How to Crack the Product Manager Interview by fmr Facebook PM
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Main takeaways: -How to prep for an interview -The essentials of successful interviews -Evaluation criteria: critical thinking, prioritization, experience, product management, teamwork, and more. -Spectacular communication: brevity, tone, passion -Asking the right questions
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How to Crack the Product Manager Interview by fmr Facebook PM
- 1. www.productschool.com How to Crack the Product Manager Interview by fmr Facebook PM
- 2. Join 35,000+Product Managers on Free Resources Discover great job opportunities Job Portal prdct.school/PSJobPortalprdct.school/events-slack
- 3. C O U R S E S Product Management Learn the skills you need to land a Product Manager job
- 4. C O U R S E S Coding for Managers Build a website and gain the technical knowledge to lead software engineers
- 5. C O U R S E S Data Analytics for Managers Learn the skills to understand web analytics, SQL and machine learning concepts
- 6. C O U R S E S Learn how to acquire more users and convert them into clients Digital Marketing for Managers
- 7. C O U R S E S UX Design for Managers Gain a deeper understanding of your users and deliver an exceptional end-to- end experience
- 8. C O U R S E S For experienced Product Managers looking to gain strategic skills needed for top leadership roles Product Leadership
- 9. C O U R S E S Corporate Training Level up your team’s Product Management skills
- 10. Valentine Aseyo T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R S
- 12. Prep, prep, and more prep
- 13. Brevity is a virtue
- 14. Demonstrate relevant skills and experiences
- 15. Focus on impact
- 16. Bring new ideas
- 18. To be, or not to be (analytical)
- 19. Once upon a time...
- 20. Keep on the right track
- 21. Curiosity feeds the cat
- 23. Be yourself
- 24. Who’s awesome? YOU are!
- 25. Interviewing Skills Coaching ● Resume ○ Review, revamp, or rewrite ● Background Development ○ Elevator pitch, personal impact statement, professional experience ● Interviewing Tips ○ Language, brevity, prep, focus areas, asking the right questions, etc. ● Question Types ○ Critical-thinking, problem-solving, analytical/data, situational/behavioral, soft skills, etc. ● Mock Interview ○ Catered specifically for the companies/jobs applied for ● Project Development ○ For the last round of interviews where candidate is asked to develop and present a project Valentine Aseyo Executive Coach
- 26. Thank you!
- 27. www.productschool.com Part-time Product Management, Coding, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing, UX Design, Product Leadership courses and Corporate Training
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- DO NOT DELETE THIS a b c d E F G H i
- "As you checked in we sent you an email to join our online communities, events, and to apply for product management jobs. As members of the Product School community we'd like to provide you with these resources at your disposal."
- I’m Valentine - I’m Turkish/Spanish if you can’t tell by the accent or the charm :) I’m an Executive Coach. After 15 years of experience in several multinational companies, I’ve decided to follow my passion and coach people. I cover every aspect of the business from A to Z and one of my strong suits is interview skills training. If you like today’s content and need 1-1 coaching, you can reach out to me via Linkedin. My last role was SVP of Product at Bandsintown, a concert discovery platform that curates a personalized list of live music events based on your specific taste. Before Bandsintown, I spent close to 8 years working at Facebook in Ireland, India, and US spanning many different roles Prior to that, Colgate & Palmolive and IBM Throughout my career, I interviewed more than 2000 people and every so often, I witness a stellar candidate do so poorly in the interview just because they don’t follow the essential rules. So what are they? Let’s take a look! I’d like this to be an interactive session so feel free to ask questions throughout the presentation. When I worked at Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg banned wasting time on fancy slides. Also, the organizer of this event, asked me prepare black/white slides so that it’s legible on the video. So here I am standing in front of you with a series of ugly slides. But hey, I promise the content is great! Joke aside, today’s theme is movies so grab your popcorn :)
- Movie anecdote (they spent the first half of the movie prepping for the interview) This is the most important rule. If you have the perfect prep, not only you’ll be able to answer all the questions but it will also boost your confidence before and during the interview. Make sure to digest the company website perfectly to align with their mission, vision, values, and products/services they offer. Google is your best friend: read all the recent articles, market research on the topic, and industry news. I can’t emphasize how important it is to spend a ton of time using their product/services and exploring all the features available. Remember, you need to put yourself in the shoes of their target customer. In addition, you should definitely check out their competitors to get a better understanding of the ecosystem. This will help you identify areas of improvement and position them in the market.
- You’ve made great efforts to prep and now you’re ready to rock! You start the interview, you have so much to say, you want to prove to them that you’re the best fit for this job. So you’ll talk and talk and talk. My best advice to you is to “pause”. PMs need to have killer communications skills. Be succinct! Elevator pitches are always the winner rather than a convoluted proposal with lots of details. If you can’t articulate your idea in 2 or 3 minutes, then you know it’s not a good idea. If you find yourself talking and talking for over 5 minutes, you’re probably rambling and not being succinct. If I ask you a question, I’d prefer that you take 30 seconds to compose your thoughts and then give it to me in one shot succinctly, instead of jumping the gun to answer right away and then clutter the communication with unnecessary information. Be selective with what information you share. Pause, reflect, strategize, and then communicate..
