Cracking the PM Interview

Summary

The speaker provides advice for preparing for and succeeding in product management interviews. He discusses the product manager's role, necessary PM skills like customer focus and technical abilities, and how to showcase your strengths. He analyzes common challenging interview questions on product design, estimation, case studies, and coding. He stresses structuring your thinking, understanding the user, making reasonable assumptions, and practicing behavioral interview questions. Overall he conveys that interviewers want to assess your problem-solving abilities, leadership potential, and passion for understanding and building great products.

Takeaways

• 😊 Product managers are responsible for managing the product, not people. Key PM skills: customer focus, product design, technical skills, and business expertise.
• 👩‍💻 Technical skills are often expected for PMs. Consider learning some coding basics even if non-technical.
• 🎯 In interviews, focus your stories on the actions you took to resolve situations. Don't spend too long on backstory.
• 📈 Estimation questions test problem structuring and solving skills - not accuracy. Break problems down step-by-step.
• 🤔 Case questions vary widely. Understand the problem, find a structure, make reasonable assumptions and decisions.
• 😮 When stuck coding: check for unused info, draw examples, simplify, ask for hints. Struggling is expected.
• 🙂 For behavioral questions, prepare a grid linking projects to possible questions. Master 5 key stories.
• 👥 Service backgrounds can transition well into PM with focus on communicating and understanding users.
• 🎒 Ideal PM background combines tech skills (CS major) with something else (psych, marketing).
• 🤝 Utilize PMs at your company to learn the role. Shadow, assist on specs, talk to customers.

Q & A

What are the different names used for product managers at various tech companies?

Product managers are called different things at different companies - associate product managers at Google, Yahoo and Facebook, program managers at Microsoft, and product marketing managers for associate product manager roles at Microsoft.

What skills should an MBA focus on developing to become a strong product manager candidate?

MBAs should focus on developing industry expertise, strong technical skills, good product design abilities, and expertise in areas like project management where they may be weaker. Humility and not appearing arrogant is also key.

How should one structure answers to behavioral interview questions?

Use the 'nugget first' structure where you state the key point first, or the situation-action-result structure where you briefly describe the situation, spend most time on the actions you took, and then the results.

What frameworks are useful for product manager case study questions?

MBA frameworks can provide some guidance on areas to consider, but interviewers are not specifically testing knowledge of these frameworks. The focus is more on structuring the problem, using reasonable assumptions, and solving it based on product instincts.

What metrics are valuable for product managers to be familiar with?

Important metrics include user acquisition metrics (growth rate, active users), engagement metrics (popular features), and money metrics (cost to acquire users, revenue, revenue growth rate).

What should one do when they get stuck on a coding interview question?

Relax, use any unused information provided, draw examples, try simplifying or brute force solutions, explain your thinking to the interviewer to solve the problem jointly.

What educational backgrounds help for product manager roles?

Computer science backgrounds are highly valued. Minors or double majors that combine CS with areas like marketing, psychology, economics etc. are also useful.

What if you don't have an impressive accomplishment for behavioral questions?

Focus on emphasizing through your answers the concrete skills and abilities you want to demonstrate - things like empathy, leadership, customer understanding etc.

How can designers become stronger PM candidates?

Designers should showcase quantitative abilities and basic technical competency through coursework or small coding projects.

How do customer and client service backgrounds help for product managers?

They provide great experience in communicating with users, understanding their needs and wants, and addressing their concerns.

Outlines

00:00

🎤 Introducing the speaker's background and the topic

The speaker introduces himself, his background working at major tech companies, writing books on interviews, and coaching startups. He will be talking about product management interviews.

05:00

🚀 Defining product managers and their responsibilities

The speaker defines what a product manager is - they manage the product, not people. He explains differences in titles across companies. A PM is responsible for understanding users, planning features, and launch strategy.

10:02

📝 Listing PM skills and strengths

The speaker lists key PM skills like customer focus, product design, technical skills, etc. He advises thinking about your strengths and weaknesses. Engineers may be strong technically but weaker in design; MBAs provide some business expertise.

15:03

🔬 Examining soft skills and behavioral questions

On behavioral questions, the speaker advises answering the question, portraying yourself positively, and structuring your response. He recommends preparing stories demonstrating leadership, challenges overcome. Provide key info up front and emphasize your actions taken.

20:04

⚙️ Breaking down types of difficult questions

The speaker examines product design, estimation, case study, and coding questions. On product design, balance creativity with business constraints. Estimate methodically. Case questions test problem solving, not just frameworks. Coding assesses analytical abilities.

25:05

📐 Approaching coding questions systematically

On coding questions, first understand the problem fully. Draw examples visually. Think aloud to demonstrate problem solving step-by-step. Test your code and fix bugs - struggling is normal even for experts on these hard problems.

30:05

🎯 Keeping sight of demonstrating core PM skills

The speaker concludes that the interviews ultimately assess ability to understand users, make decisions, motivate others, and build the right products. Technical questions provide ways to exhibit these PM capabilities.

Keywords

💡product manager

A product manager is responsible for managing a product, including understanding users, defining features, planning launches, etc. As explained in the video, they are called different things at different companies. At Google, Yahoo, and Facebook they are called Associate Product Managers at the entry level. The video discusses skills and backgrounds that make good product managers.

💡associate product manager

An associate product manager is an entry-level product management role, usually taken on by recent graduates or those with little experience. At Microsoft this role is called a Program Manager.

