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Hiring Great Product Managers
The document discusses challenges with product manager interviews and provides recommendations for improvement. Typical interviews focus too much on hypothetical scenarios and skills over attributes. This leads to rejecting qualified candidates. The document recommends focusing interviews on understanding the candidate's vision, empathy, priorities, and ability to execute based on real examples from their experience. Technical skills should not be an overly intimidating barrier if the role only requires proxy knowledge. The goal of interviews should be assessing job performance, not performance in the interview setting.
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Hiring Great Product Managers
- 1. Conducting Great PMInterviews Reverse Engineering Interviews to Reduce False Negatives Gayle Laakmann McDowell twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com AOL Bootcamp Oct 2014
- 2. Gayle Laakmann McDowell (CS) (MBA) <dev> </dev> Author Interview Coach Interview Consulting twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 1
- 3. The Problem(s) 1.Great employees often aren’t great twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com interviewees. 2. Interviewers often aren’t good. 2 Rejecting great people
- 4. twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com What I Coach Download at: CrackingThePMInterview.com 3
- 5. twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com What I Coach Download at: CrackingThePMInterview.com 4
- 6. Typical PM Questions • Behavioral/Experience • Technical Questions • Strategy • Product • Analytical • Knowledge twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 5
- 7. How “They” Interview twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com • Startups – Lean towards “practical” • Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. – Lean towards hypotheticals 6
- 8. Skills vs. Attributes twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 7 What do you want?
- 9. Skills vs. Attributes Knowledge & Experience twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com Technical Metrics Design Specs Industry Expertise … 8 Personal Attributes Intelligence Drive Initiative Passion …
- 10. Skills vs. Attributes twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 9
- 11. What You Want twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 10 Product Knows what to build Execution Will get it done Culture Fit Works well with others
- 12. What You Want twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 11 Product • Vision • Empathy • Analytical Execution • Initiative • Opinionated • Drive • Project mgmt Culture Fit • Enjoyable • Open to feedback • No jerks
- 13. Product • Designa ___________. • Favorite product & why? • What would you improve about our product? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 12
- 14. What to LookFor • Do they really get the user? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com – Surface level & deep • Do the features/design make sense? • Can they defend decisions? • Will they change their mind with other info? • Execution: – Can they prioritize? – Can they execute? 13
- 15. Issues: Design a___ • Yay: Starts from scratch • Nay: Bias towards knowledge • Nay: Coaching matters • Nay: Your bias • Nay: Hypothetical twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 14
- 16. Issues: Favorite Product • Yay: Something they know • Nay: Bias towards preparation • Nay: Some products better than others twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 15
- 17. Issues: Our Product • Yay: It matters • Yay: Ensures alignment • Nay: Group think • Nay: Uneven playing field twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 16
- 18. Recommendation • Needto know space? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com – Our product • Else? – Hypothetical • Encourage questions 17
- 19. Execution • Whathave they done? • Why? • How? • What would they do differently? • What if…? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 18
- 20. Common Issues •“Lack of personal accomplishments” – Didn’t do much? – Or doesn’t boast much? • Can’t immediately think of example twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 19
- 21. Recommendation • Lookfor initiative & drive – More than just following orders • Don’t be overly specific • Probe deeper twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 20
- 22. Culture Fit Personality + Your Culture twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 21
- 23. Common Issues •Lack of clarity around culture • Not structuring culture interview twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 22
- 24. What about skills? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 23
- 25. Good Skills? •Technical knowledge? • Industry expertise? • Metrics? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 24
- 26. What about theskills? Proxy Knowledge vs Deep Knowledge twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 25
- 27. Proxy Knowledge •Can reasonably expect that someone would know it • But is that true? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 26
- 28. Deep Knowledge •Need someone who really knows this • But is that true? twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 27
- 29. Technical Skills •How much is enough? • Talk to and work with developers twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 28
- 30. Common Issues •Requiring more than you need • Can be really intimidating twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 29
- 31. My Recommendation Explainprior work Push deeper twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 30
- 32.
- 33. It’s About… JobPerformance NOT Interview Performance twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 32
- 34. Don’t get toocaught up in the question. twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 33
- 35. Approach interview processlike an engineer (it has bugs!) twitter.com/gayle facebook.com/gayle gayle.com 34