Should product marketing candidates go 'above and beyond' in interview prep and put a 30-60-90 day plan or SWOT analysis together?

Short answer, yes. If it's a job you really want, go above and beyond. Now, if a company says they want you to prepare a 5 slide presentation on something, I wouldn't simply decide that 10 slides is fine, because they might want to see whether or not you can create a concise deck. So if you plan to go above and beyond, and you have questions around it, just ask the hiring manager or recruiter. When I ask candidates to prepare an excercise, some candidates proactively request time with me prior, ...Read More

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 describe (e.g. SWOT analysis, or their thoughts on company/product) I personally don’t ask candidates to prepare 30-60-90 day plans, or reports on the company/product as I don’t believe they have the enti ...Read More

In most cases, these types of deliverables won't be particularly useful because you don't have enough context to actually make solid plans or recommendations. And, while it's nice to think that it shows initiative, it also leaves a lot of room for the candidate to get something wrong because they don't have all the information. Instead, I recommend focusing on the assignment from the hiring team, using the full context of the interviews and the details of the assignment. Good hiring managers kno ...Read More

These days, most Product Marketing interviews will have a task element outlined in the first or second interview. These may include a 30-60-90 day plan, a SWOT, a presentation, a launch plan, or other typical PMM tasks.  At some point in the process, whether on application submission or in your first interview, you will be asked directly or indirectly why you want the role / want to join the company, so researching SWOT information will stand you in good stead to answer this question but I would ...Read More

It is really hard to get these types of big deliverables right, as you won’t really have enough information as an interviewee to nail them. Unless I specifically ask for this type of deliverable, it can actually work against you. Instead, I prefer that candidates show how they think throughout the interview process. For example, prior to the hiring manager interview, spend a large chunk of time on the website and come prepared to talk about your observations re: what parts of their messaging you ...Read More