💡program manager

At Microsoft, the product management role is called a Program Manager. This is similar to a Product Manager at other companies. The video explains that Microsoft also has an Associate Product Manager role focused more on product marketing.

💡product design

Product design refers to designing features and improvements for a product based on understanding user needs. The video discusses product design questions that aim to assess communication, structured thinking, empathy, and creativity.

💡case questions

Case questions cover a wide range of hypothetical business situations and problems. The video advises understanding the problem, finding a structure or framework, and using reasonable assumptions and instincts to solve case questions.

💡estimation questions

Estimation questions involve numerical estimation and basic math to solve problems like "How many golf balls fit in an SUV?". The video emphasizes these are about structured problem solving rather than getting the exact right answer.

💡coding questions

Since product managers often need some technical skills, interviews may include coding questions. The video advises clarifying the question, drawing examples, talking through the logic, struggling without fear, and using the interviewer as a resource.

💡soft skills

In addition to technical skills, product managers need soft skills like communication, empathy, creativity, and leadership. Behavioral interview questions assess these.

💡pitch

The pitch refers to the beginning of an interview where the interviewee introduces themselves, their background, interests and goals. The video encourages developing and rehearsing this pitch.

💡struggling

When struggling on a difficult interview question, the video recommends not panicking, using all information provided, drawing examples, simplifying the problem, and soliciting help from the interviewer.

Highlights

Product managers tend to have at least five years of experience

The product manager responsibility is to manage the product not the people

As a PM, think about what skills you're missing and how you're going to grow into having those

Have five key stories that you really really mastered for behavioral questions

With product design questions, focus on communication, structure of thinking, understanding users, and bounded creativity

For case questions, understand and structure the problem, then solve with reasonable assumptions and instincts

Metrics knowledge can be valuable for case questions - user, engagement, and money metrics

With estimation questions, focus on structured problem solving with math, not just the final answer

Some PM responsibilities expect coding skills, so prepare even if you don't have a CS background

Understand what skills interview coding questions aim to evaluate - not just coding

The perfect PM has technical, product, industry, and business expertise - but strive for balance

An MBA provides some but not enough business skills for PM - complement with other expertise

Smaller companies and startups will likely require more hustle for PM opportunities

Tailor behavioral stories to emphasize abilities like empathy, vision, leadership - not just actions

Diverse backgrounds like services and design bring valued new perspectives to product management

