how to prepare for product manager interview

Before the interview, see if you can speak directly with someone who has actually worked as a product manager at the company you are interviewing, or at the very least a PM in any company. I am postponing my interview. Some background, I have software engineering background and moved to product management. There are only two things to mention here really, and the bad news is that preparation takes time. As you answer, try to align your … Find resources about the company you are interviewing for on Google News, LinkedIn, Crunchbase and other news outlets. 3. I haven’t signed up to the course as it was overkill for what I needed at the time. To prepare for this first round product management call, you need to do basic research about the company. Many companies prefer computer science or analytical backgrounds in their product managers, so keep this in mind as you prepare. Just don’t. Let’s say that the interview question is something vague like “improve a pen “. You are super excited, but your mind is going at million places about what you need to do to prepare/study for the interview. Congratulations! If the product isn’t available to the public (SaaS products, for example), think about asking for a demo or screenshots, or even do some online research to find screenshots, reviews, and other insights about the product. You’ll need to decide on the fly, often by reading the room, from cues such as eye contact and body language. Technically, they all oversee projects, but the niches can vary. It’s virtually impossible to prepare an answer for every interview question, so the next best strategy is to prepare case studies of work you’ve done in the past which can be applied as answers to a variety of “tell me about a time when you…” questions. Best places to look for jobs. Technical skills aside, if the team likes you, they’ll be that much more likely to extend an offer. What They Want to Know: This question isn’t a query for … In this post, Sachin Rekhi, founder and CEO of collaborative notes app Notejoy, gives a masterclass on answering the most commonly encountered interview questions posed in product management interviews. “First, the candidate should be able to speak clearly about their product management experience,” suggested Alex Willen, former product manager at TalkDesk and author of the book “The Product Management Interview: How to Find the Right Job as a Product Manager and Crush the PM Interview Process.” Given this, it’s important to do some background research on who will be interviewing you. But before it, I went through a 3-month job hunt after we moved to SF. Others seem to have been bad apples, and later Glassdoor reviews confirmed as much. I’d work to prioritize the area I most need improvement on. At the end of our interview, we chat about some fun product questions! Hopefully the responses above will help you prepare for your next product manager interview. Cover letters are controversial. Check out Hired – How to Get a Product Manager Job. 3 min read. In addition, conduct some searches for recent company news—from new funding to PR scandals, being able to speak to recent developments shows you’re interested in that specific company, not just in getting a job offer. The internet! Thank you everyone for all the positive feedback, comments, and suggestions on this article since I published it back in September 2013. This question can be a tripping point if you’re not well-prepared, and candidates often end up digging themselves into holes trying to come up with a good answer, so think through some mistakes, how you handled them, and what you learned. If it excites you, then your background, and thus words on your resume, should position you as the best possible candidate to solve that problem. This is the hardest part of the whole interview, and the hardest to write about since there are so many variables. Do you see people mostly in shirts (albeit unbuttoned)? Here, the interviewers are typically probing on two specific leadership principles: Earn Trust. Books are great, but nothing beats getting informationfrom the horse’s mouth. Prioritization is a key skill anyways, so might as well get as much practice as we can. The Product Management Hiring Panel at Google is evaluating your creativity, and they place a big emphasis on big ideas (aka "moonshots"). Woohoo, you finally got the call, the interviewer would like to interview you for the product manager role. Don’t apply on company websites without knowing people. Creating a study plan with these areas defined is a good way to prepare for the product management interview. Leadership & Drive. Every PM role is different, so is every company, and so is the particular moment in time when you apply. Summary on what to expect and how to prepare for the Facebook Product Manager interview. Wear something nicer: pants, a shirt and a sweater. If you … And don’t just “pick people’s brains” — “When you ask to pick somebody’s brain, you are essentially asking (often a stranger) if you can extract value without adding any value.”