How to Crush Product Management Case Interviews

By: Sarthak Handa

This post shares hard-earned lessons and tips that I learned over 100+ mock cases and interviewing experience with tech firms like Google, Amazon, Apple, Cisco, etc. I have particularly focused on sharing tips and frameworks that I wish I knew before and found particularly missing in standard PM prep books, like ‘ Cracking the PM Interview’ and ‘ Decode & Conquer’.

I will attempt to share some of the best external prep resources and casing tips, with examples. Use desktop computer for best reading experience.

Here it goes!

External Prep Resources:

1. Online solved PM case examples: https://stellarpeers.com/blog/
2. Online peer community for mock case practice: Lewis Lin Slack Community
3. Books: “Decode & Conquer”, “Cracking PM Interview”, “Lean Product Playbook” (good for PM awareness), “Case Interview Questions” (good question bank)
4. Tech Interview Prep: Topic Guide + System Design [1] [2] + Internet Basics
5. Other Resources: Lewis Lin Resources + Complete Amazon Guide + General Tips

Casing Examples (Overview):

PM interviews broadly test on 10 types of case questions:

1. Product Design* — Design XYZ product for ABC customer? Favorite product?
2. GTM Strategy* — How would you market/take XYZ product to ABC market?
3. Market Entry* — Should XYZ company enter ABC market?
4. Pricing — How would you price XYZ product for ABC customers?
5. Brainstorming — How would you integrate XYZ services in ABC industry?
6. Guesstimate — Estimate market size of XYZ services?
7. Metric* — XYZ metric for ABC product dipped X% this month, what would you do?
8. Strategy — Should ABC acquire PQR player?
9. Tech Casing* — How does internet work? How would you design Instagram?
10. Market Trend* — What is the next big idea that we should invest in?

*I have shared examples and insights on these select topics in this blog series. The rest of the topics are covered fairly well in ‘Cracking the PM Interview’ and ‘Decode & Conquer’.

Scope: Identifying the best product recommendation for a target user segment.

Sample Questions:

• How can you improve ride-sharing experience in Uber Pool?
• How would you improve the experience for Youtube content creators?
• How would you design a smart pillow for kids?
• How can Tinder improve its messaging experience after the users get matched?
• Netflix wants to introduce a “recommendation from friends” section. How would you design this?

Solution Approach:

1. Clarify the goal
2. State your approach
3. Identify & prioritise target user
4. Lay out user journey (optional)
5. Identify & prioritise unmet needs
6. Brainstorm solution/ features
7. Prioritise solution using 2x2 matrix (Impact vs Effort)
8. Later: features for MVP, metrics, risks, summarize

Example: “ How would you improve the shopping experience of a supermarket? “

Goal: Maximize user experience

Approach:

Tips:

1. Alternate approach: check CIRCLES Method from ‘Decode & Conquer’

2. User identification: Mention all users, co-users, stakeholders. E.x. if you design ed-tech product for kids, the user will be ‘kids’, co-users can be parents or teachers, and stakeholders will be school admin.

3. User Identification: Explore different ways of segregating user segments. E.x.

• by use case (airport goers: domestic, professional, international travellers)
• by product usage (Youtube users: power user, medium users, one off users)
• by demography (Facebook users: kids, young adults, mom/dads, old people)
• other: personal vs business users, emerging vs developed market users

4. Need identification with user journey: Deriving needs from user journey is easy in certain question types (e.x. improve airport, shop or museum experience). Don’t force fit a user journey if it’s not intuitive (e.x. improve Facebook, etc) — in such questions go straight for user needs.

5. Brainstorm 10x solution: Mention a few 10x solutions (like, VR or drones) to highlight your creative thinking. You can always reject them later during prioritisation if needed.

6. Use pauses wisely: Take pauses to articulate your thoughts. I take a big pause after Step 2 and Step 3, and a minor pause after Step 4. Find what works for you. Pause should last no more than 60 seconds. Err on the side of taking more pauses rather than blabbering.

7. Invite collaboration:Ask more open and inviting questions to seek information from the interviewer. E.x. instead of asking “which of these customer segments do you want me to target?”, say that “ while each of the mentioned A, B, and C segments are possible, I feel that given the large TAM and high unmet need we can target A. What do you think? Would you agree with the assumption?”

Scope: Evaluating the best way to enter a new market (i.e., new product or geography)

Sample Questions:

• Google wants to develop a job listing platform. How would you take it to market?
• Facebook wants to create a dedicated platform for live streaming. How would you go about it?
• Instagram wants to add a feature for recommendations on travel, books, movies, etc. What would be your approach to increase customer adoption?
• Grab Taxi, a ride-sharing platform similar to Uber, wants to enter the US market. How should they enter the US market?

Solution Approach:

1. Clarify goal: typically increasing market share, revenue, etc

2. State approach

3. Analyze:

• Competition: discuss major competitors and their value proposition
• Company: discuss unique strengths relevant for this new market — existing products, customer base, suppliers, sales channels, technology, etc
• Customer: list customer segments, identify a potential target segment (based on company & competition analysis), and deep dive on the target segment’s needs

4. Recommend:

• Product: suggest product changes based on the needs of target users
• Pricing: suggest appropriate pricing model
• Promotion: list ways to attract target segment (bundling, discounts, etc)
• Place: identify customer acquisition channel

5. Summarize Recommendation

Example: “Disney is launching its streaming service. How would you take it to market?”

Goal: Disney wants to increase market share in the streaming services market

Stating Approach: “ First I would evaluate the strengths of major competitors (Netflix) and Disney in the streaming market. I would then identify customer segments, prioritize a target segment, and analyze its unmet needs. I would then use this analysis to build a GTM strategy and give product, pricing and distribution channel recommendations.”

