How To Crack Product Manager Interview | Career Path | Interview Tips | Product Management | UpGrad
Summary
TLDRThis video script offers insights into the product management (PM) interview process, emphasizing the five key areas companies assess: problem-solving, analytical skills, leadership, communication, and the ability to prioritize and build roadmaps. It provides strategies for tackling common PM interview questions, such as improving a favorite app or designing for niche markets, and highlights the importance of context clarification, user assumption, and focusing on significant solutions. The script also discusses how to demonstrate analytical thinking through estimation problems and the significance of leadership and cultural fit in PM roles.
Takeaways
- 🧩 The product management (PM) interview process is centered around problem-solving and can be both exciting and nerve-wracking due to the unique assessment methods of each company.
- 🔍 Companies typically assess five key areas in PM interviews: problem-solving, analytical skills, leadership skills, communication and teamwork skills, and the ability to prioritize and build a roadmap.
- 🤔 Problem-solving in PM interviews often involves unfamiliar areas to push candidates out of their comfort zones, such as designing a navigation product for the blind or a new type of hardware product.
- 📝 When answering problem-solving questions, it's crucial to clarify the context, make assumptions about the users, and focus on big challenges that require significant solutions.
- 📉 Analytical skills are tested through estimation questions, where the approach to breaking down the problem is more important than the exact numbers.
- 📊 For estimation questions, a systematic approach such as top-down or bottom-up is essential to demonstrate how to tackle complex problems by breaking them into manageable parts.
- 💡 Leadership and communication skills are often assessed through behavioral questions about past experiences in resolving conflicts, making decisions, and convincing team members or executives.
- 🤝 Cultural fit is an important aspect of the interview process, where companies look for honesty and alignment with the company's work culture and values.
- 🗺 Prioritization and roadmap building skills are evaluated through exercises where candidates are asked to create a vision and plan for a product within a specific timeframe, highlighting the importance of addressing large problems first.
- 🏆 The interview process aims to find candidates who can logically prioritize goals and demonstrate a deep understanding of the business and industry to drive impactful solutions.
- 🛠️ Frameworks and methodologies learned during product management courses can be applied to justify prioritization and roadmap development, emphasizing the impact on users versus the difficulty of implementation.
Q & A
What are the five key areas companies typically assess during a product management interview?
-The five key areas are problem-solving, analytical skills, leadership skills, communication and teamwork skills, and the ability to prioritize and build a roadmap.
Why are problem-solving questions in PM interviews often designed to be outside of the candidate's comfort zone?
-Companies aim to see how candidates react to new situations and unfamiliar product problems, rather than how they handle familiar tasks.
What is an example of a problem-solving question that a company might ask in a PM interview?
-An example is to design a navigation product for blind people, which tests the candidate's ability to think creatively and adapt to unfamiliar challenges.
How should a candidate approach the task of improving a favorite app during a PM interview?
-The candidate should clarify the context of the improvement, make assumptions about the users, and focus on big problems and solutions rather than minor visual or functional tweaks.
Why is it important for a PM candidate to demonstrate strong analytical skills during an interview?
-Analytical skills are crucial for a PM role as the candidate will be constantly examining metrics, numbers, research data, and surveys to make informed decisions.
What type of question is commonly used to test a candidate's analytical skills in a PM interview?
-Estimation questions, such as estimating the market size for a product or the number of flights in the air at a specific time, are used to assess analytical skills.
How should a candidate tackle an estimation question in a PM interview?
-The candidate should focus on the approach to breaking down the problem, whether it's a top-down or bottom-up approach, rather than the exact numbers.
What aspects of leadership and communication skills are companies looking to assess in a PM interview?
-Companies want to see how candidates have handled leadership challenges, managerial issues, and hard decisions in the past, and how they resolved conflicts or convinced others.
Why is cultural fit an important consideration during a PM interview?
-Cultural fit is important because it determines whether the candidate will work well with the existing team and align with the company's work culture.