Transcripts

the original thing original link I'm

going to just start over from scratch

and just review some of the things I

said earlier so that I'm and talk about

product management interviews here

that's my background is I worked at

Google Microsoft and Apple on the hiring

committee and it's on the - at Google

and founded career cup which is a forum

for interview questions and also wrote

three books cracking the coding

interview cracking the COO of the Google

resume and cracking the PM interview

which is for product managers and then I

also coach people through startups

through acquisition aqua hires walking

their developers and product members

into being better candidates to help

prepare them for these acquisition

interviews and so I'm going to talk a

bit today about some of the lessons I've

learned there so let's first of all just

get our terminology straight so a

product manager is a product manager

their role is to manage the product and

so they're called different things at

different companies but one of these is

you know they're called it Google Yahoo

and Facebook they're called associate

product managers at the entry level and

then eventually they grow into being

product managers or if you have a few

years of experience coming out of MBA

product managers kind of management also

hired directly so product managers tend

to have like at least five years of

experience and entry-level product

managers that go into associate product

managers at Microsoft they call them

what's essentially what's essentially

Microsoft's product management role is

called a program manager role microsoft

also has a role called associate called

product manager which is really more of

an a product marketing manager role the

product manager responsibility is to

manage the product not the people so

they don't you don't have direct

response people responsibility but what

you're in charge of is building a great

product for the users so you have to

think about things like who are the

users what what are their features when

you're going to launch how are you lodge

who you're going to reach out to when

you launch your product so those are

sort of what the product manager

responsible for now I'm going to talk a

bit about

what what p.m. skills are let me

remember here is that you know when no

PMS are perfect really everybody has

some skills that they're missing and as

a p.m. or as a aspiring p.m. you should

think about what what are the skills

you're missing and how are you going to

grow into having those so you know high

level we think about people we want as

people who are smart and can get things

done so you know there's a lot of

different skill sets here that are

useful so customer focus product design

now since this technical skills etc if

you're training what background you have

you might have some of these might be

your strengths something's might be a

weak weaknesses so if you're an engineer

you're you're likely very good at data

you very likely have very strong

technical skills you may not you know

maybe just so-so on project management

but you know product design is not

necessarily your your strong suit or it

might be depending on your background

marketing on the other hand you know you

you may you may or may not be good at

pride of design you you might be weaker

on technical skills but you're probably

but you probably have pretty good

strategy and vision and so on you could

go through some of these so designers

you hopefully have good products on

skills maybe we current data you so you

have to think about what which which of

these are your backgrounds which are

your strengths here and which are your

weaknesses and figure out how do you ran

yourself off of it you don't necessarily

have to excel in all of them that's not

very realistic but you can think about

how do you excel and as many of them as

possible so you know to talk about

business I live in Los Angeles might be

a common role that MBAs are

transitioning in or something similar so

I think about strategy and vision you

may do well there analysis into this you

may may not be good at technical skills

customer focus might not be something

you've had a lot of experience with so

again think about which of these are

your strong suits how can you get

experienced in these here we can area

how can you get experience in them

so for the MPAs here I know there's a

bunch of MBAs on on the call some things

remember with MBAs is that they're very

mixed opinions in Silicon Valley about

the value of MBA you have people who are

very very adamant on each side of those

and so keep that in mind and really what

you want to be careful of is you really

want to make sure that you're you're

very humble here you know a lot of

people have this impression that frankly

you I have a graduate from Wharton and I

have an MBA too and you know I didn't

find my classmates to be particularly

arrogant but a lot will have this

assumption that MBAs are arrogant so you

want to be really unguarded at and you

want to remember that you an MBA is

great we'll give you some business

skills but it's not enough

you want to think about what else how

else can you you walk in and be a

stronger product managers when the fears

then MBA grad will just walk in and

think they know what they're doing and

not realize just how limited their MBA

is so think about you what tube industry

expertise in particular area do you have

strong technical skills

how strong are your business skills you

know do do are you good at thinking

about products and what users want so in

a couple more things on MBAs and most

positions don't need an MBA but there

are some and some may not even one NBA s

there are some which value it so Amazon

for example tends to value MBAs or

product managers on campus recruiting is

big for smaller companies for is being

for big companies but for smaller

companies and startups you're probably

going to have to really work your

network and really get out there and

pursue opportunity yourself particularly

if you're looking at serves at like

Silicon Valley startups you should

expect to have to do a lot of that work

yourself so again let's you know

remind ourselves so the perfect PM is

technical skills product skills interest

industry expertise and business

expertise but nobody's perfect and you

you want to try to get as many of those

as you can so with all that said I'm

going to talk a bit about the sort of

soft skills of the behavioral side of it

so with uh with when you think about

soft skills you wanna think about a few

things so first of all you want to

answer the question so if you're asked a

question like tell me a time when you

show leadership to them at a time when

you've had a little challenge obviously

you want to handle answering something

with an actual challenge but the other

thing is that you want to deliver an

answer that makes you look good so you

know if you're asked for a challenging

situation you want to give an answer

that actually talks about a challenging

situation and then finally you want to

actually you want to try to deliver

something that is structured well and

that's really like half the value so

even if you can't deliver an answer that

really makes you look good you can at

least communicate it in a good

structured fashion there are some tips

though to figure out how you can deliver

an answer that makes you look good so a

lot on a lot that's not preparation so I

recommend to people is that they create

this preparation grid so you make make

this grid and there you can you can put

along the columns you put each of the

major project components of your resume

so the major projects and then down the

columns are down the rows are every

major behavioral question so what do you

enjoy what did you hate what was what

