Product Manager Interview Questions Answers

What Would You Do First If We Hired You

This product manager interview question is one of the most essential on this list.

It will reveal firstly, if the candidate has researched your company and product at all and if theyve prepared ideas for improvement ready for execution on day one.

Youll also see how ambitious or reserved they are. How much hand-holding they may need. And how realistic their expectations are for the future. Youll even get a sense of what they prioritize: function, design, or something else.

What Can You Tell Me About Our Product Line

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question

Interviewers expect product managers at the principal level to have a solid understanding of their products prior to an interview. Candidates in these roles are often experts in the industry the company operates within. This question serves as an opportunity to ensure the candidate is well prepared and knowledgeable about the products they would be working with if hired.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

Remember To

Remember to research the demographic, market, competitors, and history of the products developed by the company you are interviewing with prior to your interview. Interviewers are likely to exclude candidates who are unable to answer this question satisfactorily from future interviews or offer consideration.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

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Competency

How Do You Plan Product Development

Even though the process of product development varies from company to company and product to product, the interviewer will assess if you are familiar with some generally significant steps of product development planning.

Tip 1: Emphasize on the significance of product development.

Tip 2: Highlight all the essentials steps.

Sample Answer

Planning product development is important to have a proper guideline to follow. To plan product development, the development team needs to identify stakeholder/customer requirements and market trends, brainstorm the ideas, measure scalability, collect resources, avert risks, and execute the plan.

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Product Management Skills And Experience Interview Questions

The interviewer will want to understand how your past product management experience will translate into the new position. Expect to discuss common product management topics, such as setting strategy, creating product roadmaps, managing releases, gathering ideas, and defining features.

Prepare answers to the following questions so you can effectively describe your experience:

• How would you explain product management to a stranger?

• Tell me about the product you own.

• Who are the customers? How big is the customer base?

• What type of customer research do you conduct and how often?

• How do you develop product strategy?

• What inputs do you use to build your roadmap?

• How do you plan releases? What development methodology does your company follow?

• How often do you launch new features?

• Where do ideas for new features come from? How do you decide which ones to build?

• Take me through how you manage a feature from conception to launch.

• Tell me about the most successful product have managed. What made it so successful?

• Describe one of your failures. Why do you think it failed? What would you do differently?

• How do you know if a product launch is successful?

• Can you share a lesson from your last product launch?

You Are On A Biz Trip And Travelling From One City To Another You Have A Stack Of Unsorted Flight Boarding Passes Only Departure City And Destination City Are On The Boarding Pass How Do You Find The First Departure City And Your Final Destination City

Your current location is your departure city.Your final destination is the city whose name occurs only once among all the city names minus your departure city.Less

Why wouldn’t you just look at all of the cities listed on the documents and the two which don’t ever repeat are your departure and destination city. Less

Assume this is a acyclic graph . Now, arrange the boarding passes and note the number of times a city appears in departure as well as arrival. For all intermediate cities this number will be the same. For the initial city the arrival-departure = -1 and for the destination arrival-departure = +1. Now, you start traversing from there. Form a table where you take each node and note the next node.For cyclic graphs it is more complex. You will still find the initial and destination city the same way but the traversal will be hard.Less

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How Do You Determine The Level Of User Satisfaction With A Product You Are Responsible For

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question

Companies seek principal product managers who are passionate about creating and maintaining an optimal customer experience. Interviewers ask this question to assess a candidate’s approach to monitoring customer satisfaction and their knowledge of its effect on the health of a product.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

Remember To

Remember to include a variety of internal and external data sources in your response. For example, it would be important to continually read online reviews of your product and monitor customer support ticket metrics.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

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Q What Is The Kind Of Relationship Shared By Product Managers And Product Engineers

Product managers and engineers work together on a product from its very nascent stage. Therefore, they ought to develop a cordial relationship. Product managers lay the framework for the product, and engineers design the architecture and work on it to develop a final product. So, while answering the question, keep these points in mind.

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Our Target Audience Is 18

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

Remember To

Remember to include more than one channel in your marketing strategy response. Principal product managers should understand the concept and value of omnichannel marketing.Also, remember to thoroughly research the product lines and related consumer demographics prior to your interview. The time invested researching this information should help to improve the quality of your responses to several questions during your principal product manager interview.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

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Stop And Think Before You Answer

You may be tempted, especially given the pressure that comes with in-person interviews, to immediately dive right into your answer.

However, when it comes to PM interview questions, it is best to take a few moments to collect your thoughts beforehand.

You would be surprised what an extra 10-20 seconds of reflection can do for the quality of your interview answer. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your interviewer expects anything less either.

They’d prefer you take your time to organize your thoughts so that your answer is coherent and easy to follow.

As a product manager, you’ll need to act quickly. But not so quickly that you wouldn’t have a few seconds to collect your thoughts!

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Whats The Difference Between Product Owners And Product Managers

This question helps the interviewer know how familiar the candidate is with the tasks a product owner should perform in contrast with those of a product manager, even when both roles are product strategists in essence.

Product managers oversee the entire product and its lifecycle, from conception to production. Product owners are responsible for strategizing about what should be built next in order to meet customer needs and company goals.

