Rich Mironov is an experienced product management executive who has worked at six startups. He provides tips for interviewing like a product manager by highlighting how to apply core product management skills like market segmentation, customer analysis, and benefits-driven solution selling to one's own job hunt. Mironov also outlines common mistakes made by new product managers and emphasizes the importance of understanding internal counterparts and customer needs over process steps.

1. Interviewing like a Product Manager
/Productschool @ProdSchool /ProductmanagementSF

2. Rich Mironov
- CEO of Mironov Consulting
- Author of The Art of Product
Management
- Founder of Product Camp
www.productschool.com
Interviewing like a Product Manager

3. • Veteran product manager/exec/strategist
• Organizing product organiza5ons
• Business models, pricing, agile/lean
• 6 startups, including as CEO/founder
• “The Art of Product Management”
• Founded Product Camp
• Interviewed many hundreds of product
management candidates
About Rich Mironov
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4. w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m
Will product
manage for food,
options, and
illusory
moments of
self-importance

5. Conversations, market information,
priorities, requirements,
roadmaps, epics, user stories,
backlogs, personas…
product
bits
strategy, forecasts,
commitments, roadmaps,
competitive intelligence
budgets, staff,
targets
Field input,
Market feedback
Segmentation, messages,
benefits/features, pricing,
qualification, demos…
Markets &
CustomersDevelopment
Marketing
& Sales
Executives
Product
Management
What Does a Product Manager Do?
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6. WE CAN PRODUCT
MANAGE OURSELVES

7. • Good product managers know how to
• Learn about markets/customers
• Segment markets, target customers
• Turn features into benefits
• Do basic solution selling
• In your job hunt, you are the product
• Quiz: how to apply these skills to your job hunt?
Core Product Skills
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ME!

8. • Segmentation: identify reasonable-fit companies
• Identify where your background/skills/assets are most relevant
• Market/customer analysis
• Do some homework, try my product, read up on my company
• Benefits, not features
• Tell me why you’re who I need.
Highlight relevant résumé bits.
• Solution selling
• Think about my pain points: what product
problems am I having? How would you help?
Demonstrate Your Product Skills
(What I Expect from Candidates)
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9. • Quiz: best ways to learn about what’s happening inside
a company?
• F2F discussion with someone who works there
• Not someone on the interview roster
• Ideally, a product person
• LinkedIn is your friend
• Humble, thoughtful, open-ended
• You would never launch a product
without understanding your target
audience…
“But I Don’t Know What’s Happening
Inside These Target Companies”
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10. “As a product management executive…
I want to hire product managers who already have
great product skills…
So that I can unload a bunch of products problems that
I currently handle myself”
Non-goal: product training/mentoring responsibility
Non-goal: carefully frame all problems and decisions
What Hiring Managers Really Want
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11. “As a programmer who knows
nothing about being a technology
product manager, what should I
learn before interviewing for /
transi=oning into a product role?”
- Real Quora ques5on to Rich
11

12. "As a professional race car driver
who knows nothing about
soAware, what should I know
before interviewing for an
enterprise soAware architect role?"
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13. • Promise a new feature to a customer during meeting
• First customer interview represents a market segment
• Confusing sales calls with customer learning/research
• Believing your own marketing/selling materials about why
customers buy and love your product
• Confuse process steps (stories, tickets, releases) with
market success (renewals, revenue, customer love)
• Announcing that you’re “CEO of the product”
• Narrow job role definitions (“you do X”)
• Project managing development work
• Ticket-writing instead of communicating
• Telling engineers how to solve things
• Not knowing internal counterparts
(Marketing, Sales, Support, Finance)
11 Mistakes You’ll (Probably) Make in
Your First 6 Months as a Product Manager
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14. CONTACT
Rich Mironov, CEO
Mironov Consulting
233 Franklin St, Suite #308
San Francisco, CA 94102
RichMironov
@RichMironov
Rich@Mironov.com
+1-650-315-7394