was challenging what was more than

hardest problems you faced where do you

have to show leadership so think about

these sort of things and then walk into

your interview really having mastered

five key stories the behavioral side

will be such an important part of the of

the questions of the interval question

so have five key stories that you really

really mastered the next thing here

is how how do you deliver an answer that

makes you look with good structure so

would there's two good structures that

work well the first one is what's called

nugget first which is basically that the

answer to the question is a first thing

out of your mouth

so what accomplishment are you most

proud of well most probably where we

architected the file system or you know

I'm most you talk about a challenge with

a co-worker sure let me tell you at the

time then a co-worker reacted negatively

to feedback I gave you so this does is

it helps focus both you and your

interviewer on where you're about to go

and particularly if you're a person who

rambles maybe might give a lot of

extraneous details it helps give you

giving that context upfront really helps

you interview or retain the important

information the next structure is what's

called situation action result so it

means basically the first thing out of

your mouth should be the situation and

then you're going to talk about the

actions you took and then the results so

what I found coaching people is where

most people go wrong is they spend too

much time talking about this situation

and not nearly enough on the action so

an example of someone will you know be

asked for a challenging or actually the

cover part you know say a challenging

issue with customers and they'll talk

all about how well there's this issue

with the suppliers and suppliers got

delayed and so they weren't able to get

things out to know the customers quickly

enough and to go really upset because

they had these other things on the line

and they go on and on about the

situation then the action and then they

say you know so we had to write this

email to customers and then they kind of

felt okay with it and really resolve the

situation and the problem is that while

you know I'm sure that was a very

stressful situation for your company it

doesn't really say much about you

because I didn't get to hear what have

you done so I want you instead you want

to flip the rod instead of spending too

much time to situate you should not know

time in action spend you talk about the

situation as much as what's necessary

but most of what you talk about should

be about the actions so tell me you I

did three things to resolve the

situation first I you know communicate

upfront with the customers what was

going on and told that

working to resolve the situation working

to get data secondly I gathered and went

and talked to our suppliers and took

their estimates and I did some data

analysis to actually get a more accurate

estimate when it would be available and

then thirdly I called up our key

customers and just having that personal

communication with them on the phone

helped them to understand that I really

was trying to resolve the situation and

I constantly worked with them to make

sure they they had frequent updates and

I even at the time say of the find a

compromise between what we wanted to

deliver them in the end and what we were

able to actually give them now so that's

that's what I mean my talk on the

situation are the actions you want to

talk about what the key what are the

things you did if you did multiple

things go and talk about well I did

three things to resolve the situation

first this second this third this most

of the conversation should be about the

actions you took the next part about

this is the you know what's called the

pitch this is where interviewers say so

tally bit about yourself a lot of your

PM interviews will start off that way

there'll be you know one to two minutes

for you to tell you interviewer about

about who you are and what you're doing

what you want to do here is you want to

tell a focus story about it walk them

through your background and talk about

you know your highlights and as well as

what interests you so for example you

might say now the interviewer says so

tell me a bit about yourself you might

say sure let me tell you a bit about how

let me tell you about about my career so

I started off graduating from college

with a computer science screen did some

internships at Microsoft and Amazonas as

an intern but you when I graduated I and

choosing to go to a smaller company

where I could get you know I could

really get more touched in touch with

users more because I you know I found

that I really I really missed it at the

biggest companies getting that customer

interaction and so I went I'd go to a

start-up where it was going faster I

could be a developer and really

strengthen my technical skills but I

could also talk with customers and as I

grew with that startup I got more and

more focused on you I helped help work

on a couple features such as

our voicemail feature and our messaging

feature but I found what I loved the

most was dealing with the customers and

thinking about the product and his

company crew they needed somebody take

on product management responsibilities

and since I'd shown more leadership I

was the one who tip to talk on those

back responsibilities etc etc what this

kind of you know watch your interviewer

through you through your story but also

hits on a couple of things I sort of

blended into that what I was interested

in and what why I like being a product

manager which is about customer

interaction I also blend it in there a

little line about how I took took on the

product management also really because

I'd been more of a leader so you can do

that in your story you can work through

and you can hit on some of the key

points but you really want it you want

to make sure here that you really know

and you really rehearse the story

because it's such important part of your

of your interview so next thing moving

you don't want to move on now to talking

about the technical questions so in sort

of what we're excited to be like the

hard questions there's a couple

different types of sort of difficult

questions that you might be asked there

is prime design there's estimation

questions case questions and kind of

coding questions I'm going to talk a bit

bit about each of these in let me talk

mostly apart exam estimation questions

and then also a bit about how to do well

with coding questions so products and

questions are things like pull on a

calculator for the blind or pick any

Google product how would you improve it

with these questions the thing to member

is what are they looking for and what

they're looking for here is

communication and structure of thinking

they want to and they also want to see

you this is super important can you put

yourself in the users shoes and really

understand how they're thinking about a

problem and a little bit on creativity

as well as business in six and skills or

some people go wrong here as they try to

come up with this super super creative

idea for how you design the elevator and

they lose focus on that this is a real

this is a real problem you really have

to think about this this issue so you

want to create

is important but it's sort of a measured

creativity it's limited creativity its

creativity bounded by reasonable

business decisions so good thing to talk

about is you know ask rushed up to

resolve anything to get approaches ask

questions to resolve ambiguity

understand the user then structure the

problem and solve it piece by piece so

for example if you're asked signed an

elevator you want to ask questions like

well who is where is this elevator how

