Curious about what companies are looking for when hiring Product Managers? Companies may have different approaches as to what they place more emphasis on. However, there are some fundamental core values & skill sets that are clearly evaluated when talking to prospective candidates. Angeli Jain from Airbnb talked through some core skill sets a Product Manager is evaluated on and how to assess your own skill set to determine company fit.

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7. Tonight’s Speaker
Angeli Jain

8. Who is Angeli?
● Consultant
● Analyst
● Strategy Manager
● Product Lead
● Daughter
● Sister
● Wife
● Mother

9. My Path

10. What do I look for in a PM?

11. Major buckets of skills
● Vision
● Structured thinking
● Leadership & Collaboration
● Execution & Accountability

12. Vision
“an aspirational description of what an organization would like to achieve or
accomplish in the future.”
Example questions:
If you can redesign [fill in item], how would it
work?
If you can make [fill in product] better, what
would you do?
If you were leading [fill in company], what are
some big bets you would make?
What I’m looking for:
● Creativity
● Long term thinking
● Aspiration
● Communication

13. Structured Thinking
“a process of putting a framework to an unstructured problem”
Example questions:
How many windows are there in NYC?
How do you decide between [Path A] and
[Path B]?
What metrics would you use to measure
success?
What I’m looking for:
● Strategy
● Prioritization
● Decision Making
● Analytic skills
● Domain expertise
● Communication

14. Leadership & Collaboration
“the ability of an individual to lead, guide & work with other individuals, teams, or
entire organizations”
Example questions:
Tell me about a time you’ve disagreed with
your manager or an executive?
Tell me about a failure on one of your
projects and how you conveyed that to
stakeholders?
What I’m looking for:
● Composure
● Ownership
● Storytelling
● Workplace maturity

15. Execution & Accountability
“the carrying out or putting into effect of a plan, order, or course of action”
Example questions:
Tell me about your role in a recent product
launch? How did you measure impact?
How do you ensure you’re staying on track
to your roadmap? What signals do you use
to determine if you’re not on track?
What I’m looking for:
● Organization skills
● Stakeholder management
● Responsibility
● Storytelling

16. Finding the right fit

17. Small vs Large Company
● Scope
● Control
● Risk vs Reward
● Changing priorities
● Resources

18. Decision Making Function
● Engineering Led
● Product Led
● Design Led
● Business Led

19. Questions?

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