. Best interview preparation books. The question implies that there’s something wrong with Facebook events. It goes both ways – check out this list of 20 key interview questions you should ask. First, don’t confuse program managers with project managers or product managers. What was it like working for your manager? In past lives she was a ballet dancer and a cancer researcher. SEE ALSO: How to Ace the Amazon Product Manager Interview What to Expect. Re-read your resume/LinkedIn We appear to be 5% into 2018 and it’s been a great year so far. How To Answer Product Management Interview Questions—Sachin Rekhi. It depends on your background. I doubt that is you and it’s certainly not me. If it’s a consumer product, go through as much of the experience as possible without making a purchase. It won’t be how you’ll always dress in case you get the job but interviews are still about first impressions. Read more about general Product Manager interview tips. “To get the best result in your salary negotiation, focus on one thing at a time and make that thing the one which is most valuable to you. Prior to going independent, Napala led marketing initiatives across both consumer and B2B fintech for employers including NerdWallet and Earnest. For most people, that’s base salary. Creating a study plan to prepare for the Product Managment Interview. 5. If you’re not willing to spend this time, you won’t have a great interview experience. With tons of top product talent out there, it’s an achievement just to have gotten through the initial screening process. Here’s a checklist of ten things to help you prep for your interview. When compiling your personal case studies, be sure to think about examples that demonstrate your technical, in … All of them promoted “internal candidates” (or so they claim). Since there’s a lot to this, I wrote a more in-depth article on how to prepare: Google PM Interview – how to prepare. Focus on technical skills. Pick one category.. You have to be prepared to do well in all of the above categories in order to excel … questions that most candidates are perfectly entitled to ask, she negotiated for an additional $15,000 at Yammer, Group Projects — The Hidden Skill for PhDs, How we are going to manage our 4-day workweek experiment, The 3 Vital Elements of a Powerful Cover Letter, Learning A New Language ≠ More Career Opportunities, Effectively Talking to People on the Internet: A Guide, Holidays, Workplaces and Inclusion: How to Set the Right Tone for the Year, 10 More Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings. That’s it! Not every company requires one. Not all companies are courteous when it comes to time at the end for the candidate to ask questions. Thanks for reading. You’ll know more about what to ask if you do the preparation mentioned at #7 but there a couple more things to mention: Ah, the offer — the moment when everyone starts talking about your “leverage” more than at any other point. “Dress for the job you want” is silly and vague. Whether you are preparing to interview a candidate or applying for a job, review our list of top Product Manager interview questions and answers. The next step is a 45-minute phone interview with a current PM. It wasn’t always possible (search on LinkedIn for ‘recruiter’ title at a bigger company and get dozens of people) but it’s advisable. Interviewers will probe for the following areas: Negotiation & ability to influence others.Amazon PMs can take a position, convince others, and drive team action. Summing it up In conclusion, if you're preparing for a product manager interview at Google, you'll want to make sure you prepare carefully for the five key areas they'll test you: 1) product sense 2) technical chops 3) analytical skills 4) communication ability and 5) culture fit. I had one for every job I applied to and I took the time to personalize it to the company, the role, and the person it was addressed to. When compiling your personal case studies, be sure to think about examples that demonstrate your technical, in addition to people, skills. I did this early on when I had no idea what I was doing, and from a couple of dozen resumes and letters sent, I had a 10% response rate. Companies are looking for candidates who are passionate about the space they’re in, so make sure you have a good sense of the company’s broader market landscape. You start out terrible at it but the more you practice, the better you become. There’s a ton of stuff out there. How to Avoid Micromanaging and Become a Great Coach Instead, How to Work Remotely and Keep Your Sanity, How to Mentor Yourself Out of a Job (So You Can Get a Better One). Have multiple versions of the answer ready to deploy depending on your read of how long you should talk for. Step one: Set a business objective First, we should confirm our understanding of the question and define a business objective. 1. Of those 10% that did go through, none of them worked out after phone screen. Step 2: Provide the structure for the answer. A lot of people I met at events and talks around town ask me how I prepared for it, so I thought I’d do a post — but wanted to wait for all signals from my manager to turn green before I published it. Additional resources to prepare for an interview at Google. Some of it was useful, some of it was terribly dated or didn’t apply geographically. Once you maximize base salary, then move on to something like paid vacation or whatever is the next-most-valuable thing on your list.”