tall is a building what are we what kind

of building is it is this you know it's

like a textural building is this is this

a business building isn't is it if it's

a residential building we may have

different problems that we want

different type of freight elevator so

you want to ask questions and really

understand what the problem is then

think about who the user what do they

want what are their problems we'll think

about think about what their what their

goals are what are the use cases and

find a structure for the problem don't

be afraid to get up to the whiteboard

and use it after the whiteboard is a

really really good thing to use use it

for your sketches your outlines or just

to keep keep notes of where you are

currently in your private sign next type

of call type of question I want to talk

about is the case questions so these

these are all over the map but they can

be things like how design how did you

launch Amazon in Turkey how does the

price an e-book reader you know this we

launched this new feature and use a sign

up stress what would you do so and okay

social couldn't vary from there can be

problem solving questions you know what

would you do with this you know metric

dropped strategy questions should we do

this or this how would you market this

question this this product how would you

help you price this product how would

you launch this and they can even be

things like name as many things as you

can do with a paperclip for example

they're all over the map and partially

because they're so is because they're so

all over the map I don't have time to go

to all these in detail but I didn't go

into these a lot more detail in cracking

the PM interview of the book but I'll

talk about talk a little about some of

these things so first of all with sorze

the MBA is on the line

and listening to this the MBA frameworks

can be useful but it's not it's not a

test of frameworks generally speaking

you're not you're not really being

expected to know these because remember

after all many people doing these

interviews are not or don't have MBAs so

they can be useful as for sort of

informing you as far as you know things

you might want think about like oh but

you have to think about suppliers we'd

have to think about what the threats are

to the business we'd have to think about

the placement of this product but

they're not they're not directly tests

of them it's important to keep that in

mind the next thing to sort of note here

on cred exam on MBA questions is is what

the difference is between the MBA case

and a consultant case you can actually

get asked the exact same questions on

for MBA SS as consultant ask but they

focus a little bit different a

consultants job is to go into a company

structure a problem gather a whole bunch

of data and then present a decision an

MBA isn't as a product manager isn't

doing that the same thing they're not

going in and gathering public changes

they if you can get data that's great

but a lot more of its on instincts and

so where is a consultant consultant

interview might give you you know have

the slides prepared for you when you ask

for data for PMS they're more likely to

expect that you can gather information

or dude they're the more let's you

expect that you can make reasonable

decisions gather information that you

can but also make a lot of decisions

were based on instincts based on what

you think is the best thing for

customers and you know again there's

there's just too many types of case

questions to go into all of them but a

key thing where the key approach is

understand to find the problem find a

structure so find you know make your

basically make your own framework and

then solve it using instincts and making

reasonable assumptions you can ask

questions to your interviewer you can

ask you know do we have do have

information on you know why this thing

changed or do we have information what

the most important products are but

you're good if you're you might

sometimes people will rely too much on

asking the interviewer for help and so

you know you can ask you would you like

me to estimate this make my best

decision or is this or do you have

information for me here there's a bit of

knowledge that'll help you also so

metrics knowing the wrong metrics will

help you so and just thinking about

things so this user acquisition metrics

around growth rate who the active users

are how many people there are what are

they doing and then you know to that

committee so metrics of what are those

popular features and then on the money

metrics so how much does it cost to

acquire user and what's the revenue

what's the growth rate so these are

metrics can be it can be valuable to

know about at least before you walk into

your interview the third type of

question is estimation questions so

these are kind of questions like how

many golf balls fit in an SUV or how

much money just Gmail making ads every

year the important under conceptual

thing to to get here is that these are

problem solving questions with a little

bit of math but they're fundamentally

problem-solving questions they're not

about the answer doesn't really matter

that much if your answer is is is it

particularly accurate or not ideally it

is because if you've taken made

reasonable assumptions you'll get and

our good problem solving you'll get in

the right ballpark but it's not really a

test of you if you know this information

it's about can you take a problem can

you structured problem you don't know

how to do and can you structure can you

break it down can you then solve it so

the way to approach these questions are

you know first of all make sure you

understand what the problem is so for

example if you're asked how much money

does see.well make an ads every year you

might think about you know asking are

you talking money or revenue are you

talking profit or revenue are you

talking a gmail hosted Gmail or Google

or you know like so like gmail.com are

you talking about how do you when a

start-up hosts or Gmail hosts our

company email through like Google Mail

and then you come with a structure of

the problem so for example you don't

know how much money to do you like

making ads every year and suppose we're

talking about revenue just for us users

of Gmail com so we might think about

okay well sure so let me let me tackle

this by taking estimating a few things

first let me estimate how many users of

Gmail have then let me estimate how many

times as the average user click on an ad

and then I'll estimate how much money

does that average ad make so that's

that's your structure and then you go

and you break down these components so

if we want to know how much how many

users gmail has we can start off with

assuming I'm making some reasonable

assumptions rounding numbers and you and

if there's a reason why you can bet if

there you can back up the assumption

that's good to do so we might start off

with saying something like okay well we

have 300 million gmail user 300 people

that you asked roughly and I don't think

children elderly people use email tons

let me break that down to just just

people really between age about 12 and

let's say 75 or maybe we maybe maybe we

do 1575 just to make things a little

easier now we have a range of about 60

years and now let me say see I'd guess

about 80% of those people have email and

then I guess you know more people you

know X hundreds those people use

excellent those people use company mail

personal mail ugly we for smell how many

people use a person use an email client

like when the major providers I got who

in Yahoo Gmail etc so eventually we get

down to some assumption of how many

email users there and then we do that

again for each component and then at the

end we get we get some number like

supposed to be and then first we

