Tell Us About A Time You Used Data To Influence An Important Stakeholder
We had a lot of qualitative data that showed this client would benefit from using our product in terms of cost reduction and customer satisfaction. However, the client was very data-phobic he refused to increase spending on analytics unless there was hard data that showed it would improve his business.
General Background Product Interview Questions
Most interviews start with some general questions. The purpose of these questions is for the interviewer to learn more about you and why you applied for the product management position.
Here are some potential questions you might encounter:
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Tell me about yourself.
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How did you hear about this role?
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What interests you about this role?
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What are you looking for in a new position?
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Why do you want to leave your current job?
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What do you like most/least about your current job?
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Why do you want to work here?
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What are your career goals?
How Would You Describe Our Product To Someone Who Wanted Something Similar Only $20 Cheaper
This question checks that the candidate has researched your products and knows enough to speak about them with familiarity. It also gives you real-time insight into the candidates communication and prioritization skills. What to look for in an answer:
- User testimonials
- Cost-benefit overview
Example:
For only $20 more, you get at least $100 more worth of features with this product. For example, it syncs to your smartphone, computer and other devices to save you a lot of time and hassle. Our users also say that they love the ability to control it when theyre at home or on vacation. Also, they rarely have to contact customer support for help with an issue.
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Become A Product Manager
Speak to a Learning Advisor to learn more about how our bootcamps and courses can help you become a Product Manager.
In order to ace a Product Manager interview, you need to be prepared for a range of interview questions. Although the hiring process will be different from one company to the next, you can expect that Hiring Managers will be looking to understand who you are as a candidate, your experience as a Product Manager, and what you can bring to their team.
You want to make sure that you are the right fit for the role, so there are a few steps you can take to get ready for your Product Manager interview process.
- Research the company and have a thorough understanding of its product/service. Employers may ask how you would improve their products.
- Review the results of your past work. Consider your accomplishments as a Product Manager and make notes about how many people used your product, the revenue you
You will be asked about your past experience, and employers will be eager to learn about the impact of your work.
The best way to prepare for your Product Manager interview is to practice, practice, practice.
Create an action plan and ask a friend or peer to do a mock interview with you and go over potential questions.
If possible, find an experienced Product Manager to go over interview questions with you. This will set you up for success, and help you prepare answers, no matter the type of question.
Project Management Intern Interview Questions And Answers
Learn what skills and qualities interviewers are looking for from a project management intern, what questions you can expect, and how you should go about answering them.
Project management is one of the most important and in-demand roles in business. A project manager is responsible for ensuring that a project is completed on time, within budget, and to the clients specifications.
If youre looking for a project management internship, youll likely need to go through a job interview. To help you prepare, weve gathered some project management interview questions and answers that you may be asked.
Are you familiar with the Project Management Institutes Project Management Body of Knowledge ?
The PMI is an organization that provides standards and guidelines for project managers. The PMBOK is a document that outlines the knowledge, skills and abilities required to be successful in project management. An interviewer may ask this question to see if you have experience with the PMI or its standards. In your answer, try to show that you understand what the PMI does and why its important. If you dont have any experience with the PMI, you can still talk about other organizations that provide similar standards and guidelines for project managers.
What are the key components of a strong project plan?
How would you manage a project that is behind schedule and over budget?
What is your process for identifying and prioritizing project risks?
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Describe A Time You Had To Learn How To Perform A Brand New Task
Interns often have very little workplace experience. Many are in college or newly graduated, so they should have experience in learning new concepts and skills from their time in school. Asking an intern candidate this question can show you how they approach problem solving, their comfort level with tasks outside their scope and their ability to ask for guidance when needed.
Look for a candidate response with these characteristics:
- Interest in learning
- Knowing when to ask for help
- Process for dissecting a problem
A well-considered candidate response might sound like this example:
Example:
“I’d always had an interest in biology in high school, but it wasn’t until I got to college that I really understood the research process. My first biology lab involved writing a thorough, highly-templated lab report that I was not familiar with at all. When I received the assignment, I closely read all the instructions. I went to my professor’s office hours for clarity and asked to look at an example lab report.
