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 to work with you – it exposes how you think and communicate in a real world context.
The most impressive interviews I’ve conducted are ones when a candidate can interweave their experiences throughout the conversation and have a two-way conversation with me.
The purpose of an interview for the candidate is to tell their story, share their product learnings, and expose who they are in order for the interviewer to assess their candidacy.
The purpose of an interview for the interviewer is to assess if the candidate is qualified for the job and if they would be successful in the role. You make the interviewer's job much easier the more you open up and engage. And, the more you engage, the more memorable this interview will be for the interviewer when they have to write up their recommendation and discuss it in a meeting with the other interviewers weeks later.
To avoid this common pitfall, you can do two things:
- Put yourself in the shoes of your interviewer
- Come up with a list of 2-3 things you want to make sure the interviewer knows about you
For #1 - Who is your interviewer? What role do they have? What do they care about? If you had to guess - what are they trying to get out of this interview? Use these insights to better connect with them live.
For #2 - How does your current work connect to the work of the role you’re interviewing for? What success have you had that you want to make sure is known?