calculate something like we get five

billion dollars for Gmail profit a year

if you've been following startups really

closely maybe you'll know that this is

this doesn't sound right but if you

don't just look so sandy checks so 500 -

or 5 billion people 5 billion

a year for revenue well there's only 300

million people in the US so that's a lot

of money per person and that doesn't

sound right and that that says every

single person at u.s. used email and

views to email that doesn't sound right

to me so where did we go wrong and you

can think about sanity checking as you

either went wrong in your initial

structure or equation or you went wrong

an assumption you made or you went wrong

in your ad in your math so try to zoom

in on where what it looks like as what

the most likely problems look to be

that's CS quite good estimation

questions to find them and go and talk a

bit about CS questions so first of all

there's the question of do do you need

to know how to code as a song as a

product manager it really depends but

generally speaking some project

mentoring responsibilities some problem

some part of managers are expect to know

how to code but it depends I mean you

can look at look at the roles so could

look at it but generally some degree

technical skills are expected not always

there are a lot of exceptions but a lot

of times it's required and product

managers when it is required if you

don't you know if you have a cs2 where

you've just been a programmer maybe

they'll just skip by it but they may

very well ask you to actually code

during your interview so that's that's

the case for you you do want to think

about preparing so I'm going to talk a

bit about how to prepare for these and

what what sort of techniques work well

so he approached to the main approach to

Cody Allen questions is first of all

understand the question make sure you

make sure you heard the question

correctly make sure that you know you

know what kind of what the data looks

like things like that and then get up

get off your chair go to the Lyford and

draw an example a lot of people have

this strange instinct of sitting and you

get this algorithm problem and they just

sit in their chair and think about you

and try to just like solve in their head

it doesn't work well you hear the

question repeated clarify it then go to

the whiteboard and actually draw an

example and make sure it's something

that's sufficiently interesting

so meaning that you don't want to create

too small of an example or too big of

one or something that's the special case

so if you're given a list of data and if

you're not told that sorted don't draw

your example as having sorted data it's

really easy to accidentally do this to

accidentally draw a generic example or

to accidentally draw a special case and

then talk out loud remember that these

these problems are they are problem

solving exercises you're not expected to

just hear question and spit out the

right answer

they're about problem solving so talk

out loud show your interviewer how you

think about the problem then you get a

common solution it's okay if your first

one is a brute-force oh it doesn't quite

work just explain the problems think

about does it work what see you know how

what's the efficiency of it and then

before you start coding make sure that

you really understand what it how how

you actually implant this and then go up

and code and then go back and test and

fix the solution and it's really

important here that you understand that

people even software engineers even

great software engineers who get offers

from you know everywhere they interview

don't code flawlessly the first time it

just doesn't really happen and so be

reasonable to expectations on yourself

yes fewer bugs better more often getting

the more optimal solution faster is

better of course but set reason

expectations if these are supposed to be

hard problems and you know you might

think that product manager are

automatically going to get asked easy

questions but that's just not the case

they are there are sometimes easy

questions when project managers can also

be asked really really hard questions

just as hard as I saw from SHINee would

get asked so don't don't think that

you're off the hook or won't get asked

any difficult questions so when if or I

should really say when you get stuck on

a coding question or really on any

question you know first I'll relax

struggling does not mean that you're

doing poorly when your questions are

designed to be hard even the best

software heroes don't just spit out the

right answer so struggling just means

that you're struggling on that problem

it doesn't mean that you're struggling

more than other people are and then

to yourself is there any information you

haven't used have you where you told for

example the data sorted but you haven't

used that information if you haven't

used it you probably need it so you

should use it then if you're stuck go go

draw an example you haven't drawn drawn

run yet or or if you have already drawn

one try a new example maybe a new

example unstick you or trying you solve

it solve it poorly

so try a brute force solution try you

know solving it slightly incorrectly

your tweak it tweak it or simplify in

little ways you try to basically try to

find anything you can to make some to

unstick yourself to make a bit of

progress and to help your interviewer

understand where you are with the

problem your interviewer is there to

they want to hire you they really do

it's much easier to interview good

people than bad people they really want

you to do well so try to talk about how

you think about the problem let them be

sort of a joint problem solver that's

how they should be thinking out the

problem they sure that's how they should

be think about their role is a joint

problem solver and that's how you should

be thinking about the world their role

as well so talk to them and show you so

them how your think about the problem

and you know keep in mind the end and

what what all these things what this is

all about this is all about showing that

you you know showing that you can

understand the user that you know that

you can only use it that you can make a

decisions they can think about what what

do people want that you can think about

you know how do you lead and motivate

people you won't have direct management

responsibilities but you can think about

you know how do you how do you inspire

product your developers to make the

decisions to build good things to really

care about the product really care about

that users and how do you even shielding

people talk about product managers being

a shield for them for developers how do

you shield them from you know the

salespeople coming in and making too

many requests of them think about that

you want to show ultimately that's

interviews that you can do all these

things that you can build the right

thing and launch the right thing for

users and so keep all that in mind that

this is about all these things are about

showing that you can do develop it you

can deal with these things and you can

build the right product so this is just

basically a high-level overview of this

I know I didn't go in much detail on to

the case questions and because there's

just so much diversity out of case

questions so um they you can obviously

check out the PM interview you can also

shoot me an email and I'm going to hang

out on the line of it I think if the

someone ought to check the group chat to

make sure that that is working by my

hang out here for a bit and see if

anybody has any questions they want to

ask

I actually already saw one so so some

somebody asks can I explain these

approach 4cs questions if you're from a

marketing background so one thing to

understand here is what they're looking

