Cracking the PM Interview
Summary
TLDRThe 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
🎤 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.
🚀 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.
📝 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.
🔬 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.
⚙️ 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.
📐 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.
🎯 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.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡product manager
💡associate product manager
💡program manager
💡product design
💡case questions
💡estimation questions
💡coding questions
💡soft skills
💡pitch
💡struggling
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
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