Its important that these two roles work closely together, as they both have different but vital perspectives on products.

In many organizations, this is not a problem because there are separate teams with one person leading each team-but it can become an issue if you dont provide enough resources or lines of communication between them.

Its also worth mentioning that people can change roles depending on their skillset: certain developers may take up more responsibility than others when needed based on the project requirements. This does make things a bit trickier when determining who should be the Product Owner.

What Is A Good Course Of Action When You Cant Control The Product Backlog

It is important for the Product Owner to be able to control what goes in and out of the backlog. That being said, if a change happens that cant be controlled , its necessary to react accordingly re-prioritizing high-priority items and removing low priority ones which will no longer make any sense.

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How To Prevent Product Failure

Here, the interviewer is trying to analyze your skills and capabilities to prevent a product from failing and save the company from any big loss.

Tip 1: List down factors that can result in product failure.

Tip 2: Enlist some tips and techniques to prevent so from happening.

Sample Answer

A product fails when it is not innovative, is poorly designed, offers bad user experience, and is over-priced. Product failure can be prevented by incorporating an innovative feature, designing a great product, offering a rich user experience, testing the samples, and setting the right price.

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Additional Personal Product Manager Interview Questions

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Leadership And Communication Questions

Even at a junior level, a Product Manager is a kind of leader. So even entry-level PM roles will come with questions about leadership. But dont worry, they wont be too high-level or philosophical until you reach seniority. Theyll be more similar to behavioural questions, and theyre just trying to see how you interact and communicate with the people on your teams.

• Whats the best way to work with executives?
• Is consensus always a good thing?
• What is the best way to work with customers and users?
• What kinds of people do you like to work with?
• What kind of people do you have a hard time working with?
• What would you do to get a team to stick to a schedule?
• Whats the difference between leadership and management?

Imagine That I Ask You To Perform A Competitive Analysis For A Potential Product What Steps Would You Take

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question

Some companies operate in fast-paced and highly competitive markets. Principal product managers are expected to be able to assess their competitors and make recommendations for product strategy quickly and efficiently. Interviewers ask this question to test a candidate’s ability to predict how product feature offerings will perform in their specific markets.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

Remember To

Remember to include activities involved in understanding your company’s position within the market the product serves. This important information helps provide the context necessary for relevant and impactful competitive analysis.

Written by Karrie Day on October 21st, 2022

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Situational

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Take Notes While Your Interviewer Asks The Question

This is a crucial step before you answer a product management interview question. As the interviewer asks your interview question or lays out the parameters and constraints, be sure to actively listen to them.

Make notes of the critical points as they do so.

This part of the interview process may feel redundant if you already know how to answer a question. But slowing down and showing that you can listen to directions and process information effectively is equally valuable.

Take the time to get on the same page as your interviewer.

Prep Your Product Manager Interview Questions Today

Theres no better time than the present.

Thats why you should take advantage of your time now to get ahead on landing your next big collaboration.

Whether youre a recruiter or a product specialist on the hunt for a job, this guide will help you get ready in advance.

Dont let an opportunity pass you by because youre not prepared.

The time to get on top of your product manager interview questions and line yourself up for a fantastic partnership is now.

Dont let it slip you by.

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Your Bar Raiser Interviewer Will Be Looking For:

• Are you a fast worker who iterates continuously or detail-oriented and focused on quality?
• Are you a good fit as a PM in Amazon’s culture?
• How is your intuition when thinking strategically about a market? What about when thinking about tactical product decisions?
• Do you always need data to make decisions?
• Will you be good at managing a project and ensuring it gets delivered?
• How will you ensure a high quality bar?
• Do you have a growth mindset?

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:

• Tell me about yourself.

• How did you hear about this role?

• What interests you about this role?

• What are you looking for in a new position?

• Why do you want to leave your current job?

• What do you like most/least about your current job?

• Why do you want to work here?

• What are your career goals?

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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.

What Qualities Do Companies Look For In A Product Manager

The responsibilities of a product manager involve establishing plans and following through with product marketing strategies. There are a few skills and personality traits that companies specifically look for in applicants, that make them cut out for a position as a product manager.

While you may not need every single one of these qualities to get a job, it helps your chances of being hired if you have at least a couple.

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Example Question: How Would You Explain How Apis Work To Your Grandparents

A great way to answer a question like this is with an analogy: If I had to explain how APIs work to my grandparents, Id use a wedding analogy. For example, the couple requests a certain type of food that falls within a budget. It will be the job of the wedding planner to look for and communicate with various caterers and hire the one that is willing to cater the food at the right price. In this scenario, the event organizer acts as an API and performs multiple tasks like communicating with multiple entities, obtaining the needed data, and getting the job done.

Here are some other technical know-how questions you can ask:

• How would you explain Google Cloud to your uncle?
• What technologies would you use to build a live stream video service?
• How would you store large images in a database?
• How would you write a program to randomly shuffle an array of numbers?
• How would you take in an unsorted array with duplicates and return it with no duplicates?
• Note that this question is more geared towards a technical product manager role.