so first of all if you don't know how to

code well okay I'll say this if you

don't how to code

I'd recommend learning how to code if

you're going to be working with product

if you're going to work with developers

you should really learn a little bit

about what your what you're doing spend

it spend a few days going through the

exercise own on code Academy to type

that in the window here spend a few days

going through the exercise some code

Academy to show just so you know a bit

about like what is what is coding what's

it all about and but the thing to think

about here with you know if you don't

come from that background learn a little

bit about it but do the best you can to

show some technical skills so so you

know so how would you break up home yeah

you can't write any code but can you get

the basic gist of step one we're going

to do this step two we're going to sort

the data in this order step three we can

like count this data in the particular

way so try to break it down even if you

don't know coding per se try to break it

down to concrete steps as much as

possible okay any other questions there

okay so somebody asks um let me read

this so about the question about tell me

talk about website blah blah and what

would you change so what I would

approach suggest for this these sort of

questions is first of all think about

you know further do you wonder if you

understand what the website is ask

questions if you don't recognize that

you're you're not going to have all the

information in there so people will get

very frustrated with this so ice

interviewing is helping one person out

who's interviewed for a PM question a

four pm position at Twitter and was

asking what would you do if you were CEO

and he got you swimming he got really

frustrated by this because well

he doesn't have nearly the information

that they do out being a CEO and about

Twitter so help me make good decisions

yeah that's you know you won't and

that's okay though they'll cause ooh

only take that into account that that

you don't don't have that background

when you want to think those what are

what are the goals what who are the

users what are their key things and you

can think about improving it as how

would you make it better for existing

users how to make it more streamlined

how would you make it really be more of

a all-encompassing product maybe this

thing is really more of a pickup feature

and maybe there's other features I could

really make it solve more things or you

can think that is maybe you can help

solve the problem the the interviewers

or maybe can help open up the problem

the product to a new set of users so you

want to be very goal focused here what

are the key what who are the users what

are their key things and how can you do

better and how can you do those things

better or how can you do better for new

set of users and one of the important

things here is make sure you prepare for

this type of question so it's very very

very likely it will get asked a question

like what's your favorite product how

would you improve it what you know or

how would you improve then if your

interview Twitter how would you improve

Twitter or you know what's your favorite

you know offline or so physical product

so be prepared for these sort of things

be prepared walk in with an idea of what

you would change at the company what

what your favorite product is and how

you improve it what your favorite or

favori software is how you improve it

what was your favorite physical product

and how would you prove it to walk in

with answers to these sorts of things

okay so someone else asks is there a

nice if ik educational background or

experience that recruiters look for

product managers so text obviously being

a CS major is a great thing or even a CS

minor the other thing is having

something to talk about what it means

for new grads or people just out of

college so a CS major is a great thing

shows that you know you kind of

basically know how to program or a CS

minor also works the other thing is

showing something else so for example if

you are a CS major with a marketing

minor that shows something else even

even economics background or psychology

background shows so you know some sort

of maybe your CS major with a psychology

minor even that shows some sort of

understanding or some sought of thinking

beyond just technology and thinking

about people and so that's great as far

as top schools you know some people have

people at different different pinions on

this some of the bigger companies like

Google tend to be a little bit more

latest about going to a great school but

it's not it's not cut and dried even

Google hires I think most Google people

Google hire do not come from Ivy

League's or equivalent so top schools

are one way of showing that you kind of

have your act together but if you don't

go to top school there's other ways of

doing that

so you know the short summary is as far

as educational background is the ideal

background is technology is a CS

background plus something else but

there's there substitutes so if you

could sign a CS major maybe it's a CS

minor

or electrical engineering minor or major

or something like that or you know at

least some things that are not close to

it but show quantitative skills so

physics for example not really

particularly close to computer science

but at least shows that maybe you could

pick this up and you kind of science it

sort of person okay someone else asks uh

are there specific strengths that make

PMS who lack a technical background

successful that could be highlighted so

I don't think that I'm not sure that

lacking

lacking a peek the technical background

is ever really a good thing but it's

sometimes not a bad thing so you know in

other words I don't think like having

kept back whatever makes you rarely ever

makes you bad but there's all sorts of

things that people who have done have

technical background

will you make me have more experience in

so you may have more experience working

with customers you and you know maybe

you'll be less likely to know certain

over-engineer problems still technical

type of background is highly valued

because you can work with engineers you

get things you get what's a real

expectation to have of people so someone

else asks how much does your title

matter to companies looking for PMS if

you're a software engineer put of active

essentially as a p.m. how would you

present that so it depends if you if you

want one thing is that if you're working

at a very small company uh meaning like

a couple people you might just be able

to to just write change in my feel the

talk and see I'll be like hey is it cool

if I you know write my titles a

product's all French a massage product

manager alternatively with software

engineers your technical your sovereign

school skills are valued but you want to

you want try to present yourself sent

the relative skills so talk less about

optimization of some feature and talk

more about how you lead a feature so

leadership is the thing that law

developers can demonstrate that makes

you more relevant to a musician or maybe

you can think about designing something

or showing what you've designed so you

basically go back and look at that

background of like what of near that

slide deck of what are what does it mean

what are the different skill sets for

p.m. and do you emphasize some of the

coding parts that aren't as relevant and

talk more about offer bullets under each

project under each team that you're

going to show that stuff and remember

that a resume does not have to be a

comprehensive list of everything you've

ever done

it's supposed to be your highlights as

relevant to that position so someone

else is degree essential for p.m. and or

associate p.m. roles associate p.m.