Once I got the answers to my specific questions and saw how the formatting worked in a real world report, I felt ready to tackle my own lab report. I sought feedback from my peers during a study session, and we all worked together to ensure our reports matched the template. I find that asking for guidance and ensuring I have enough time to practice a new task helps me master it much more quickly than making a blind attempt.”
Metric Change Example Questions
Interviewers use metric change questions to see if you know what to do when a key product metric is changing without a clear cause.
There could be many variables involved, and your interviewer will want to see if you use a thorough process to identify the root cause.
Example questions: Metric change
- YouTube traffic went down 5% how would you report this issue to the executive team?
- There’s been a 15% drop in usage of Facebook Groups how do you fix it?
- You have just localized an ecommerce site in Spain and now see that traffic has reduced what could be the reasons?
- You are looking at YouTubes Daily Active User data worldwide and notice a 10% jump compared to yesterday in Indonesia what happened?
- Users are no longer signing up for our email list what would you do?
- Reddit traffic went down 5% how would you report this issue to the executive team?
- The usage of Facebook Events Yes Im going dropped 30% overnight what data would you look at to try to isolate the issue?
- You are the PM of Facebook 3rd Party Login, and you see your numbers are declining 2% week-on-week what do you do?
So, now that we’ve introduced both types of metric questions, here’s our guide to answering them.
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Become A Certified Product Manager
1. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Product Management
2. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Technical Product Management
3. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Product Roadmap
4. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Product Prioritization
5. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Product Design
6. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Product Analytics
7. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Product User
8. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Communication
9. List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Cross Functional Teamwork
In todays competitive job market, product managers cant afford to turn a blind eye to product manager interview questions.
Thats if you want to increase your chances of landing a PM job. Granted, companies across the globe all use their own unique approach to scout for talent and bring them on board as part of their team.
That said, when conducting interviews for product manager roles, most recruiters aim to find out three things about you:
Therefore, the most common product manager interview questions all help recruiters unearth insight on one or more of these three categories.
We have divided and categorized these questions into the following headings:
Lets dive right in.
How Would You Explain Technical Challenges To Market
In order to explain the technical challenges to market-oriented teams like sales and marketing, I would
Discuss insights about the user segment, demand for product, Innovation and business goals.
Share data with concerned teams and define demands, resources, and limitations.
Keep all stakeholders in the loop for all development and include their suggestions for effective decision making.
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How Would You Interact With Users And Customers
The answer to this question will reveal candidates experience handling user interviews and how they leverage users feedback. Different from what many think, technical product managers must also have strong communication skills.
Hiring managers should look for structured processes that involve individual and group interviews, user forums, analytics, and surveys.
Tell Us About An Assignment Or Project From Start To Finishwhat Went Well And What Would You Have Done Differently
The interviewer wants to know how you do things. This question isnt necessarily about the final productalthough make sure to share that as well as the impact of the project. Its an opportunity to understand your process and how you go about tackling assignments. Are you organized? Efficient? A team player? Do you change course when you know you need to? Do you learn from your mistakes when things go wrong? Do you think strategically about why you do certain things?
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Skills That Pm Interviewers Look For
The product manager role is one that requires a very broad set of skills, hence the variety of question types that we’ve outlined above.
Firstly, there are the the hard skills required for PMs to be able to contribute at each stage of the product development lifecycle. These include:
a) Strategy skills to identify and plan the product opportunity
b) Design skills to design the product
c) Engineering skills to build the product
d) Digital marketing skills to launch the product
e) Data analytics skills to assess the product success and iterate
On the other hand, to make best use of these technical skills at every stage of the product lifecycle, a PM also needs excellent soft skills, above all leadership, communication and organization.
As you’d expect, the question types we’ve gone through in the sections above are clearly designed to test you on these technical and soft skills. The only skillset you might not face specific questions on is “digital marketing skills”, but it’s a topic that you might want to touch on when you’re answering a question on product strategy, for example.
If you’d like to dig a little deeper into the skills required to be a PM, we’ve done so here.
Leadership Skills Interview Questions
Successful product managers must be skilled at leading a cross-functional team. This requires the ability to make decisions, influence other people, and unite teams around a common vision and goals. Here are a few examples of interview questions that explore your leadership skills:
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What types of people do you like to work with?
