23.3 Product management interviews
By the end of this checkpoint, you should be able to prepare for a product manager interview.
Overview​
Interviews exist to determine whether you're capable of doing the job that you're applying to. While every company follows a different interview process, most product manager interviews happen in stages that include some or all of the following:
- A phone screen
- An assessment
- An in-person interview
- A portfolio review
This checkpoint covers each of these stages in more detail below.
Phone screen​
Phone screens are often the first step in the interview process, after the resume screen. They exist to confirm that you are who your resume says that you are, that you meet the basic requirements of the job, and to determine if there are any red flags that disqualify you from the job.
Phone screens are often organized and conducted by one of the company's internal recruiters, and range from 20 minutes to an hour. Typically, you're asked questions about your background and relevant experience, the type of job that you're looking for, what you know about the company, and some general knowledge questions about the job that you're applying to. For example:
- What type of job are you looking for?
- What do you like about product manager roles?
- What type of products do you enjoy working on?
- Tell me about your experience in product management.
- What do you think makes a good product manager?
- Tell me about some products that you've managed.
- What workflow management software are you comfortable with?
- What's your requirements gathering process?
- How do you know if a product is successful?
- Tell me about your favorite product and why it's your favorite.
- What's an example of a product that you use and want to improve? How would you improve it?
The more technical questions are usually connected to the qualifications noted in the job listing. While you should prepare for general and skill-specific questions, it's okay if you don't know how to answer every question.
Just be honest, show enthusiasm, and make it clear that where you lack knowledge you're eager and able to learn on the job. Your phone screen with HR may be followed up with a second phone screen by a hiring manager.
Assessment​
Product manager interviews may include an assessment, either as homework or as part of an in-person interview. Assignments are a way to test your technical skills, problem-solving skills, and strategy. They can also give employers an idea of the quality of work that they can expect from you if they choose to hire you.
Here are a few examples of what assignments can look like:
- Given a product with x features and y challenges, prioritize the product backlog. Determine what requirements you would build for the first feature.
- Determine why a product's feature failed.
- Pitch x product.
- Given certain conditions, determine what product you would recommend to a client and why.
- Create a launch plan for x product.
- Outline your process of commercializing a new product. Include considerations for the product, product features, trade-off analysis, prioritizing features, testing, and monetization strategy.
And so on.
Always provide a rationale for your product decisions and expect follow-up questions. If the assignment is homework, be sure to submit it on time. (If there's any risk of being late, ask the interviewer for a modest extension ahead of time.)
In-person interview​
After passing one or more phone screens and, potentially, the assignment, you generally finish product manager interviews with one or more on-site or virtual interviews. There, you'll meet with a variety of team members and answer both behavioral and job-specific questions.
In-person interviews are an opportunity to further test your technical abilities, ask more questions about your background, and how you'd handle different scenarios. They will also assess if you're a good culture fit for the team and company.
Each of these interviews can last between an hour and a day. However, the longer ones tend to be broken into shorter, 30-minute or one-hour sessions, with different team members attending each session.
In addition to the previous phone screen questions, here are some examples of job-specific questions that you might be asked during an in-person interview:
- Tell me about a product launch that you led.
- What's the most challenging product that you've managed and why?
- What's your product development process?
- What's an example of a good requirement or user story that you'd write?
- How do you identify customer needs, and how do you turn those needs into requirements and features?
- How do you use data to drive feature designs?
- How do you prioritize product features effectively?
- Tell me about a time when your customer insights or data gave you an A-ha! moment.
- How do you measure the success of a product?
- How do you know if a product is designed well?
- What are the biggest hurdles to keep a project on track?
- How do you develop a mockup of a product?
- What are the pros and cons of different PM methodologies?
- When should you use scrum versus kanban?
- What aspects of product management do you find the most exciting and why?
- How would you handle a difficult project with a short deadline?
- How would you manage a dissatisfied team?
Just like during the phone interview, show enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. Before the interview, familiarize yourself with the company's website, blog, and products. Identify what you like about their products and how you might improve them.
Portfolio review​
Finally, at some point during the hiring process, you might be asked to provide a product portfolio. This is an organized and polished collection of your product work that's submitted as a PDF or a link to a personal website.
If you choose to use a personal website for your portfolio, there's no need to build it from scratch; you can use website building and hosting sites like Squarespace and Wix.
Your product portfolio should showcase your product work. For every project that you include, provide a case study. This is a high-level summary of the product, including the problem that the product solves.
Additionally, provide the product's features, how you gathered requirements, the team structure and technologies used, your go-to-market strategies, challenges that you encountered, and how you overcame those challenges. Don't just show the end product.
For in-person interviews, it can be helpful (and impressive) to come ready with a printed copy of your portfolio.
To inspire you, here are a few examples of strong product portfolios:
And that's it!
Usually within a couple weeks of your final interview, the employer decides if they want to hire you or not. Once they make a decision, the recruiter generally reaches out to you over the phone or email with the next steps.