What is the most important thing you've learned about interviewing?
3 Answers
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product Lead • July 27
- 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 you want to ask an open-ended question like “tell me about x product you launched” and in their response see how they naturally bring up engineering. Or, they may not bring them up at all and you may have your answer or something to dig into more.
- Dig deep in 1-2 areas. With a product case I like to dig deep in 1-2 ideas on their roadmap or challenge the metric they’ve come up with. The purpose of doing this is to see how the candidate reacts to being challenged and to see how deep their thinking was behind something. I’m looking for density of thought when I dig. In a behavioral interview, I dig deep on 1 past experience or feature they built. Why did they build x feature? How did they come up with the idea to build it? What was the launch strategy? How did it do? What was the design process?
847 Views
Brandon Green
Buffer Staff Product Manager • November 8
Talk even less and give the candidate even more time/space than you think to thoroughly respond to your question. You'll learn a ton about a candidate simply by giving them the floor.
Also - it's a lot harder than it seems.
(There's a 300 character minimum to these responses, so I have to keep typing to hit the minimum, even though I already answered the question. Hopefully this gets me over the minimum!!!!!!!!!!!)
372 Views
Sailaja Kalle
Gainsight Director, Product Management • April 25
The best way to assess candidates is by being a good listener. The lessons learnt from successes and failures are something that one should listen to.
175 Views
Zendesk Senior Director of Product Management, Farheen Noorie on Product Management Interviews
September 24 @ 10:00AM PST
Gainsight Director, Product Management, Sailaja Kalle on Product Management Interviews
April 24 @ 10:00AM PST
ezCater Director of Product, Fulfillment, Brandon Greenon Product Management Interviews
November 8 @ 10:00AM PST
Top Product Management Mentors
Poorvi Shrivastav
Meta Senior Director of Product Management
Natalia Baryshnikova
Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility
Kara Gillis
Splunk Sr. Director of Product Management, Observability
Clare Hawthorne
Oscar Health Senior Director, Product Operations
Orit Golowinski
Jit.io VP of Product Management
Anton Kravchenko
Carta Sr. Director of Product Management
Tom Alterman
Notable Head of Product
Mamuna Oyofo, MBA
Shopify VP of Product
Mike Arcuri
Meta Director of Product - Horizon Worlds Platform
Rishabh Dave
Stripe Product Lead, Financial Infrastructure
Related Questions
What are some of the most common red flags you've come across either on a candidate's resume or initial interview that you'd advise future product managers to avoid?For PM interviews, what are helpful resources you'd recommend and types of questions to prepare for from both hiring managers and cross-functional partners?How can someone with no Data Analysis experience get their first Product Operation Manager job & be valuable/successful at it? Where to start & how to get into the door?What do you look for in a product management resume for a mid-senior role? How does someone standout in a resume pool?What do you look for in a product management resume for a mid-senior role? How does someone standout in a resume pool?As a hiring manager, what do the best product management candidates have in common?