Acing the PM Interview — An event by Advancing Women in Product (AWIP)

Published in

Advancing Women in Technology (AWIT)

5 min readJul 24, 2018

Credits: Advancing Women in Product Team — Karissa Barnett, Aakrit Prasad, and Helen Fan

Preparing for the product manager interview is always stressful. On July 19th, Advancing Women in Product (AWIP) hosted a panel discussion on tactics and tips for acing the PM interview, sponsored by General Assembly, and featured Blake Williams (Talent Engineer at hirepool) and Stephanie Evans (Product Lead at Segment). Here are some key insights from the evening.

Make sure your resume is concise and to-the-point

When writing your resume, try to keep the following tips in mind:

If possible, make sure to keep your resume at one page.
It’s not too helpful to just include a list of skills you have on your resume, but make sure to show what you have done and what problems you have solved with those skills. For instance, don’t just list “agile development”, but make sure to mention what you’ve built with the agile development process and the impacts you’ve made.
Look for cues in the job description and adapt your resume accordingly.

Reach out to people for coffee

Have a targeted networking strategy. Find a few companies that you are very interested in and reach out to people on those teams for coffee. Show that you have a genuine interest in the product and also ask questions to get more insights of the company. This will not only help you decide whether you want to work for the company, but will also give you an edge later in the interview process.

In terms of how to reach out, see if you have a friend working in that company, or find a connection through your college alumni, volunteer group network, or from any other organization that you are part of. If not, you can always reach out to people on LinkedIn.

Don’t forget to demonstrate the following key aspects

Usability: you have empathy for the user and can think from the users’ perspective to build a desirable product that solves their problems
Feasibility: you can work with the team to come up with a solution that is technically and operationally feasible
Profitability: you have the business acumen to ship a product that is economically justifiable and in line with business strategy

Thank you to our sponsor GA for hosting us at the office in downtown SF for this event.

Be prepared, attentive, and interested

Before you go into the interview, if possible, try to use the product of the company that you are interviewing for, and understand the product. You are not expected to be an expert and know everything, so don’t need to over-prepare, but show your interest and think about what you like and what you want to improve. During the interview, ask about why and how the company makes certain product decisions, and how well certain aspects of the product are working.

Make sure to show your passion. One key responsibility of a PM is to evangelize customers within the business. It’s very important that you can keep the team excited. During the interview, make your interviewer excited about speaking with you. Keep your answers concise to keep them engaged. If you can finish your response and make your point in 1 mins, don’t make it 7.

Be honest and don’t feel like you have to be perfect. When asked “if I were to talk to your team, what would they say about you”, don’t be afraid to talk about both positive and negative feedback. While you should mention your strengths and accomplishments, it helps to include what you can improve on too. It shows that you are confident enough to say you are not perfect and you have a growth mindset.

The interview process is a two-way street

The interview process is not just for the company to get to know you, but you need to decide whether a company is a good fit for you as well. Here are some aspects you can think about:

Team culture: Ask the interviewer about what problems is the product organization currently trying to go through. This can help you figure out what environment you are going to work at and what kind of team you are joining.
Culture: Don’t just ask a general question about the culture because everyone has a different definition of culture. Instead, drill down to the specific aspects you care about. For instance, how does the team measure success? Does the company have a no-meeting culture? How would a company handle certain situations? Does the company use a data-driven approach to make decisions and build product roadmap?
Interview process: Take a step back and look at the process that the company puts you through and the questions they’ve asked. Are the process and questions good enough to filter and evaluate candidates? Are the interviewers prepared? You want to make sure you will be working with the highest quality of people.

Ladies, don’t sell yourself short and always ask for more!

We often hear that for women, negotiation is often seen as an improper act of appearing “greedy” or desperate, thus women always settle on the first offer without asking for more while men negotiate all the time. But the truth is the company probably won’t take back their offer just because you are asking for more, so take a shot and don’t sell yourself short!