How can a candidate prepare for questions about cultural fit during a PM interview?
-A candidate can prepare by researching the company's culture, reaching out to current employees, or asking HR for insights to understand the work environment and cultural expectations.
What is the purpose of asking a candidate to build a product roadmap during a PM interview?
-The purpose is to assess the candidate's understanding of the business and industry, their ability to prioritize goals and vision for the product, and their strategic thinking in addressing key challenges.
How should a candidate prioritize tasks when building a product roadmap in a PM interview?
-The candidate should prioritize based on the impact on users and the difficulty of implementing the solution, focusing on large problems that will significantly move the needle for the product.
Outlines
🧑💼 Mastering the Art of PM Interview: Problem Solving and More
The first paragraph delves into the intricacies of a product management (PM) interview, emphasizing the excitement and challenges it presents. It outlines the five key areas companies assess: problem-solving, analytical skills, leadership, communication and teamwork, and the ability to prioritize and build a roadmap. The speaker provides examples of common problem-solving questions, such as improving a favorite app or designing a new product, especially in unfamiliar domains. The importance of understanding the context, making assumptions about users, and focusing on significant challenges rather than minor improvements is highlighted. The discussion also touches on how to approach questions that push candidates out of their comfort zones, such as designing navigation for the visually impaired.
📊 Demonstrating Analytical Acumen in PM Interviews
The second paragraph focuses on showcasing analytical skills during PM interviews, a critical aspect for product managers who must constantly interpret metrics and data. Companies often use estimation questions to test this, such as estimating market size or the number of flights in the air at a given time. The speaker explains the importance of the approach over the exact numbers, suggesting strategies like breaking down the problem, considering demographic factors, and making reasonable assumptions to arrive at an estimated figure. The example of estimating the market size for men's fairness cream in India is used to illustrate a step-by-step analytical process, from population breakdown to usage estimation and affordability considerations.
🗣️ Leadership, Communication, and Cultural Fit in the PM Interview
The third paragraph discusses the assessment of leadership and communication skills, as well as cultural fit, during PM interviews. It notes the difficulty of evaluating these skills in an interview setting and suggests that companies often ask about past experiences with leadership challenges, conflict resolution, and decision-making. The speaker advises candidates to be prepared with examples from their professional life that demonstrate their ability to lead, communicate effectively, and handle difficult situations. Additionally, the concept of cultural fit is explored, with advice on understanding a company's culture to determine if it aligns with the candidate's values and work style.
🛣️ Prioritization and Roadmapping: Key to a Successful PM Interview
The final paragraph addresses the importance of prioritization and roadmapping skills in PM interviews. Companies may present candidates with a hypothetical product scenario and ask them to build a short-term and long-term roadmap. The speaker emphasizes the need to understand the business and industry, identify key challenges, and prioritize goals effectively. The example of creating a roadmap for a payments product at an e-commerce company illustrates how to focus on impactful solutions and justify prioritization decisions based on user impact and implementation difficulty. The paragraph concludes by reinforcing the importance of logical thought and clear justification in building a compelling product roadmap.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Product Management Interview
💡Problem Solving
💡Analytical Skills
💡Leadership Skills
💡Communication
💡Teamwork
💡Cultural Fit
💡Prioritization
💡Road Map
💡Estimation Question
💡Behavioral Questions
Highlights
Cracking a PM interview involves showcasing problem-solving, analytical, leadership, communication, and prioritization skills.
Problem-solving in PM interviews often involves unfamiliar areas to assess adaptability to new situations.
Interviewers may ask to design a navigation product for the blind as a common problem-solving question.
Candidates should clarify the context and objectives before proposing improvements to an app or a new product design.
Assumptions about the users should be made and clarified when discussing product improvements.
Focus on big problems and solutions rather than minor visual or functional tweaks in product improvement discussions.
Analytical skills are tested through estimation questions that require a logical breakdown of the problem.
The approach to solving estimation problems is more important than the exact numbers in a PM interview.
