3 common mistakes at Product Manager interview
Yana shares some tips how to best prepare for the job interview
The most common theme of my mentor sessions lately is centred around preparing for the PM interview. A lot of folks are looking for the next role, considering switching to the Product Manager role from Data Analyst, TPM, or Prod Ops. On the flip side, the market is extremely tough now - it’s not unusual to have a thousand candidates for one role at a Tier 1 company. I’ve been interviewing dozens of candidates monthly, and have observed some patterns of mistakes which I want to share with you to help you succeed in your endeavours to land a PM role.
In this post we won’t delve into the specific types of questions being asked - there’s tons of material on the internet, from various posts on platforms dedicated to interview preparation to the list of 1,800+ PM interview questions, manually curated and crowd sourced by candidates. Instead, we’ll delve into the related topics that are as crucial as your answer to a case question.
So let’s have at it.
1. Intro which doesn’t tell a story about YOU
The intro part of the interview is your two minutes of glory to set the stage, show competence and provoke conversation. Yet, too many people don’t realize that even a successful project or great achievement can be diminished by a poor presentation. So, what is a poor presentation? Simply talking through a list of projects, sharing your career story from the very first product you worked on, or adding too many details to the project's description. All of these don’t help the interviewer shape an opinion on who YOU are TODAY.
How to make it better: First, talk through your career in reverse - focus most on your latest role. Start by setting a context about your role, team surrounding you, the product challenge you’ve worked on, and why it matters.
“In my recent role as a PM at Lyft, I’ve been leading a large company-wide initiative on creating a Lyft proprietary map. Three teams work together on the end-to-end map making flow, from data collection to ML-powered processing, and updating a map, to enable unique experiences tailored to the ridesharing industry. Standard maps applications don’t power such experiences, and that was the primary product challenge.”
Then you can go through the specifics of projects, highlighting your achievements and provoking conversation with the interviewer.
2. Lack of structure in the response
Far too often, I see good candidates rambling, trying to immediately answer the question they were not prepared for. Usually it leads to a complete absence of answer’s structure, making it hard to follow, provoking many follow-up questions and risking getting stuck in the weeds somewhere in the middle of the full answer. Though the opposite is sometimes also true - overfitting the structure. These are times when a candidate comes with a structure in mind (4Ps, 5C, BUS, GAME, etc.) and tries to fit every response into this structure. A recent example I’ve had:
“Question (the very first question in the interview!): Could you name your three favourite products?
Answer: My favourite products are A, B, C. And now I’ll talk about product C in detail, describing its goals, target audience, pain points, and success metrics”
Wow, not that fast! I didn’t ask about going through the details just yet, did I? Remember, not all elements of the structure are applicable in each particular situation.
How to make it better: If you are not sure you got the question - try rephrasing it and ask your interviewer to confirm your understanding. This is totally normal. When you don’t know how to answer the question, take a minute or two to collect your thoughts and present a clear, well-structured answer. When you do know how to answer the question, take a 30-sec pause to reassess your answer and take a couple of slow breaths.
3. No questions to the interviewer
While it might sound obvious, too many people don’t use the opportunity to leave a lasting impression by showing that they came prepared for the interview, did their homework to conduct quick research about the company, and are serious about the role. Yet, I’ve seen a couple of cases when the candidate was rejected because of “lack of interest in the role, company, and poor communication skills”. So take it seriously! But please avoid asking the famous “How did I perform in this interview?” at all costs!
How to make it better: Prepare a list of thoughtful questions in advance that demonstrate your interest in the company and the role. Some examples include:
Can you tell me more about the team's current projects and how this role contributes to them?
What are the biggest challenges the team is currently facing?
How does the company support professional growth and development for this role?
I hope you find this highly opinionated post helpful. Oh, just one last thing. Remember that your main job is to stand out in the interview. In a good way!
2 cents from Dina:
In the past year I’ve spent some time interviewing as I was looking for a new opportunity. Not going to lie - it was rough. Having been on the other side of the interview table hundreds of times (not exaggerating), evaluating candidates and hiring outstanding PMs, designers, and engineers, I thought I knew what to expect. But stepping into the candidate's shoes felt surprisingly different. I was rusty, and it showed most notably during a product sense question. Overwhelmed by the moment, I found myself panicking and jumping erratically from one thought to another. Despite my love for clarifying ambiguous situations, I simply froze. Truly, nothing prepares you better than practice, no matter your confidence level.
When it comes to intro (mistake #1) , I wholeheartedly agree with Yana. Don’t recite your resume, focus on answering the question “What is one thing the interviewer needs to know about you?”
When it comes to the questions for the interviewer (mistake #3), I confirm that candidates who come in with thoughtful questions stand out. Tailor your questions to the expertise of your interviewer. For instance, if you're interviewed by someone in engineering, delve into the dynamics between engineering and product, exploring current challenges and opportunities. If it's a product peer, inquire about how different product managers collaborate and share information, what are some things that need improvement.
Interviewing is hard, good luck out there !