roles yes generally I'm you're going to

find exceptions being made but yeah so

say p.m. is generally it's just a sort

of a role you take on out right after

college in fact even if you have like

three or four years experience you don't

leave what we put us associate p.m. and

you may not be experienced enough to be

a p.m. either so yeah generally for so

CPM roles if you're for product

management

it depends startups will often look the

other way if you have a bunch of

relevant interests experience like if

you have suppose you dropped out of

college after two years to found a

startup and you became CEO of that

company grew to a couple people but then

it closed and then you you know I played

on some other ideas on your own but

built-in designs and really cool

products but now you're looking for PM

role that could make you a really good

fit even though you don't have the

background for that

so somebody else asked this is something

else sort of asked earlier but I'll go

over it again so about the question you

know the frustration around the question

tell us what you liked and disliked

about our site with the issue that it's

sort of stacked against the interviewee

um first of all I you know I kind of

agree with you this is this is one of

the problems with that kind of question

is that you you know with that kind of

question is that

so you don't have the same kind of

background that a p.m. has on that or

that you know someone who's really

working full-time on the on the product

really has so you know but remember that

they're gonna they're gonna hopefully

take that into account they're going to

hopefully take an account the fact that

you don't have you don't have that

knowledge expertise and you write

something so many suggestions will be

bit naive but hopefully an interviewer

will take that into account will realize

that yeah you your solutions are a bit

naive but that was based on the

knowledge you had um there's pluses and

minuses to this sort of thing so you

know you do this with some Isis so that

as an interviewer if you're if they're

interviewers if there are people out

here interviewing in being an

interviewer for product managers there's

a you know there's the - of there

there's a + of you get to hear with this

person's knowledge and understanding and

thoughts around your actual product is

which is awesome but the flipside that

you may not be fairly actually judging

them because you may be bias against

them because their idea was stupid given

what you know but not based on what you

not listen what they know so again

there's no pluses and minuses there okay

back to video ok um let me go on - next

question

and

so so one person

how much dependency on coding is

actually Quadra product managers is all

over the map you some companies will

have product managers who actually have

to actually code every day or at least

often enough or dive in when necessary

but I would say most companies product

managers aren't writing aren't really

writing code on any sort of normal basis

the reason why it's still expected or

still highly desirable for p.m. to code

is that as a p.m. you're going to be

making some decisions as to what gets

built and you need to understand what's

a reasonable what's a reasonable request

or even just maybe you have this initial

feature and they can't do it's going to

take too long to build it but you

understand because because you're a

coder you understand how you can tweak

it into things and what's simpler to

implement and some of the other coding

background may not have as good an

understanding there um that's not to say

that product managers are coding

backgrounds can't be great there are

often excellent product managers who

don't have that background but that's

sort of how companies think about it so

no you won't be generally you won't be

coding every day or ever

most likely other than maybe

periodically but having that allow

having that having a little of that

background allows you to more reasonably

sort of scope out features as well as

just get more spectrum product from

coders

so someone asked about behavioral

questions so what should a recent

graduate do if previous challenges don't

look that impressive in hindsight so

that's actually a really interesting

question because what I've found

coaching people is that things that were

challenging don't always sound like they

are and vice-versa so what I would

encourage you do is if you don't think

first of all really think through take

it take us in a no take your five key

stories and really really focus on what

are the actions that you took what

specific concrete action laid if you

find that you in what helps is if you

can do that you'll be able to flesh out

what they really mean and if you can can

you break it down to like I did three

things and think about go back to you

know the list list of skills and think

about what do you want to show is

partner want to show empathy for the

user you want to show ad you want to

show village' we leave things you want

to show the ability to go above and

beyond

think about tailoring the actions that

you give around that so in an example ah

rather than just saying called up the

customer and told what was going on

which sounds like okay pretty obvious

that you get bad you might say instead

yeah I you know I understood that the

customer really values that personal you

know particularly this person really

values a personal touch and really

feeling like we're working on the

problem with him and so I you know I

went up and I called him and explain to

him the details and I also know he he

appreciates the understand the

technologies and the reason why these

things are going wrong and you know the

same thing that that is Leon almost

explicitly saying I'm not quite going to

the point of saying I know you're

looking for customer empathy and so now

and then it showed few but I'm getting

pretty close to that I'm saying you I

know that you know I know that the come

customer wants a certain things so I'm

empathizing with them in these these

ways so think about that that yet yeah

you know as a recent grad and really

it's not just recent grads you know

everybody's going to have everybody

basically I struggle with some of these

questions but think about fleshing out

you know and really calling out what the

specific sort of aspects you're trying

to show in a in an interview are the

designer is winding transitive

PMS uh somebody asked you know heavy

sinus yeah that happens Zeno's often the

concern is with an MBA actually that's a

designer has an MBA that's that's a

really cool bathroom that shows some of

the quantitative skills where I would

say that it's you're a designer with an

MBA pick up a bit of technical tech

skills and you've now created this

really cool well-rounded portfolio um if

you don't otherwise if you're a designer

and you don't have any NBA think about

showing quantitative skills that's one

of the concerns with designers is maybe

they aren't as quantitative uh and you

again learn everybody really honest if

you're if you're looking for magnet

rules go to code Academy play around a

bit and learn just a bit of coding then

that's definitely important for

designers if you don't already have that

if some design is already to pick about

those technical skills and then you know

finally the quantitative skills so an

MBA will show some piece of quantitative

skills in many cases and you're doing

work and that this is really advice that

anybody can do work with try if you're

designer you want to be damned if your

developer anyone vpm work with your PM's

that art is somebody like hey look you

know I really think I'd love to I didn't

love to be a PM one day and you know I

you I think you're you're like you're

great p.m. and I love you could just

kind of show me that ropes is there

anything there they can help you out

with maybe spec'ing out a product a new

feature and just you know seeing how I

did can I tag along with you to talk to

customers because you're doing these

things to try to round out your skill

set is really valuable and okay any

other questions here

there's one question mallet you know

hiring going from product management

going to product management from a

service background and yeah I definitely

transform I mean there is an enormous

diversity of where product managers come

from and a lot of companies really want

the diversity they really want people to

come with very different perspectives so

definitely see people come from service

background is actually one of the people

would profile in cracking the PM

interview is excellent hmmm customer

service background so what some of the

things that transferred their well from

customer service or interest service

oriented thing it serves my background

is it you've just spent a whole bunch of

time learning how to talk to people

learning how to talk and anger people

learning how to talk to people and

understand what do they really want let

me address their needs and that's

absolutely transportable again you know

you want to think about there's you in

any if there's multiple career paths so

that people tend to transition into

product management its designers there's

our testers there's developers there's

like supreme service oriented people

customer service these are all very

common backgrounds think about you know

there's things that you're really good

at and then you want to try to

demonstrate some basic competency in

them in the other so developers have

this great technical skills but try to

demonstrate a competency in not and

leaving people and the in product design

designers have have this great idea of

cost of what customers want and how to

design for customers but maybe they

don't have the analytical side or the

technical side so try to get some basic

competency in that and think about

things that way okay I think that's me

just checking and

all right so someone else has that you

know going from technical skills to if

you have technical skills how do you

refined fine designing and dissing

skills uh so one thing is there's a

bunch of classes on how to on UI design

I take some classes there's if you're in

San Francisco general I know general

general assembly offers some design

classes so take some of those classes

and those are things that your Coursera

udemy kicks in those classes on design

business clothes you know take something

on on marketing and your marketing and a

design class separate classes would be a

good thing to think about think about

taking and you can list these on your

resume and resumes are not this

completely rigid thing where only these

things belong in your resume needs other

things don't listen you know and try to

think about design you know list list

these things and show how you have the

littlest academic background I think

that's all the questions that I've seen

pop up but um if you have any other

questions please just shoot me a note or

we also have on cracking the PM

interview comm we also have a forum

there so some people have been using and

okay and thanks so much for joining me

today