Leadership and communication skills are assessed through questions about past challenges and conflict resolutions.
Cultural fit is evaluated to determine if the candidate aligns with the company's work culture and values.
Understanding the company's culture can help candidates prepare for cultural fit questions in the interview.
Prioritization and road-mapping skills are tested by asking candidates to build a product roadmap for a given timeframe.
Candidates should prioritize large problems and justify their choices based on impact and implementation difficulty.
A 6-month and 12-month product roadmap can be a common exercise to assess a candidate's vision and understanding of the business.
The importance of picking large problems first in a prioritization exercise to show strategic thinking.
Justifying prioritization with impact on users and implementation difficulty demonstrates logical decision-making.
Transcripts
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[Applause]
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so let's talk about cracking a PM
interview a product management interview
can be both very exciting uh because
it's usually very logical and centered
around problem solving but it could also
be pretty challenging uh and
nerve-wracking because each company has
their own way of assessing new product
managers uh and there's a lot of
unexpected elements involved in a PM
interview
broadly there are about five things uh
that a company would like to test when
uh interviewing new PMS they include
problem solving your analytical skills
your leadership skills your
communication and teamwork skills and
also your ability to prioritize and
build a road map so let's talk about uh
each of these five things and how
companies typically go about assessing
so let's first talk about problem
solving
two very common questions that usually
come up uh in a PM interview for problem
solving
include pick any favorite app of yours
um and figure out how would you improve
it right or the second question would be
about designing a new product um often
times companies here would not pick a
area that you you're familiar with like
you will very rarely get a question like
design a new food ordering app for
example right um companies will tend to
choose areas that might make you feel
uncomfortable or out of your comfort
zone so for example a common question
that I like to ask which is actually
which I borrowed from Google is design a
navigation product for blind people um
sometimes people will ask you questions
about Hardware products like design a
new stool or design a new sort of new
type of headphones Etc um the idea there
is to think about how you react to new
situations new product problems um
rather than giving you something that
you're comfortable with so let's say you
are in a PM interview and you're given
one of these questions which is like
pick a favorite app of yours and how
would you improve it design something
new or it could also be like a specific
app like how would you improve go+ so
there are couple of things to keep in
mind when um you know answering such an
interview question first make sure that
you clarify the context that is why are
we doing this Improvement um are there
any specific set of users for which we
are you know doing this Improvement
what's the objective is it to increase
engagement is it to increase revenue is
it to increase you know downloads
retention Etc so clarify the problem
context second clarify and take some
assumptions about the users of of this
product so let's say if you're doing you
know designing a new stool uh and let's
say it's designing a new stool for
people in business uh for sitting in
offices right so then think about take
some assumptions about these users like
where would people in an office be you
know using a stool because usually they
sit on a chair um you know sometimes it
could be in meeting rooms sometimes it
could be in canteens which means that
this stool you're designing is probably
not going to be used 8 hours a day you
know by an individual it's probably
going to be used one or 2 hours a day um
so again list down all these assumptions
um about your users that you're basing
uh you know your solution or your idea
on
the third thing to remember in such an
interview is uh think about big problems
big challenges and hence big Solutions
so um a big mistake that people make is
you know let's say given a question how
would you improve Gmail people start
pointing out small visual things that oh
I don't like the color of this button or
oh I think like you know this link
should be here now unless that change is
fundamentally altering user Behavior or
fundamentally increasing some Metric for
Gmail um usually that answer is not good
enough a really good answer in this
context that how would you improve Gmail
would be is there a way to reduce
storage you know so Gmail people are
using 50gb of storage on average that's
a huge cost to Google um given it's a
free email service people run out of
their storage space as well and then
they need to purchase additional storage
so can you figure out a new way of
archiving emails or a new way of
indexing emails um you know such that it
uses less space um let's talk about
Google+ you know it's often talked about
as a graveyard for you know social
networks so again a common answer that
people give in that case is Facebook
does this so I would do this in Google+