. Many companies make their internal values obvious on their website or in recruiting materials and conversations, so do your best to find out what they are—and take them to heart before your interview. Product managers ultimately answer to internal stakeholders, meaning you’ll need strong relationships with the people above you, your peers, and anyone you manage—and your interview is a chance to charm them. If you’re going in cold, think of it as an exercise for you to learn what works and what doesn’t. You should be! His newsletters are informative but you can read his book too. But…, Telecommuting and distributed offices have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly with the rise of digital productivity tools…, The nature of a mentorship is a pretty simple one: someone with more experience helps someone with less experience…. I’m not inside the mind of a recruiter or hiring manager, and don’t want to speak for them, but hope this will be useful in the job hunt. Guide to Prepare for a Product Manager Interview Published on November 10, 2019 November 10, 2019 • 139 Likes • 21 Comments By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. So these are my general observations based on what I’ve read, what more successful people advised me, and what has worked for me in the USA, in San Francisco (also: mid-career, moving from one country to another). 45-minute phone interview with a Product Manager. How to Answer Program Manager Interview Questions. Y es, it’s a lot of work to prepare for these interviews. Decode and Conquer was published in 2013, Cracking the PM interview updated in 2015, and only Lewis C. Lin’s last book with 164 Q&As was published in 2017. Step 3. I’ve updated this article to reflect the latest questions, interview reports, and comments I’ve received about the Google product manager process through Impact Interview’s 1:1 work with clients. Some of it was very theoretical and never really applied in real life, or they themselves did not use in their day-to-day jobs. No matter how large or small the product, its success hinges on how well a product manager does their job. Google wants to see how you think about problems. My first month has been great, and I’ve received a ton of support from peers and managers alike. The rest never ever got back to me (85%) or got back to me within 24 hours to say no (5%). Only very special, highly elite people can walk into a PM interview totally cold and actually nail it. Drawing wireframes on a whiteboard will help illustrate your ideas. Some of the good stuff was hidden away in articles you wouldn’t expect. There are a few interview bibles out there that everyone recommends, and you’d do well to read: My advice would be: read them after you have a good sense of your local job market, know that they are biased towards US/Silicon Valley product manager jobs, and some are a few years old by now. 4. Interviewers of all types love asking about past mistakes, as it’s a way to test how well you learn from blunders. Clean up any portfolios or mockups you plan to bring with you. Give the cross-functional nature of product manager roles, you’ll be working with many more people than who actually interview you—and it’s worth getting an idea of who they are before going in. But you’re not over the finish line just yet, as you’ll need to impress your interviewers more than the next (and preceding) candidates in order to land the job. Impress and inspire them with unique, compelling ideas. Napala is a consultant to early-stage technology companies. Product Design (aka Product Sense) Questions Step 1: Ask clarification questions. Preparation for the Product Manager phone interview. It'll prescribe a step-by-step prep plan, including specific exercises and recommendations. Best way to write a cover letter. How I Prepared for a Product Manager Interview. Just look at how people around dress in the city, and go “+1" as in dress one “level” smarter than they are. Based on the suggestions, some research, and a mock interview, I feel I will need to prepare little more seriously than I thought. And you’ll get much more out of it if you frame it as a sort of game: a conversation and process of mutual discovery. You'll also want to download … You’ve been selected to lead a team and you’re excited about the opportunity ahead. In addition to getting you in the product mood, using your favorite products before an interview can help you think more specifically about what makes products great—or not so great. Best places or ways to send your resume. Sign up for the product management interview practice group on Slack: bit.ly/PMInterviewGroup Post a request for a partner or partners in the #req-practice-ptr channel. A hiring manager in London once told me that he thought of his role as “people/problems”; he had to hire people to help solve business problems but also make the problems sound exciting so that smart people would want to take him up on the challenge. Best advice on how to write your resume. If this article by an ex-Google recruiter is anything to go by, you’ll just end up in a huge pile with other randoms. This blog series is for product managers who are in the recruiting and hiring cycle, working with recruitment agencies, working with product management recruiters and anyone looking to hone the interview skills needed for product management.. How do I prep for a second