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AMA: Klaviyo Former VP-Product Marketing, Sahil Sethi on Product Marketing interviews
November 22 @ 10:00AM PST
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Klaviyo Former VP-Product Marketing, Sahil Sethi on Product Marketing interviews
Top Questions
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
MBA certainly provides access to a network and usually a world-class quality education and introduction to marketing frameworks which are useful in any marketing job. But it also comes with a huge opportunity, and often, financial cost My personal take is that MBA can help in functional transi......Read More
1169 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
Note - I don’t always look for autonomy unless I believe it is a key requirement for the role. Many PMM roles require more execution skills, a hustle mindset and someone who can get things done - even if it requires a bit of handholding and coaching along the way However, if autonomy is what t......Read More
524 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
My favorite question is very simple I ask them “Can you pitch me your product?” (if they come from any marketing role) It allows me to understand their storytelling skills. It helps me understand if they are truly comfortable with the idea of messaging and positioning (which I think is fund......Read More
956 Views
1 request
How do you showcase or describe to interviewers your work in messaging and positioning, without actually showing documented work?
Also, how to actually show its success, as this is something that may take awhile before seeing a growth trend and can you directly actually attribute a particular success metric on messaging?
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
This is such a good question There are many ways to demonstrate success of messaging/positioning work 1. Talk through the process - Explain your approach to developing messaging and positioning. Talk about the customer interviews you did, the drafts you wrote, the messaging pillars you......Read More
1033 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
* Not being able to strongly respond to the question “Can you pitch your product to me ?” * Not being ready with good writing samples * Not coming with strong examples of your leadership skills - influence, persuasion, relationship building, collaboration and more These questions demo......Read More
1076 Views
3 requests
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
I think the best product marketing candidates have three things in common * They are strong on the core requirements for the role. In most cases, it involves a degree of comfort with developing or activating messaging/positioning/value propositions for products/solutions/audiences/segm......Read More
643 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
Good question. As PMMs, our roles touch so many aspects of the company that ROI could be hard to define. My advice to every PMM is to think through the impact of their work, and the process of measuring their impact --- on a day to day basis, and not after the activity. So when the question does ......Read More
1120 Views
3 requests
How do make sure the resume appeals to the hiring manager for a product marketing role?
Should I just use one general resume or are there different versions of it?
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
As long as you have generally worked in functions in or adjacent to product marketing (e..g content, campaigns, market research etc.), my guidance is to always use one resume that covers the breath of your experiences. I see some candidates fret over preparing a resume that is more tailored t......Read More
708 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
As a hiring manager, I often ask candidates for these exercises if I feel like I need to better understand their thought process. This comes in the form of question prompts where I may ask them to develop a POV on a particular GTM problem and their approach to it. It covers elements of what you d......Read More
549 Views
1 request
What technical questions can we expect for product marketing interviews?
e.g. do we need to do a case study, draw insights from looking at data, etc.
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
For interviews for tenured PMMs (e.g. team leads/managers, or principal PMMs /senior ICs) , it is a common practice to ask for a case study or presentation based on a real-life business situation. Some of them require data analysis as well The most technical aspect of product marketing is ‘mes......Read More
507 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
For tenured PMM roles (e.g. team leads/directors or senior/principal PMMs who may not be team leads), I do ask for an assignment We usually give an open question that mimics a real business situation (often a challenge we are facing). It could be around marketing to a new audience, or launchin......Read More
1249 Views
1 request
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
* “Tell me about a time when you dealt with professional failure” * “Tell me about a time when you had to work with an underperforming direct report ?” * “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult co-worker in another function” * “What is your proudest professional acco......Read More
416 Views
1 request
How do you enable your teams to win when faced with other competitors in your space?
Which materials/key points/key themes you work on for them to know how to show your tool is better that the competitors'?
Sahil Sethi
BetterUp Former Senior Vice President, Product Marketing • November 23
Differentiators Good messaging smartly incorporates differentiators. Yes messaging is about the outcomes and benefits, it is about the category and the disruptions , it is about value pillars but great messaging smartly incorporates differentiators in that work When you describe your produc......Read More
888 Views
1 request
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