now is that really going to move the
needle for
Google+ um no probably not so a better
bet would be to pick a certain use case
for which people use social networking
and maybe push users to use go+ for that
so an example would be that a lot of
people post pet photos um you know on
Facebook or their wedding photos Etc uh
now that gets you know kind of lost in
the generic mil of photos on Facebook so
can you make Google+ a destination for
sharing your just your travel stories or
wedding stories or stories about your
pets or stories about your kids um you
know such that you're driving a huge
engagement for from a certain set of
users now all these are of course
hypothetical uh but the point being that
try and point out big measures Big Ideas
big Solutions big problems to solve
rather than uh you know focusing on
small things so the second thing the
companies uh usually like to test is uh
your analytical skills um now as a
product manager you'll be constantly
looking at metrics numbers you know
research data survey so it's very
important and very helpful you know if
you're strongly analytical so the way
the companies usually test uh your
analytical skills in a PM interview is
by giving you an estimation question
typically be you know estimate the
market size for men's fairness cream in
India for example or even uh this is
something I got asked once in an
interview which was estimate the number
of flights in Indian airspace at 11:00
a.m. right so how do you tackle a
problem like that so the first thing to
remember uh while answering such an
interview question is do not fret about
the actual numbers right because the
exact numbers I don't know you don't
know no one knows right it's the
approach that counts the most important
thing people are looking for when you're
answering such an interview question is
how are you able to break down this
problem you know whether you're taking a
top- down approach or you're taking a
bottom up approach so let's for example
talk about men's fairness cream in India
right so how would you approach this
problem so if I was answering this
question I would start with you know
this is India's population let's say 1.2
billion now I'll assume 50% male 50%
female right now the exact gender ratio
in India is not 50-50 right but that's
fine um I think it's making your math
easy you're making your you know General
point that I'm just concentrating on um
you know the male population for men's
fairness cream so let's say gender ratio
is 50/50 right so now talking about
males 600 million um male population in
India now what is the next sort of
demographic variable that can define
whether someone would be a user for
men's fairness cream or not uh let's say
age probably right so again you could
divide people in buckets by age so let's
say here I divide people by 0 to 15 15
to 30 30 to 50 and everyone above 50
right now I could have done bucketing
differently that's totally fine the
point here is that I'm showing the
interview uh interviewer that I can
think about which of the target segments
are actually going to be users of this
product again I can also make an
assumption that you know all the male
population in India is evenly divided
between the ages of 0 to 80 um
again uh you know we know that India is
a younger country um so probably you
know people in the younger age group are
sort of higher proportion but you can
mention this to your interviewer but
still take the Assumption of even
distribution you know just again to make
your math
easier so then the next step would be
estimating you know usage among these
age groups right so let's say 0 to 15
years um you know no one's really going
to use it right then 15 to 30 years you
take a certain percentage uh as an
assumption that okay you know probably
20% of uh uh men are actually going to
be you know interested in using a men's
fairness cream similarly you take
percentages for the other age bracket as
well right so now is there any other
demographic element that would affect
usage of fairness screen um
affordability right so the next cut you
would take is of affordability that of
the number of people that you've gotten
through this exercise now you can assume
that only a certain certain percentage
of them would be able to afford a
product like you know a fairness creen
product um because it's it's in some
ways it's a luxury product it's a uh you
know it's it's a enhancing product it's
not something that people are you know
going to be desperate to use um so that
will be a small percentage of people you
know who actually have the income levels
to spend on you know like a fairness
cream product right so you left with a
certain number of men who you feel are
eligible to be using fairness screen now
Market size usually is uh you know in
terms of dollars like uh dollar per year
so the next step for you would be to
think about okay if um X is a user of
men's fairness cream how many times on
average a year are they going to be
using that fairness cream right so let's
say you make an assumption that on
average a user of men's fairness cream
uses four creams um in a year and the
price of each cream is 100 rupees so
that means uh a user of men's fairness
cream on average is spending about 400
rupees a year on men's fairness cream
this when you multiply by the number of
you know people that you've gotten into
your target segment gives you the total
Market size of men's fairness cream in
