AMA: Scribe VP of Product, Karishma Irani on Product Management Interviews

Ooh, so many good ones come to mind, so I'm going to cheat and pick two! "If I went to your Engineers and Designer and asked them what it was like to work with you, what would I learn that I haven't learned in this interview?" As you guessed, I typically ask this as the final question in my initial screen with the candidate, and the goal is to test for self-awareness, willingness to grow, and direct communication. Some of the best answers I've heard are "That I tend to be too prescriptive about ...Read More

Thinking back to the successful hires I've made, some common themes emerge: Balance of opinions and curiosity. I think some of the strongest PMs are the most opinionated, and it's useful when having to make 100 micro and 10 major decisions about the business and product every single day. However, the best hires I've made have been candidates who feel strongly about a set of opinions they hold (typically, from experience) while still demonstrating humility about the gaps in their knowledge and us ...Read More

Approaching every question with the goal of "getting the answer right". When in reality, there is no "right" answer and it's impossible for most of us to even come close without actually being in the job and having all the data and resources that a PM would have to make an informed product decision. The goal of these questions is to assess how you'd break down the problem and approach it from first principles. Using a "one size fits all" framework for every situation. While I'm not the biggest f ...Read More

I screen candidates for their appreciation and love for the craft of building great products. As difficult as this is to test for, it's equally easy to identify when you see it. Candidates who possess this demonstrate a deep understanding of why products with fewer features win the hearts and minds of their customers over another product that's more feature-rich. They notice the nuances of the product – the toast notifications, form fields, navigation layout, etc. Why I think this is important f ...Read More

USE 👏 THE 👏 PRODUCT 👏 AND 👏 FORM 👏 OPINIONS 👏 While I would personally consider that to be table stakes for interviewing at any job, I still interview candidates who don't always do this, and frankly, it baffles me. PMs have the word "Product" in their job titles and are responsible for the product outcomes (even more than engineers are). If you're interviewing for a PM role at a company to build product, be sure to spend at least half a day familiarizing yourself with it. (For SaaS products) I ...Read More