Passion, attitude, and vision will get you a product management job
Take a walk outside and breath a fresh morning air. Have a cup of your favorite coffee with your life partner. Go for a run in a humid forest and listen to the crispy sound of your shoes when they hit the ground.
There is more to life than a product management job.
Unless… you are preparing for a product management interview.
Then everything stops and screw the rest of the world.
You drink a horrible instant coffee five times a day to keep on studying for the interview. Life will fall apart if you do not get it.
Are you familiar with the feelings above?
After I got a product management job, I spent some time figuring out what truly helped me get that job. I realized that everyone read “How to crack the PM interview”, perform mock interviews with friends or family, and connect with referrals in companies. Everyone studies the same things from the same online resources.
But what are the things that make you a better PM interviewee?
I think that in addition to clarity of thought, solid experience, and cultural fit, passion, attitude, and vision can make the best impression.
Passion
Why do you want to be a product manager?
Because I want to make an impact
Because I like to build products
Because I enjoy working with multiple stakeholders
Those seem like decent reasons. However, how can an interviewer understand the reasoning behind those answers? What makes you want to make such impact from the first place?
The key is to combine personal experience and clarity of thoughts to deliver answers that express passion for product management.
Because in my previous job in UX design, I worked very closely with my product managers to understand through their point of view what are the customers’ pain point and why the prototype I am designing will improve the user experience.
I learned a lot from my product managers about the business side of the company and it shaped the way I think about products and customers.
The interviewer not only understands why you want to be a product manager but also what drives your passion and which specific aspects of the role fulfills that passion. This is powerful yet dangerous because it opens up a lot of space for the interviewer to unload on you with tough follow up questions. Make sure you know your personal experience well enough to face follow up questions.
Attitude
Being a product manager is tough because you have to lead multiple stakeholders without an actual authority. Once in a while, you will most likely make mistakes. The question is, how will you deal with such mistakes?
50% of how you deal with mistakes is based on your attitude. If you refuse to take responsibility, delegate fault on others, or ignore the mistake, you will not be a successful product manager. No one wants to work with a product manager who knows it all.
Because you are doomed to make mistakes, you are expected to acknowledge those mistakes and learn from them. A mistake can lead to a lifetime insight that can be super helpful for the rest of your career. Be ready for mistakes and hug them when they show up. Learn as much as you can from them but do not repeat them.
The second part of your attitude is the ability to listen. As a product manager, you will have to listen to many people throughout the day. During the interviews, you will have to listen even more carefully. One of the best ways to interact with interviewers is asking follow up questions on things they have just explained to you. It shows that you listen, knows how to take notes, and curious about what they do. By listening, you build rapport.
The last part of your attitude is collaboration. It is up to you to convince the interviewer if you are a lonely cowboy or a team member. You are expected to know how to deal with all kind of team members.
As a product manager, you are the barometer that syncs between business, engineering, and design to create these delightful products. You have to be a positive, collaborative, and open-minded person if you want those people to follow your lead.
Vision
A company that wants to hire you as a product manager must see you as its future. As the one who is in charge of creating the product roadmap, you will have to provide a clear vision about the direction to which the company needs to follow in order to succeed.
Before the interview, you have to learn everything you can about the company and its team and products. You will have to compare the company to its competitors and learn more about the industry in which it operates.
Then, ask yourself three questions:
- Who are the company’s customers and what do they need?
- What is the company’s differentiation point?
- Which technology, people, or approach can be leveraged to solve their customers’ pain points?
Diversify how you tackle those questions by researching online, talking to people from the same industry, and talking to people working in the company (referrals, right?). Try to come up with a couple of features, new products, or anything that can make a big impact on the company and its customers.
Then, ask yourself three more questions
- Which data does the company have today and which data are they missing?
- How will I measure such improvement?
- What is the minimal feature set required for such improvement?
By answering the questions above you can provide an actionable, data-driven, and reasonable vision.
You may be wrong. You may suggest the exact opposite of the actual vision. But you tried. You showed that you think long-term and with the right people, tools, and data, you will be able to define such vision for real.
Feel free to reach out.
AG
