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👋 Questions or comments? Contact Lisa Kim, Portfolio Manager at [email protected] or on LinkedIn
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| Question | What you're looking for | Strong answer |
|---|---|---|
| In your view, what is the role of a product manager? | Product management is a broad role that can mean different things in different companies. This question will help you understand how the candidate thinks about product management and whether they have an 'owner' mindset | - Demonstrates an understanding of the product manager's role in the wider organisation as owners of the 'what' and 'why' of the product development process |
Highlights the cross-functional nature of the role and need to influence internal stakeholders that they don't necessarily have direct control over
Demonstrates commercial acumen and customer empathy by conveying that product management is about delivering outcomes that delight customers while also meeting business objectives
Strong candidates will demonstrate an 'owner' mindset and an understanding that a product manager often fills in the gaps while the rest of the team is built out around them. | | What achievements or outcomes are you most proud of as a product manager? | Outcome driven product managers will give examples of what they have achieved and the measurable impact it had on the business or on customers | - Outlines what was delivered, why it was important to deliver it (usually related to a key business objective) and the measurable result (e.g. movements in revenue, retention).
Strong candidates will also highlight how the actual result compared to what was expected/hypothesised | | Tell me about a time when you disagreed with engineers and/or designers on your team. What did you do? | Understand their approach to communication, leadership and whether they will be effective in your company culture | - Candidate can set out the facts in an objective, neutral tone. Look out for candidates who are self-defensive and try to smooth over their role in the scenario.
Analysis of the root cause of the conflict - candidate should be able to thoughtfully explain the cause without finger-pointing and blame.
Pragmatic resolution to the issue - what was done to resolve the disagreement and how did they proceed. Strong candidates will demonstrate their ability to empathise with other teams, push back constructively and find a path forward for the team. They will also be able to explain the outcome and the impact on their business, reflect on their learnings and how they might handle the situation differently in the future. | | Tell me about your favourite (digital or non-digital) product Follow up: What would you do if you were the product manager for this product? | Product sense and empathy - this question allows candidates to demonstrate how they think about their customers and the end users of their product. Strong candidates can show that they are able to empathise and understand how the product fits in to a person's life and what benefits it delivers to them. | - A short description of the product and context around the problem it solves, specifically how it does this and the benefits it provides.
Strong candidates will also thoughtfully describe how the product fulfils the need better than alternatives (both direct and indirect competitors) and also ways the product could be improved to better meet those needs or enter new markets.
Strong candidates will also support their answer with clear assumptions about the costs, target market, competition, existing alternatives, customer perspective and use cases, and wider industry trends. | | Can you talk me through your prioritisation process?
Follow up: Tell me about a time you had to make a difficult trade-off and what was the outcome? | Logical problem solving and thinking process that will align with your company culture. You’re not looking for whether it was the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decision, rather you are learning about how the individual thinks about problems. Strong candidates can demonstrate that they understand how business objectives, customer needs and technical constraints are balanced to inform their judgment and how they have adjusted future decisions based on what they have learned. | - Outlines what factors are relevant to their decision making process. At the highest level, these should be the company objectives (generally measured by increasing revenue or saving costs), product initiatives (AARRR - acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue), customer needs and technical requirements.
Explains the prioritisation framework used by their company, why the prioritisation criteria is appropriate for their company and how they measure or quantify the (often) subjective criteria
Strong candidates will be able to outline the ‘rules of thumb’ used to quantify the prioritisation criteria as well as the sources of data that they draw from, for example, product analytics, customer interviews and support tickets may factor into ‘impact’ or ‘urgency’ criteria, input from sales teams and market research can factor into ‘reach’ criteria and engineering and design input should always factor in the ‘cost’ criteria.
Strong candidates will also be able to complete the answer with the impact of the decision on the high level business factors (i.e. was the targeted metric impacted in the way they expected), reflect on whether the hypothesis was proven/disproven and how they adjusted their prioritisation frameworks based on their learnings. |