AMA: ThoughtSpot Senior Director of Product Marketing & Customer Marketing, Christine Sotelo-Dag on Product Marketing Interviews

Common assignments we've asked candidates include: * How would you announce a new feature? (How would you approach developing messaging for this launch? Suggest 3 tactics you would employ to announce this feature to customers. Who are the internal stakeholders you would work with, and in what capacity? How would you think about measuring the success of this announcement?) * Provide a high-level strategy for how you'd tackle competitive research * Give a 1-2 sentence (original) pitch on our product * How would you go about understanding the personas we should target with a new product? * How would you ensure the sales and marketing teams understand the target audience and messaging? What type of activities or deliverables would you create?

The best questions, in my opinion, are the ones that organically come up in the context of our conversation. The kinds of questions where the candidate wants to dig a little deeper into the problems the business is trying to solve for customers or the details around the expectations of the role, etc. There will always be generic questions that are very important, ie. culture of the company, how success is defined, etc - but these should be balanced with thoughtful, contextual questions that show you're appetite for envisioning yourself within the role. 

There are a few core characteristics that make product marketers stand out, especially those with less experience to pull from in interviews and resumes. Characteristics such as time management, prioritization, strong execution skills, cross-functional collaboration and a basic understanding of the role of storytelling in marketing. Wherever you can showcase these skills, even if it's pulling from experiences in a different role or as a student, will help build confidence with the hiring manager that you have the core skills and the rest can be taught. 

In my experience, the technical questions I think you can expect will be around your methodology for ramping up on technical products, and your ability (and examples) where you marketed technical products or features in a way that elevates the story outside of functionality and into value. Be able to demonstrate your ability to partner with product, engineering and design teams, providing feedback and input into product decisions while also being a solid partner to Marketing and bringing the product voice to life in marketing materials. Being able to speak to how you think about data and insights will be a big value add as well. What metrics have you tracked and influenced in your previous PMM roles, and how. How have you used data to influence decisions - but qualitatively and quantitatively? 

I think there are general elements that should be included in any resume you create, such as success metrics to highlight how you drove impact and your ability to define and measure success. That said, I'd expect to see deliverables, projects and skillsets that map to a product marketing role. Even if there was no previous PMM experience, I'd hope to see how your previous experience maps to what makes you a good fit for a PMM role - and therefore your resume should be adapted to the role as well. 

I think this is probably a question you can get a feel for by asking a few tangential questions: 1. Asking questions that help you identify the hiring manager's style of management - are they hands-on or do they prefer to be more hands-off 2. Asking questions to help identify the company culture. What are the expectations from the leadership team regarding reviewing projects, defining projects, etc? 3. Asking for examples of previous Product Launches (for example) and what the DACI or RACI looks like - and what the role of a PMM is in driving the launch. 

Outside of researching common product marketing interview questions and generic interview prep like that, I think the best resources probably live on the hiring organization's website and resources. Learn as much as you can about the organization, how they position themselves, who their core audience is, the competitive landscape. This is going to take your interview to the next level and really help the hiring manager see you in the role as you already have a baseline knowledge of the organization. The best preparation you can do is to have really clear examples ready for your work. Think of the STAR example. Situation, Task, Action, Result. Keep those elements in each of your examples and it will help you prepare concise answers to your cross-functional partners questions. Be prepared to talk about how you've worked cross-functionally in the past and cover both highs and lows of those working relationships. 

Practice! Have a friend, partner or even just record yourself if you don't have anyone to practice with. Get used to answering clearly and concisely, even if it means speaking less. Clarity will always trump volume. There are a lot of resources out there that help individuals build confidence, maybe check those out as well - often times our fumbling is our own self-doubt taking over. Don't be too hard on yourself! 

If I were assigning this work, I'd expect to see the common elements of a GTM plan outlined (not necessarily the content, but the outline for sure). I'd look for elements such as * Who is the core audience * What is their current pain (before using your product) * How does your product solve that pain (what value does your product provide) * What are the reasons the audience should believe you (proof points) * What strategies will you implement to reach this audience based on what you know about them * What do need to know about the competition There's probably a lot more, but the key idea here is that most GTM plans have very similar core content that looks like a variation of the above, so be prepared to speak to these bullet and how you'd define them for your GTM plan. 

In general, I think the most common mistakes fall under the category of not being properly prepared. However, here are a few examples that come to mind when I think about interviews that could have gone better. * Not familiar with our product/service * Talk about wanting to join the company because of the trajectory of the company (versus being excited about the product, mission, etc) * Talk poorly of their previous employers * Not ask any questions * Not able to provide clear examples of previous work and impact

I think the best way to talk about messaging and positioning in your interview process is less focused on the output of that work, and more focused on the 'how' behind how you go about driving that work. * What framework do you use? * How do you identify your key value propositions and the parts of your product that ladder up to those propositions? * How have you identified your core audience(s), and how to position your offering for them? * How do you validate that your messaging resonates with your audience? * Who are your key internal stakeholders in building out messaging and positioning? These questions and subsequent answers tell me a lot more about your methodology and work style versus simply reviewing the output of that work. In regards to highlight success metrics, this is a common challenge for many PMM teams, where we share success metrics with many of our internal counterparts. I'd recommend looking for qualitative feedback as a way to help define how successful that messaging is. This can be done in the form of user research, and internal feedback from sales orgs who are likely using your messaging directly with prospects as they pitch them. 

A few flags that I look out for are outlined below that separates a good candidate from a great one. * Failure to be concise. As a product marketer, one of the key characteristics of our role is being able to tell a compelling story, that resonates with our audience. The best way to showcase this capability is in your interview as you tell your own story. Avoid long, wordy answers or rambling and focus on being clear and concise. * Failure to do basic homework on the company/product. There isn't an expectation to fully understand the ins and outs of how the product works at the interview stage, but there is an expectation to understand some basics about the product - the main pitch, value the product claims to deliver, potentially highlevel understanding of the product category. This prep work can usually be done by a quick scan of the website, and review site and will help elevate the interview conversation. * Lacking attention to detail. Much of PMMs role is ensuring our products are displayed in the best possible light, and that usually requires sweating the details. Accuracy, polish, attention to detail, and so on. So when those things are missing from presentations or take-home exercises, it reflects what we could expect in one's day-to-day work. 

I always like to hear from product marketers what companies they believe do product marketing well, and why. Before I go into what makes a good answer, I'll point out that there is a difference between a good product and good product marketing. Many times I'd hear all about why a PRODUCT is great, but not enough about how their marketing was great. I'd also say that although companies like Apple and Patagonia have renowned product marketing - it is sometimes more beneficial to focus on the examples that may be less referenced and more original. :) The best answer I heard here was from a candidate who pointed out one of our competitors. It was a risky and bold move, but I really appreciated the thoughtful answer and it showed me that the candidate knew our space and did his homework.