India so the next thing that uh people
will look to assess are your leadership
and your communication skills you know
remember that we've learned that one of
the hardest jobs of being a PM is to
lead a team that is not directly
reporting to you um now that's very very
challenging to actually assess in an
interview right so the most common way
companies will try to assess it is try
to ask you questions where you faced
leadership challenges or managerial
challenges or place or you know
occasions when you had to make hard
decisions uh and how did you react to
those so be prepared for questions like
you know mention a time in a
professional life when you resolved a
conflict among two of your team members
or mention a time when you know someone
was not agreeing with what you were
suggesting and how did you try to
convince them and what was the end
outcome or again you know mention a time
when your managers or the executive team
at a company that you were working at um
you know did not agree with your
suggestion um how did you react to it
what were your next steps these are
pretty common behavioral questions that
you'll find in you know all sorts of
interviews but I think in the context of
PM they become really important and
people really care about what you answer
to them so apart from leadership you
know when talking about communication
and teamwork um what I mean mean is that
companies will usually try and see
whether you are a cultural fit with
their organization now each company you
know kind of lays different emphasis on
culture fit some people are very very
strong on it that they want people who
they feel will fit into the culture uh
some people don't give that much
importance to culture um but you might
hear this term come up again and again
you know in an interview so cultural fit
is not really something you know under
your control so if people say that we
want to do a cultural fit interview just
means you need to be honest uh you know
you need to communicate what you've done
in life what you've done in different
situations whatever questions come
across and they're only trying to judge
whether you know they think that you
would be good fit working with the other
team members in their company that's
about it so I think there you don't
really need to prepare you don't need to
fret what you could really do there is
try and understand um what is the
culture of the company if you can and
you know culture people Define
differently but it usually means uh you
know how people in that company work
together right so if you can um find
someone in the company you know someone
you know personally or just reach out on
LinkedIn or even ask HR to you know can
you connect me to someone already
working in the product team just to try
and understand you know what's their
culture What's the culture of Building
Product What's the culture of different
teams working together in that
organization you know that'll help you
give more contextual answers in that
interview it'll show that you've tried
to understand um you you know kind of uh
about this company more you've put in
the effort uh and it'll also help you to
make that decision whether this is you
know the right company where you see
yourself working is this the cultural
environment where you see yourself
working and another thing we mentioned
that uh companies try and understand is
your you know skills in prioritization
or building a road map uh again there
are different ways that companies will
go about this but a pretty common
question is you know and it this usually
happens in the last or you know the
second last rounds is is they'll give
you a product you know either of their
own company or you know something else
so let's say if you're interviewing with
Flipkart flipcart might say let's assume
you are the product head for payments at
Flipkart right um can you build a
6-month and a 12-month road map for this
product with your vision given what you
know about the payments product there
right so again what they're trying to
understand there is how much do you
understand the business right now how
much do you understand the industry
taking this intelligence are you able to
prioritize you know your goals and your
vision for the product for 6 months and
12 months like are you really picking
those key challenges those key problems
that you think um you know a payments
product should be solving for an
e-commerce company and tackling those
first or are you coming up with small
you know incremental changes that are
not really going to move the needle or
really alleviate any user paino so I
think that's in this kind of 6 Monon or
12 Monon prioritization exercise again
it's important to pick large problems
first and give your justification like
why are you putting this in the first 6
months versus that you know sort of down
the line any sort of framework you know
that actually you learn in PRI product
prioritization during this course you
know can be used so very simple way to
think about this is how much impact is
it going to have on my users versus what
is the you know difficulty in
implementing this solution I think
that's even if you justify your
prioritization bases those two elements
um you know it'll show that you've
logically thought about prioritizing uh
and that's how you've built this road
map um so yeah that's that's pretty much
it for this
section
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