round interview for a Product Manager position?. Overly formal is an impression too. In general, have a few of these examples related to product instincts, leadership and teamwork, and stakeholder collaboration. There are only so many opportunities to prepare for product strategy interview questions! Many companies prefer computer science or analytical backgrounds in their product managers, so keep this in mind as you prepare. Each company is structured slightly differently, and this is particularly pertinent for product managers, who often interface with every business unit. So I prepare, prepare, prepare… As you will know, the PM role covers a broad set of skills, and different people may have different takes on it. — Benjamin Franklin. Remember to think like a product manager when you are going through these sources. I just completed my first month as a product manager at Rainforest QA — we built an on-demand QA platform that uses a combination of crowd testing and machine learning to help companies around the world deliver bug-free software, and we’re based in SF with a ton of remote people. Tiwari noted that both are critical for building successful product teams, especially since a relationship built on trust makes it easier to have disagreements yet still push forward as a unified team. It was not easy coming from a totally different culture but I learned a lot in a very short space of time. Not only will understanding the company’s structure and key stakeholders help you if you do end up with the company—it may also give you the upper hand for questions related to interacting with various stakeholders and your understanding of their priorities. You don't want to end your Product Manager interview with Google this way. So you’d have to cast your net really wide for this one to work, which isn’t feasible or desirable after a while. Well-meaning people gave me advice, often contradictory, and shadowed by their own experiences long time ago. But some do, and some CEOs take time to read them, usually to see motivation and clarity in written communication. That is, Partner A (interviewer) gives a case to Partner B (interviewee). They probably won’t let too much slip about the actual interview questions, but they can provide real world context to the PM role that you won’t get from a book. Take turns during your practice session. There are lots of posts about “how to get your first job as a product manager” and I certainly read my fair share in preparation. The interview process is long and arduous here. Do comment with useful resources and links: what worked for you? Do you see jeans, hoodies and t-shirts all around? Get certified as a Product Manager at Product School. Others wanted to hear you rattle off frameworks. The most useful question to ask yourself is, “what problem am I solving for the company I’m applying to?” Read between the lines of the job description, and if the answer isn’t there make it your priority to find out. These views can be applied to a number of questions, whether your interviewer asks for more general product thoughts or you’re sharing your opinion on what the company already does from a product perspective. If you haven’t been given the names of your interviewers, don’t be shy—it’s totally fair to ask the person coordinating your interview for more details. Product manager interview questions are often intense, and with good reason: It’s an absolutely vital role within companies, and hiring managers want to thoroughly evaluate a candidate’s suitability. While the job titles look ridiculously similar, and the roles do have quite a bit in common, they aren’t actually the same. 2. If you’ve recently landed a product manager interview, congrats! In addition to helping you understand the types of backgrounds the company looks for, understanding the different types of people and roles can give you a better sense of company culture before experiencing it firsthand. Wear yours tucked in with a jacket, and so on. Then, check out the 30-day Facebook PM interview prep plan included in The Product Manager Interview (TPMI). This almost goes without saying, but don’t forget to gain a good understanding of the company’s products—and particularly the product(s) you might be working on. BUT before you spend the money…check out the free stuff: Finally, read what PMs have to say about how they interview and what they look for in places like First Round Review and Medium. To be certain, you don’t need to adopt values you don’t agree with, but understanding the company values can help to prepare for what might be asked, as well as hint at the criteria on which you’ll be evaluated. Disagree and Commit. Let’s continue the conversation on Twitter or in the comments. Product Manager Interview Questions: How to Prepare. You want to find out if you want to work for the company, and they figure out if they want to hire you. The more you know about the market and company and have confidence in your self worth, the better the negotiation will go. SEE ALSO: How to Ace the Facebook Product Manager Interview (Second Edition) What to Expect The Facebook PM interview has standardized across three components: Product SenseGood Facebook PMs innovate beautiful products that solve big, messy user problems.

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