As a hiring manager, what do the best product management candidates have in common?

Best product management candidates craft compelling, concise and inspirational narratives when they interview. They demonstrate clarity of thinking, knowing both the facts and the "why" behind their answers, and genuine curiosity. I always walk out of an interview with a great product manager feeling like I have learned something valuable, and inspired. I spoke to the skills I've seen among successful product managers in another answer to the AMA, but if you are looking to impress hiring manager ...Read More

The answer depends on the stage of company and product you're working on. At Vanta, where we're growing very quickly and are still formulating many of our process, I've found that the most successful PMs / candidates: Customer focus. I look for past examples where they have deeply understood their customers and users. Agency and comfort with ambiguity. In high growth environments, there often isn't a beaten path. PMs need to be able to make progress and drive when there's not one. Commercial min ...Read More

A few things: A very deep understanding of the problems they are looking to solve. This gets reflected in how they speak about past experiences (why did you choose to work on a specific problem, what exactly was the need?) as well as any case study (are they asking intelligent questions to understand the need). User-first approach: While solving the problem they identified, are they putting the user at the forefront? Are they clear about who the users are for the problem? Clear communication For ...Read More

For me the biggest differentiator is having a growth mindset. This doesn't just mean they want to make an impact and improve as a PM. For me it comes down to three things: They have a sense of what they know and don't know, and are always eager to learn more. They question their own assumptions. They're humble and curious in trying to figure out what they don't know and leverage the expertise of others. They frequently seek feedback from others and try to challenge themselves, not just to achiev ...Read More

My personal take is that when I am speaking with strong product candidates, I can see a few qualities shine through in their story. For me, those are:  1. They are constant Learners/curious They are constantly asking questions and actively listening. They are readers and constant consumers of information. To me, this shows that when they come on the team, they will bring fresh ideas forward. Ask the team questions that others may not consider and bring new information to the table.  2. They are ...Read More

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

I'll speak to commonalities in IC PMs since I have less experience hiring other product leaders. It's really just 4 things in my view: A clear ability to break down complex, multi-faceted problems into digestible, actionable chunks, as usually shown via some kind of case interview. Excellent ability to ask good, tough questions A clear track record of having an impact and/or continuous learning/improvement. This may not necessarily be demonstrated through previous work as a PM, but the candidate ...Read More

Here are some of the top attributes I have observed Empathy for the customer: Understanding and describing their customer segment's pain points. This usually comes from a natural curiosity to understand your customer, empathize with their pain points, and be dissatisfied with the status quo to do something about it. Focus on outcomes vs outputs: It's important for PMs to distinguish between outcomes vs outputs for their customers and the business. For, eg, launching 10 experiments in a year is a ...Read More

The best Product managers combine curiosity with structured problem solving skills. Being curious helps them look at problems as opportunities to learn & grow. Ability to frame & structure a problem helps them take others along in the process. Both these skills can be learnt & cultivated over time. Curiosity - Being curious is an under-rated skill. PMs who are curious keep learning, adding new tools (ideas, PM techniques, s/w tools) to their expanding toolkit and more importantly kee ...Read More

The best PM's have: - Strong leadership and communication skills. To be able to talk to customers, stakeholders, and leadership with the right context. They are good at leading teams with ambiguous problems and helping them arrive at a decision quickly - Strategy and Vision: the ability to define a problem, size and prioritize them, come up with a solution (along with a set of steps needed to achieve their goal) - Comfort with data, metrics, and OKR setting: set clear goals and a plan to achieve ...Read More

Creating new opportunities. This is really what will differentiate yourself as a Product Manager and really expand your own career opportunities. Its also the hardest thing to achieve because it requires high levels of proficiency, a strong "product sense," and being in a company that creates the conditions for you to do this. Imagine two PMs both focusing on driving a KR of improving NPS by 30pts... PM 1 achieves that goal by revising pricing and packaging, addressing feature gaps with the near ...Read More

There is no one silver bullet for a product management candidate. If I were to look for specific traits, definitely high up on the list would be how long a PM candidate explores the “problem space.” Honestly, ideas are a dime a dozen, but understanding a customer problem and isolating the right pain point, in my opinion, differentiates an average PM from a great PM. Finally, remember that a PM's main job is to ensure we are building products for the right customer problem. So, having an explorat ...Read More