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Tell me how you motivate other people?
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What makes you really angry?
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How frequently do you meet with cross-functional teams?
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Tell me about a project that required you to influence people that did not report to you.
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If I spoke to your coworkers, what is one word they would use to describe you?
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Tell me about a time when something went wrong at work and you took control.
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Have you ever had a disagreement with a teammate? What was the outcome?
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How do you communicate with executive leadership?
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Describe a time when you used data to make a decision.
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How would you describe your leadership style?
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Who do you respect most for their leadership ability and why?
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Do You Have Experience With Xyz Methodologies
Developing a new product from scratch whether its a lightweight B2C SaaS or a comprehensive suite for business managers takes time.
But product teams dont have all the time in the world. There are deadlines to meet and competitors to beat.
To keep up with all of those challenges and ensure the products success, people have come up with different methodologies over the years.
The most widely recognized is the agile methodology.
To test the candidates technical know-how and level of hands-on experience, a recruiter might ask if they have ample experience with any of the methodologies.
Pm Interview Company Guides
This guide is relevant for product manager interviews in any tech company, but of course, the exact process and questions will vary. The good news is that we’ve also created specific guides for each of the leading tech companies. If you’ve already got an interview at one of these companies then you absolutely must take a look at the relevant guide below!
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How Do You See Your Career Developing In The Next 5 Years
I have a 5-year plan where I would like to move up the ladder, so Im currently working in a junior role to get my hands dirty in the field and then move up to mid-level management.
Final Words
A Product Manager is a great role as long as you have good communication abilities, you will be able to find a job. A Product Manager is important for the product itself and the Company as they help keep the Company in check and ensure it is moving forward. Take preparation on product manager interview questions to have a good interview.
Strategies & Examples For Strategic Thinking Questions
Strategic thinking questions deal with the why, how, and what of a product. They are open-ended and have no right or wrong answer.
Questions such as, What should company X do next? Why should company X acquire company Y and Should company X enter a new market? all qualify as strategic questions.
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Revealing Product Manager Interview Questions
Hiring product managers is one of the most challenging and essential tasks for product team leaders. Unfortunately, theres no perfect template for an ideal PM candidate its about finding the best fit among a sea of unicorns by asking the right product manager interview questions.
The diversity of backgrounds in product manager applicants increases the level of difficulty in making a good hire. Moreover, product manager roles and job descriptions also vary wildly from one organization to the next. The combination of both of those elements makes an effective product manager a challenging position to fill. For example, sometimes you need a technical whiz, or someone with marketing chops, while other opportunities demand deep experience in a particular industry.
Since a cookie-cutter approach wont fly, hiring managers need a solid handle on their specific PM role requirements. They must then determine if a candidate will be a good fit from a few brief interactions.
Get it right, and youve added an invaluable asset to your product team that lifts the product to new levels. However, if you get it wrong, then schedules slip, prioritization falters, and your reputation is at risk.
So how do you make sure youre hiring the right person? Its all about asking the right questions.
Common Technical Product Manager Interview Questions
Product Managers will need to understand technical concepts and translate them to non-technical audiences. You may already know how to communicate these concepts to someone on your team, but how would you explain something technical to someone else?
The purpose of this type of interview question is to assess your product management knowledge and how well you can communicate your understanding.
Here are two examples of technical Product Manager interview questions and how to answer them:
Question:Explain the key to a good user interface.
Answer: Simplicity and functionality are both crucial to a good user interface. They should be intuitive to use and navigate, with a consistent look and feel.
This question type could be a good opportunity for you to bring in a real-life example or two.
Try showcase a product that you think has a particularly attractive and functional interface and another that you think doesnt work .
Question: Do you have any technical skills that set you apart from other Product Managers?
Answer: Different companies require different levels of technical know-how from their PMs its often said that Google, for instance, prefers Product Managers who have learned to code like a Software Engineer.
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Strategies & Examples For Background Questions
The purpose of background questions is to make the candidate feel comfortable while also providing them with the chance to introduce themselves and talk about their background, qualifications, and why they are interested in the particular role.
These questions should be easy to answer, as the interviewer is asking the candidate things that they already know.
