Types of Product Management Interviews

Interviews in the product management field vary from company to company, and they could be structured or unstructured, depending on the company. Regardless of the type of interview, it's essential to know what to expect in such interviews to avoid making mistakes such as giving scripted answers or giving answers that only suit the interviewer but not you.

In this episode, we take you through the types of interviews you'll encounter as a PM, including the common questions to expect from such interviews. We also share our personal experiences and take-home lessons from the interviews we've been to. Most importantly, we share some tips on preparing for PM interviews to help you secure that dream job as a PM and mistakes you should avoid making during interviews.

Tune in to listen to this and more!

Key Highlights

[0:42] Parv's interview experiences

[2:03] Alex's preferred type of [interview

[4:14] Alex's favorite interview and interview question

[6:40] Parv's resume

[9:48] Getting into a flow state as a PM

[10:58] Parv's first interview question

[12:23] What you ought to focus on when preparing for PM interviews ( structured or unstructured)

[17:26] Common questions asked in structured interviews

[20:23] Debugging

[22:27] Metrics

[24:31] Estimation questions

[27:48] Favorite product question

[30:18] Behavioral questions in structured interviews

[33:19] Panel presentation

[34:31] Parv's take home from interviews

[36:11] Tips on PM interview preparation

[41:15] Parv's worst interview mistake

[42:55] Alex's worst interview mistake

Notable Quotes

• Unstructured interviews have been more of a good conversation and digging deeper into my pm style, my pm skill sets, and both technical and soft skills. -Parv
• Unstructured feels like a lot lower pressure; you get to learn a lot more about the company itself, what they're thinking about and how they're thinking about products and their future roadmap. -Alex
• I feel like those types of interviews I've done have been both like me sharing my ideas and my thoughts, but also learning from the respective people on the other side of how they handled that kind of situation and how they've been thinking about that problem. - Parv
• But as a PM, you're always in that situation where you can go wild. And it's an ambiguous situation and an undefined problem.- Parv
• When it's an unstructured interview, it could be very, very different from your previous interview. Each round could be very different from the last round. -Parv
• Preparing for structured interviews feels like studying for a test. But my experience with these is that it was a beneficial experience as a PM to structure your thoughts in these ways. -Alex
•  It wasn't until I started studying for these structured interviews that I began to appreciate better how metrics are squishy, many of them, and how they impact each other. -Alex
• Banner presentations and take-home assignments are becoming more common in the PM interview. And that's something that we should have on our radar when preparing for pm interviews. -Parv
• Being a great PM means you go that one level deeper. You ask that one question that no one else has asked in the room. -Parv

Connect with Alex:

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcox245/

Connect with Parv:

Twitter

https://twitter.com/ParvSondhi

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/parvsondhi/