Do you have a PM interview coming up? Master the Product Management Interview with this presentation.

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Interviewing for Big Logos with GoogleX former Product
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7. tl;dr on Chandan
● Studied Chemistry & Physics
(CS minor)
● Microsoft Intern
● APM @ Google
● PM @ Google[x]
● Co-Founder @ CoinTracker

8. Agenda
1 What is product management?
2 PM skills
3 Preparing for the interview
4 The interview
5
6
More resources
Questions

9. What is product management?

10. Product Manager
What my friends think I do What my brother thinks I do What my engineers think I do
What Stanford MBAs think I do What I think I do What I actually do

11. Source: Martin Eriksson

12. A great product manager channels the voice of the user.

13. A great product manager has
the brain of an engineer,
the heart of a designer,
and the speech of a diplomat.
— Deep Nishar, SoftBank Group International

14. PM skills

15. PM skills
Design Sense
User-focus
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Execution
Communication
Strategic/Analytical Thinking
Technical Background
Product Vision
Leadership
Intellectual ability

16. User-focus

17. Design Sense
Source: PeterSmart

18. Entrepreneurial Spirit

19. What not to do

20. Preparing for the interview

21. • Emphasize your previous PM experience
• Highlight impact — make it quantitative!
• 1-page!
• Resume only matters to get your foot in the door
• Here is a resume template I made which you can copy and edit yourself
• Contact everyone you know (and their contacts) where you are applying
Update your resume

22. Decide where to apply
Source: McKinsey

23. Research
• Full product suite of company
• Competitors
• Customers, their perceptions, and market
• High level revenue/scale
• Mission/Goal
• Metrics company cares about
• Leadership

24. Read!

25. The Interview

26. Timeline
Behaviora
l
Interviewer Question 1 Interviewer Question 2 Wrap-up
~5 mins ~15 – 20 mins ~15 – 20 mins ~5 mins
45 mins
x 3-5
1PHONE INTERVIEW
Phone screen usually starts with a
recruiter, and then a follow-up call with a
Product Manager.
2ONSITE
The on-site typically consists of 3-5
interviews (45 minutes each) with PMs
and perhaps an engineer and/or
designer. There may also be an
additional informal lunch conversation.
3
TAKE HOME
EXERCISE
Some companies choose to have a take
home exercise (e.g. product writing for
Google APM, data science analysis for
Stripe, etc.).
4FINAL ROUND
At this stage, candidates are invited back
to talk to one or more senior folks on the
team.
5 OFFER!

27. PM Question Types
Analytical
Product Design/Vision
Behavior/Execution
Technical
Strategy

28. • Examples
– How would you improve YouTube?
– How would you reduce Dropbox storage size?
– How would you make the restaurant discovery experience 10x better?
– How would you build a messaging app for five year olds?
– How would you build a bookcase for the elderly?
– How would you design X for Y?
• Tips
– Users (Y) first!
– Use a whiteboard to sketch out ideas
– Be goals and metrics focused
– Data driven decisioning; data wins arguments
– Be creative and bold — think big
Product Design/Vision

29. Analytical
• Examples
– How many Google searches are performed per second?
– How many iPhones are sold in China each year?
– What metrics are important for Hyperloop to track?
– How many airplanes are flying in Brazilian airspace at 11 AM?
– How many square feet of pizza are eaten in Italy in January?
– Facebook photo uploads have decreased in the last 30 days. What do you do?
– What’s more important, metric X or Y?
• Tips
– Master estimation questions; it is about the process not the answer
– Read up about launch metrics, A/B testing, and experiments
– Brush up on your quantitative skills & mental math

30. Behavior/Execution
• Examples
– What are you most proud of?
– Tell me about a time that you failed
– Walk me through a product that you worked on from ideation to launch
– Describe a time when you had to convince a designer/engineer to change their mind
• Tips
– Tell compelling, engaging stories
– Be concise
– Sell yourself; come prepared with a two minute story about how you get stuff done
– Make sure your answers resonate with the company culture, values, and mission

31. Technical
• Examples
– Explain the most common reasons why a server would fail
– Write an algorithm that detects meeting conflicts
– Describe how the internet works in detail
– What type of data structure would you use to store all humans’ genomes
– Explain deep learning to a five year old
• Tips
– Brush up on your data structure and algorithms classes
– Write pseudocode to lay out your plan first
– If you have built an app/website/project, have it handy
– Ask recruiter how technical interviews will be (will vary by company)

32. Strategy
• Examples
– Should Apple acquire Netflix?
– Should Google build a Snapchat competitor?
– Should Amazon invest in an augmented reality headset?
• Tips
– If you aren’t familiar with these types of questions or don’t have a business background,
check out the book Case In Point
– If you are looking for a framework to get started, read about Porter’s Five Forces

33. • Questions to expect
– Tell me about yourself
– Why XYZ company?
– Why are you switching roles?
– Why PM?
– Tell me about your favorite product/app/service.
Why do you love it? How would you improve this
product/app/service further? How would you
measure those improvements?
• Be concise, speak slowly
• Be friendly, smile, show excitement!
• Practice and then practice more
Things to do
During a job interview yesterday, I poured
some water into a cup and it overflowed
slightly,
“Nervous?” asked the interviewer,
I replied simply, “No, I always give 110%”

34. On Interview Day

35. After the Interview
• Ask good questions
– Ask about cultural values
– Find out if it is a good fit for you; manager is
critical
– Prepare thoughtful questions in advance (don’t
ask about PTO or other things that you can
obviously find out from website/HR)
• Thank interviewers with follow-up email
– Send to recruiter if you don’t have their emails;
personalize with further insight on their questions
Manager: Meet the interviewee; tell
them how great it is to work here!
Me:

36. • Practice PM interview questions
• What distinguishes the Top 1% of PMs
• Evisors
Additional resources
Source: Lewis Lin

37. www.productschool.com
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