AMA: Shopify Senior Product Lead, Lizzy Masotta on PM Interviews

They teach you something in the interview I once interviewed a woman who had extensive experience working for a telecommunications company. I have zero experience in telco – aside from being a customer of Verizon Wireless. I walked out of that interview having learned so much about telco companies, their business model, what they optimize for, how they segment their customers, etc. In the stories the candidate told about her work experiences she concisely weaved in the basics of the telco in a d ...Read More

There are 2 main types of interviews for Product Management roles: Product case interviews Behavioral interviews (by cross functional partners like UX or Engineering, or by the hiring manager) With either interview type, the surest path to failure is when a candidate shows up and waits to be asked questions. A one-way dialogue doesn’t expose enough about a candidate to make a strong impression. Engaging in an interactive, two-way dialogue helps the interviewer get to know what it would be like t ...Read More

Interview Red Flags During a Product Case Interview – If your interviewer is having to guide you through each section or prompt you with several follow up questions, that’s not a good thing. If a candidate clearly has never used the product (hint: always sign up for the product, do the free trial, or watch YouTube videos / demos). If one of the candidates questions at the end is something along the lines of “how do promotions work here?” If a candidate is unable to draw connections between their ...Read More

There’s a ton of literature published on PM interviewing - frameworks, types of questions, types of interviews, etc. Your time is best spent introspecting, not obsessing over all the interviewing content. Memorizing frameworks won’t help you ace an interview. The more you know yourself, your strengths, and the takeaways from your prior experiences, the better you will do. Make sure you have answers to the following questions: Why do you want to leave your current role / company? Why do you want ...Read More

Tell the interviewee what they want to hear up front Who are you? What type of interview is this? How long will this last? Will I be able to ask questions? What's the next step after this? Don’t ask leading questions. For example: “How do you work with engineering” gives away that you’re interested in their collaboration style with engineering. They will always answer this question with something like “I am really communicative with them and do all the right things!” To get the real answer here ...Read More

What are your greatest hits? You really can’t avoid the “tell me about yourself” question in any interview you do and every candidate should be prepared for this question. I like to put a twist on this question and ask “What are the greatest hits of your resume?” Translation: Instead of giving me a chronological detail of your career experiences, tell me about the most impactful things you’ve done. It’s a great way to test how candidates synthesize information on the fly. Surely they prepared fo ...Read More