Users, Solutions. This means that when formulating your answer, you first think about the company's objectives in the given situation, then move on to user issues and how the product can address them, and finally, propose a solution. You can also integrate several components into this framework: MVP, success criteria, risks.
Organizational Questions
Depending on the company, the interview process for a Product Manager position may include from 4 to 7 stages, which can collectively take up to a month, and in some cases, even longer.
It's worth noting that in almost all major companies, interviewers undergo special training, a kind of calibration. This is done to standardize the interview process, ensuring that the evaluation criteria for candidates are consistent.
Interview Stages
In most companies, Product Sense and Product Execution interviews are typical ones. Additionally, almost all companies conduct a Leadership or Communication interview (i.e., asking questions related to your previous experience, resolving problematic and conflict situations within a team, prioritizing tasks). In general, the following interview stages can be identified for the Product Manager position:
- Product Sense
- Product Execution
- Leadership/Communication
- Analytical
- Technical
- Written Task
- Personality Test (quite rare, but some companies, such as Revolut, have such a test as an entry point for subsequent interviews).
The Technical interview is usually present in companies with a high engineering component in their product. In this case, a Product Manager must have a solid grasp of technical aspects like design and architecture of the technical solution, and so on. Of course, they won't ask the PM to write code, but you need to have a fundamental understanding of technical design and architecture. Questions about APIs are common, and sometimes you may be asked to create a flowchart for a product or service.
Let's delve deeper into some of the most common types of interviews.
Product Sense Interview
For a candidate, the most crucial stage of the interview is arguably the Product Sense interview. It primarily assesses your understanding of the problem at hand, how you break it down, what ideas you propose, and how you choose solution options. An important criteria for companies is empathy towards the user, ability to address their interests and pain points.
Typically, questions in the Product Sense interview present hypothetical situations/problems that you, as a product manager, need to address.
When answering Product Sense interview questions, it's best to use frameworks to help you structure your answer. This way, your response will be logically structured, making it easier for the interviewer to follow your thought process. One such framework is BUS - Business objectives, Users, Solutions. This means that when formulating your answer, you first think about the company's objectives in the given situation, then move on to user issues and how the product can address them, and finally, propose a solution. You can also integrate several components into this framework: MVP, success criteria, risks.
Product sense interview
Product Execution
The next stage of the interview is the Product Execution interview. Again, questions in Product Execution usually present hypothetical situations that need to be addressed. The main difference between Product Execution and Product Sense is that the situations here are more concrete, with a focus on the product's success metrics. Depending on the product's goal, the metrics might be entirely different. It's desirable for them to be specific and derived from the product's goal. There's no need to list every metric you know. This leaves a poor impression on the interviewer. A good candidate always links the product's goals to how success will be measured.
When answering Product Execution interviews, it's best to structure your response using the GAME framework - Goals, Actions, Metrics, Evaluation. This way, you once again identify potential goals for the product, discuss what user actions in the product will help achieve those goals, then determine success metrics and perform a final check and/or add additional metrics for evaluation.
Product execution interview
Written Project
Lately, a Written Project type of interview has been gaining traction. You receive a so-called "take-home assignment". The expected result of this written project can be either a document or a presentation in which you must outline the problem and potential solutions.
When completing the written project, your structured thinking and clarity of expression are assessed.
Written task
In conclusion, here are a few more simple tips:
- Prepare for the interview. Study the company's press releases, understand the company's goals and mission. When answering, you can always refer back to this information.
- Ask for clarification if you didn't understand or are unsure if you understood the question correctly. Often, a candidate responds very well and confidently, only to find out later that they answered a completely different question. By that time, the opportunity to correct it has already passed.
- Don't speak for too long. Set yourself a limit of 2 minutes, after which you'll ask the interviewer if it makes sense to continue. If the response is positive, you can continue. If you're asked to clarify certain points, be sure to pay attention, as you may have been heading in the wrong direction.
- Tell the interviewer which framework you'll use to structure your answer. This will help your interviewer follow your thought process and understand what additional information you may reveal in your subsequent response.
- Remember, the interviewer wants to hire you!