Questions from 50+ PM interviews and how to answer them

tl;dr — the most common question categories are: product chops, why this role, collaboration, resume walk-thru, and management experience (for people manager roles)

So you’ve done all the research required to figure out if you want to be a PM. You’ve done the networking and updated your resume. You’ve made a list of target companies and applied to them. Now you’ve landed your first interview. Each interview is precious, whether for practice or for converting to a coveted offer.

Over the past 3 months, I chatted with and/or interviewed with >30 companies and had 50+ interviews. Here are the most common categories of questions for which I’d recommend any PM have answers prepped.

I also give my tips on how to answer, but of course you should craft your own that are true to your beliefs. I’m now offering 1:1 career coaching and interview prep — learn more here.

Product chops: strategy, design, execution

• Tell me about a product you’ve built that you’re proud of. Why did you build it? How did you figure out what to build? How did you roll it out?
• What’s a product/company you like? Why? What would you do if you were CEO of that company?
• Product case: Improve Google Maps. Make an app for gardening. Our product is experiencing a decrease in volume, how would you solve for this?

Tips to answer these questions:

• Dig deep into the “why” before the “what”. What was the overall goal of the project (Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization)? How did you know a user problem was important — user research? market research?
• Demonstrate you considered multiple options and prioritized different solutions based on user value, company value, and complexity.
• Emphasize an agile and iterative approach to launch. Good is better than perfect. Launch to a small / safe cohort and then expand. Mention the key success metrics — make sure they’re SMART
• There are a lot of books like Cracking the PM Interview and Decode and Conquer that help you get through these types of questions.

Why this company + role?

• What are you looking for in your next role?
• Why are you interested in working at this company?

Tips to answer these questions:

• Figuring out the 3–5 traits you’re looking for in your next role are table stakes for starting the job hunt. Traits can include: industry, mission, culture, problem type, skills to learn, money, promotion opportunity, etc.
• Don’t lie — these types of questions are also a good opportunity for you to assess if the company/role is the right fit for you. Are you interested in managing people? Mention it and see if the hiring manager says there’s a path to that in this role.
• Talk to people currently at the company (that aren’t interviewing you) why they like the company for ideas
• Be confident and direct in showing your interest. Oftentimes, since I was unsure if I was doing well in the interview or perhaps I was not sure if the role was a good fit, I would give a lukewarm response as to how interested I was in the role. Maybe my tone was wishy-washy or I used weak adjectives to express my interest. Now having interviewed people myself, I realize that comes off as if the candidate is uninterested when they are really just figuring things out. Don’t exaggerate but be firm. For example: “I really like the work Company ABC is doing in the space because that’s where the future is headed based on XYZ market trends. The culture seems amazing based on a few employees I’ve spoken to who have mentioned XYZ.”

Collaboration

• How do you facilitate roadmapping and stakeholder alignment?
• How do you work with Engineers/Designers/Clinicians/etc.?
• Have you faced a problem with [insert function]? What did you do?

Tips to answer these questions:

• Similar to product chops questions, you need to talk about how you synthesize and organize the prioritized problems + solutions into a roadmap. Maybe it’s a diagram or problem tree.
• Talk about the timeline and process — what were the different steps that happened, when did they occur in the year/quarter, and which stakeholders were at each step
• Talk about how you go from a high-level product idea to more detailed feature requirements (PRD, PM Mocks), design mocks/prototypes, validate prototypes, translate into eng requirements, and track eng progress.
• Have specific examples of situations where you had to resolve conflict with someone. Use the STAR framework. Keep it to less than a minute.

Resume walk-thru

• I’ve seen your resume, but can you tell your story of how you got here today?
• Walk me through your resume.

Tips to answer these questions:

• Don’t overlook this! It’s a chance for you to show what motivates you, show your personality, and stand out. This is one of the most asked questions.
• Talk about each transition between roles and why you made it. It should be a cohesive story leading to what you’re looking for in your next role. For example: “I really liked learning about how the healthcare industry worked in consulting. I noticed a lot of my clients were struggling with their current tech and were investing in new technology so I joined a health tech company to learn more about it. At the health tech company, I realized I was most interested in the provider side of things and the provider solutions we made were the most impactful. I think with recent legislation, providers will need more quality technology than ever to succeed, which is why I’m interviewing for this company.”
• I like to add a personal touch. For example: “I moved around a lot as a kid and group up watching human behavior. That’s why I love studying humans and what motivates them and it’s become really relevant to why I love PM.”

For people manager roles: building and managing a team

• What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced managing people?
• What’s your management style?
• If you were Head of Product, how would you approach growing the team? How many designers, eng, PM, etc. on what timeline? Contract or full-time? Onshore or off shore?

Tips to answer these questions:

• Highlight what tactics you used to help team members: pairing with them on an assignment, mentor them on stakeholder alignment, steering them to projects that meet their interests.
• Show what results that generated: higher productivity, team OKRs met, etc.
• Demonstrate how you are person-focused. Do you know what motivates your team members and how do you use that to help them achieve their goals?
• Just like in your product case questions, demonstrate that you can think through the pros / cons of different staffing scenarios. It’s not so much about the right answer, but being able to think rigorously. How much revenue could be gained by investing in more resources? How can you de-risk ideas with fewer resources (e.g., validate design prototypes)? How does adding more people slow down processes?
• Given the current economic situation, it’s prudent to mention hiring makes sense only when there is a clear business case/ROI for hiring (e.g., lots of demand, current PMs underwater, etc.)
• I like to mention ratios for staffing and growing the team: 1 PM : 1 Designer : 3-10 Eng — big variation in Eng so talk about why 3 or why 10.

Conclusion

What big categories did I miss? What tips do you disagree with or would add to? I’d love to hear!