Analysis:

Recommendation:

Summary: “ I started by evaluating the strengths of Disney and its competition (Netflix), followed by the identification of Binge Watchers as a target segment. After analyzing the needs for this customer segment, I came up with the GTM strategy — which included, focus on popular series and social features, lower than competition pricing, bundling with a loyalty program, and OEM partnerships — to increase market share in streaming market.”

Scope: Evaluating if the given company should enter a new market

Sample Questions:

• Apple wants to create a streaming service. Should Apple enter this market?
• Google wants to start a service for renting products from people near you. Is it worth pursuing?
• Icloud is considering a B2B model for its cloud storage? Should iCloud enter this space?
• Snapchat wants to create a wearable for measuring health for young adults. Should Snapchat pursue this endeavor?

Approach:

1. Clarify goal: typically increasing customer base, revenue, etc

2. State your approach

3. Analyze

• Market: discuss attractiveness of the market — size, growth, and structure
• Competition: discuss major competitors and their value propositions
• Company: discuss unique strengths relevant for the new market — existing products, customer base, suppliers, sales channels, technology, etc. Also, discuss new market’s alignment with company’s brand/ vision.
• Customer: list broad customer segments and their unmet needs to evaluate the scope of uniquely solving a customer need by entering the market

4. Recommend: Recommend entering the market if the goals can be met. Common reasons for not entering the market are — unattractive of the market (size, growth, structure), lack of potential for building sustainable competitive advantage, absence of any unmet need that could be uniquely served for the customers, etc.

Example: “Should Tesla enter the ride sharing market with its own platform?”

Goal: “I assume that the goal is to add additional revenue stream for Tesla”

State Approach: “I would like to first evaluate the attractiveness of ride-sharing market. I would then analyze the existing competition, Tesla’s unique strengths, and unmet needs of current customer base to evaluate if Tesla should enter the ride-sharing market.”

Analysis:

Scope: Focuses on picking the right metric for defining success or problem solving. Such cases often don’t have a one size fit all framework.

Sample Questions:

• What do you think are the most important metrics for Tinder?
• Spotify has seen decrease in average session time. What would you do?
• Youtube has launched separate feature/ category for 360 degree videos. How would you measure success and adoption of this feature?

Tips:

1. Learn important frameworks/ concepts:

• AARM: ‘Cracking the PM Interview’
• Ad monetisation (CPM, CPI, DAU, etc): ‘Cracking the PM Interview’
• A/B test experiments (hypothesis, p-value)
• SaaS metrics (LTV, CAC, churn, etc): resource
• Other concepts: bounce rate, cohort analysis, NPS

2. Feature success metric: always tie back a feature’s usage/ success metrics with the overall success metric of the product. E.x. if you are improving “share” feature of Google Drive as a PM, your initiative is successful only if it increases sharing without hurting Google Drive’s overall product success metric, like, engagement (DAU) or revenue ($).

3. Three ways to measure a feature’s impact on UX (e.x. a new ‘skill’ feature in Alexa):

• Ask the customer (high touch): NPS, survey, rating
• Check feature usage/engagement (low touch): # of times used, DAU of feature
• Measure workflow: define user success metric, e.x. how many attempts or how long does it take for a user to get a successful outcome from Alexa’s new skill.

4. Quick problem-solving case: “Facebook’s group activity has reduced by 5% over the last one month, what will you do?” Below is a possible solution approach:

• Is it even a problem?: is the decline within natural variation? is it seasonal?
• Is the problem specific to ‘groups’?: has the activity reduced only in ‘groups’? or has it reduced overall on facebook?
• Is the problem localized?: has the activity reduced with users using web or app? certain OS version? certain mobile device type? or for users from certain region?
• How is the funnel affected?: are the users coming into the groups less often or are they spending less time within groups? what different pathways do users used to take to come within group (search, newsfeed, groups sections)? Are all pathways equally affected? Were there recent UI changes?, etc.

Context: Not all PM roles need or test for technical acumen of candidates. Technical rounds are more common for full time recruiting than for internships. Invest energy in tech preparation only if you are interviewing with companies that are known for taking tech interview rounds.

Type of questions asked:

1. Behavioural:

• sample questions: “tell me a time when you worked with engineers?”, “tell me about the most technical project that you have worked on?”

2. System design:

• sample question: “Design smoke detector feature for Google Nest”
• sample solution: “How would you design Instagram?, or URL shortening service?”
• prep content: Youtube Series + Youtube Harvard Video

3. General tech concepts:

• sample questions: “How does internet work?”, “What is HTTP, TCP/IP, etc”?
• prep content: awesome tech topic guide +Youtube Harvard Video + Data Structure (from ‘Cracking the PM Interview’)

Context: Many interviewers test for candidate’s general tech trend awareness. While you should prepare for sector specific knowledge, knowing a few in-depth general market trends that could apply to most tech companies will give you the extra edge over your peers.

Type of questions asked: “What is the next big tech trend/ growth market/ product idea that we should invest in?”

Tech trends:

• “AR Smart Glasses: Battle to be the next default interface for consuming services” — blog (I have used this in my interview with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc)
• “Emerging market: Battle to capture Next Billion Users”: market perspective + product perspective
• Other possible tech topics: machine learning, blockchain, quantum computing

Special thanks to Harish Srigiriraju (Kellogg’19, PM@Verzion) for contributing content, and Pranjali Singh (JV, Kellogg’21) for helping in edits

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.