- Interviewers like to hear how your past experiences are relevant to the job position you’re applying for. Giving a variety of examples is always very helpful to show how applicable your background and skills are. When you’re going over your resume, pick the most relevant aspects of it. Don’t try to cover everything. Explain your past roles clearly, the skills you acquired, and how you could use them in this new role.
- As you talk about your work experience, it’s key to quantify the impact of past accomplishments: talk about the success metrics and KPIs. How many people used your product/services? How many stars did it get on the app store? How much revenue did you bring? How did it change people’s lives? Sad truth: 90% of the resumes I review don’t focus on impact The second situation where impact will come into play is prioritization. When you respond to prioritization questions such as product roadmap and resource allocation, always focus on the impact on the key metrics.
- No matter what job you apply for, you’ll be hired to make a change in the company. You’re expected to look at the existing business with fresh and critical eyes in order to generate dozens of ideas and take the product to the next level. When I interview people, I need them to be brutally critical of our products and surface big user issues. You should come up with creative ideas to boost the business. If a candidate can’t surface several things to improve or give me a few good ideas to innovate, then I don’t see the value of hiring this person.
- The interviewers are interested in knowing how you tackle daily problems and how you'd improve the product. They will try to probe into the creativity, scalability, measurability, and feasibility of your answers by asking problem-solving (aka critical thinking) questions. They may ask you something totally out of your comfort zone. E.g. design a parking lot Steps: Take a few seconds to gather your thoughts. Clarify the context if needed. Agree on goals & set boundaries. MOST IMPORTANT: When you’re asked to offer innovation, think about the BIG solutions. How will your ideas move the needle? - #1 thing to fix/improve on our platform (app, website, emails) - Million dollar product idea to build on our platform (app, website, emails) - Strategies we can use to double MAU in a month Now, keep in mind that you may not get the questions in this format so exaggerate the question in your mind (pretend it’s in this format) And that’s how you solve problem-solving problems
- The interviewer wants to see if you’re data-oriented. Some questions: what metrics would you monitor on a daily basis? What data would you look at to solve this problem? How would you measure the success of this product? Or they may ask an estimation question: how many people are sleeping in the world right now? I’ll give you a secret: the answer doesn’t matter. Nobody knows the actual answer. Plus, there isn’t one answer; it changes depending on the time of the day Talk about your thought process as you get to your actual answer. They want to hear your approach: are you able to break down this problem? Feel free to make assumptions: average person sleeps 8 hours from 11pm to 7am. Then use logic: It’s 7pm here now add 4 hours to get to 11pm so that takes us to Africa. Add 8 hours so time difference is 12 hours in total before people start waking up. Use relevant knowledge: I know that Singapore is 12 hours ahead, my best friend leaves there. Then use logic: okay so the regions africa, Europe, and half of mainland Asia are sleeping right now… etc. etc. You can use shortcuts too: 8 hours of sleep so that’s ⅓ of the time zones. The world population is 7.5 billion so I’ll take ⅓ of it. Answer is 2.5 billion.
- And there comes the situational questions to cover soft skills like leadership, communication & teamwork Tell me about a time you lead a time, had a disagreement with your peer, managed an XFN project, etc. You need to flex this muscle. You can’t have a beach body without working out so for these questions, you need to practice too. Go to online resources like Glassdoor. Have an archive of answers to a couple dozen questions -- practice before bed every night. Speak from experience, show examples What if you don’t have the right experience? Find relevant examples (e.g. people managing)
- Remember that you’re interviewing for a PM role. If you’re interviewing for a product role but you give examples of marketing initiatives to improve the business, then you’re not on the right track. Once I asked a candidate to give me strategies to acquire new users. He said: paid media on FB & app stores, partnerships with festivals, free giveaways, etc. All are great answers but that’s not what we do here at Product Team. Don’t answer the questions from the domain of your past expertise but answer them from the domain of your future role.
- You think you did a good job and now ready to end the interview? Not quite yet! The questions you ask at the end of the interview may make it or break it. Brainstorm a variety of questions in advance to show your interest and curiosity. Refrain from asking questions that can be googled to get answers. The questions you ask will reflect your intelligence, critical thinking, and investment in the process. Anecdote: questions changed my whole opinion on the candidate Joke: questions on dating apps
- I get it, you may not check all the boxes. No one ever does! This is where your passion comes into play. Show them why you care about the mission of the company. Show them why you want this job more than anything Give them examples of things you learned on the job so that they know you’re coachable and have ability to learn quickly. Tell them how you’d go about improving yourself in the areas that you lack experience if you were to get this job. You may not check all the boxes but you sure have a plan to catch up.
- My last gem for you tonight: just be yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not, you’re probably not a good actor or else you’d be interviewing on Broadway. Don’t be shy or overly polite, just relax. Confidence is the name of the game Smile, show your teeth. Crack a joke, warm up the air, have ice-breakers Be honest: what are your development areas (don’t make them sound positive)
- And remember, you are a rockstar! You got this! Have confidence. You have absolutely nothing to lose. If you don’t get the job, you’ll go to Red Lobster, have some biscuits, and feel good. Quick Oprah moment: my yoga teacher once said “what’s meant for me, will never miss me. And what misses me, was never meant for me” There’s no such thing as missing the right opportunity. The right opportunity is the one you get so use it wisely.
- Thank you so much everyone. It’s been such a pleasure. I hope you found it useful!