Preparing for Product/Program/Project Manager Interviews
Before you apply
- Research the company, founders, leadership team, its products and culture.
- Look into the competitors for its products, the market, history, revenues, user reviews, news and rumors.
- Try to understand their strategy, what is their mission, do they have vision/mission statement?
- Why do you want to work here? Would you be a good fit?
Questions you should expect
Why do you want to work here or Tell me about yourself?
- walk through relevant stages of your career, highlight accomplishments, don't go into too much detail as the interviewer will ask questions on these later, show yourself as a good fit for the role.
- wrap it up in two/three minutes, don't boast too many achievements, mention failures and learning.
- be passionate, create a mini story, practice it in advance.
Why should we hire you or Why do you think you fit this role?
- show passion for the role, research it, display your understanding of what the role involves, what the industry or product state is, show your fit by talking about past relevant experience.
- sell yourself, accomplishments, how your future goals align with the product team/hiring co, explain why you are a good PM.
Where do see yourself in 5/10/20 years?
- have a plan, be ambitious not over ambitious, fit with what the company can offer and show how this job fits with the plan.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- mention strengths which are relevant for the role e.g. initiative, willingness to learn, etc.
- mention weaknesses along with your learnings, how your working on improving yourself e.g. instead of sounding negative I have changed my communication style to xyz.
Respond to open ended questions in a structured manner. It shows your communication skills and helps the interviewer retain what you say. Use the Nugget & STAR model -
- Nugget - thesis of your response
- Situation, Task, Action, Result
Questions on Estimation, Planning
Usually these questions will put you in an unexpected situation or one with strict constraints and the interviewer is testing your ability to find an appropriate way, build a model, think outside the box.
- Clarify the question, does money mean revenue or profit?
- Catalog what you know or wished you knew, about the industry/market/product, customers/users.
- Think about capacity, growth requirements, lead time (headroom) or trigger to expand.
- Make an equation.
- Think about edge cases.
- Elaborate the equation, break it up.
- Review your assumptions, make them explicit to the interviewer.
- Do the math, arrive at a numeric answer if it was expected.
- Sanity check, does the answer seem reasonable e.g. don't estimate sales of mobile phones more than the population of the country.
Questions on Designing a Product/Feature
- Clarify user vs customer.
- Who else could use this product?
- Other situations where this product could be used.
- Structure the response by starting with the Goal and the Use Cases.
- What are the weak spots of existing/competing products?
- What can be done to improve on those weak spots?
Questions on Improving a Product/Feature
- What is the goal of the product?
- What problems does the product face?
- How would you solve the problem?
- How would implement the solution?
- How would you validate the solution?
Questions on Favorite Product/Feature
- Which problem does the product solve for the user?
- How does the product accomplish the goals?
- What makes users fall in love with it?
- How does it compare to alternatives?
- How would you improve it?
Analyze a Product/Service on these scales
- how many users?
- how and why has the user base grown/shrunk?
- how many active users? how do we define active users?
- where are the users coming from - geography, socioeconomic, age, gender, etc?
- who is referring the users?
- conversion from free to paid users
- how many users are using feature X vs feature Y?
- what % have completed a workflow?
- what are the reviews about the product?
- churn rate
- cost of acquiring users
- cost of retaining users
- engagement with users
- revenue, costs
- strengths, challenges/focus
- company values and priorities
- competitors
- trade off's
Answer like a good PdM
- Have an opinion
- don't overbuild for a simple problem
- 'wow' the interviewer with one great idea
- don't complain you need more research
- understand the user's needs and design a product
- don't forget the business objectives
- be open about tradeoff's
Questions you should ask the interviewer
- What do you find challenging about this role?
- How has it changed since you started working here?
- Whats the typical day for you like?
- Where do you see the product in 5 years?
- Why do you have competing products?
- What do you think about competitor X making decision Y?
Before you apply
- Research the company, founders, leadership team, its products and culture.
- Look into the competitors for its products, the market, history, revenues, user reviews, news and rumors.
- Try to understand their strategy, what is their mission, do they have vision/mission statement?
- Why do you want to work here? Would you be a good fit?
Questions you should expect
Why do you want to work here or Tell me about yourself?
- walk through relevant stages of your career, highlight accomplishments, don't go into too much detail as the interviewer will ask questions on these later, show yourself as a good fit for the role.
- wrap it up in two/three minutes, don't boast too many achievements, mention failures and learning.
- be passionate, create a mini story, practice it in advance.
Why should we hire you or Why do you think you fit this role?
- show passion for the role, research it, display your understanding of what the role involves, what the industry or product state is, show your fit by talking about past relevant experience.
- sell yourself, accomplishments, how your future goals align with the product team/hiring co, explain why you are a good PM.
Where do see yourself in 5/10/20 years?
- have a plan, be ambitious not over ambitious, fit with what the company can offer and show how this job fits with the plan.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- mention strengths which are relevant for the role e.g. initiative, willingness to learn, etc.
- mention weaknesses along with your learnings, how your working on improving yourself e.g. instead of sounding negative I have changed my communication style to xyz.
Respond to open ended questions in a structured manner. It shows your communication skills and helps the interviewer retain what you say. Use the Nugget & STAR model -
- Nugget - thesis of your response
- Situation, Task, Action, Result
Questions on Estimation, Planning
Usually these questions will put you in an unexpected situation or one with strict constraints and the interviewer is testing your ability to find an appropriate way, build a model, think outside the box.
- Clarify the question, does money mean revenue or profit?
- Catalog what you know or wished you knew, about the industry/market/product, customers/users.
- Think about capacity, growth requirements, lead time (headroom) or trigger to expand.
- Make an equation.
- Think about edge cases.
- Elaborate the equation, break it up.
- Review your assumptions, make them explicit to the interviewer.
- Do the math, arrive at a numeric answer if it was expected.
- Sanity check, does the answer seem reasonable e.g. don't estimate sales of mobile phones more than the population of the country.
Questions on Designing a Product/Feature
- Clarify user vs customer.
- Who else could use this product?
- Other situations where this product could be used.
- Structure the response by starting with the Goal and the Use Cases.
- What are the weak spots of existing/competing products?
- What can be done to improve on those weak spots?
Questions on Improving a Product/Feature
- What is the goal of the product?
- What problems does the product face?
- How would you solve the problem?
- How would implement the solution?
- How would you validate the solution?
Questions on Favorite Product/Feature
- Which problem does the product solve for the user?
- How does the product accomplish the goals?
- What makes users fall in love with it?
- How does it compare to alternatives?
- How would you improve it?
Analyze a Product/Service on these scales
- how many users?
- how and why has the user base grown/shrunk?
- how many active users? how do we define active users?
- where are the users coming from - geography, socioeconomic, age, gender, etc?
- who is referring the users?
- conversion from free to paid users
- how many users are using feature X vs feature Y?
- what % have completed a workflow?
- what are the reviews about the product?
- churn rate
- cost of acquiring users
- cost of retaining users
- engagement with users
- revenue, costs
- strengths, challenges/focus
- company values and priorities
- competitors
- trade off's
Answer like a good PdM
- Have an opinion
- don't overbuild for a simple problem
- 'wow' the interviewer with one great idea
- don't complain you need more research
- understand the user's needs and design a product
- don't forget the business objectives
- be open about tradeoff's
Questions you should ask the interviewer
- What do you find challenging about this role?
- How has it changed since you started working here?
- Whats the typical day for you like?
- Where do you see the product in 5 years?
- Why do you have competing products?
- What do you think about competitor X making decision Y?
