What are the key traits, skills, experience you prioritize when hiring product marketers? What questions do you ask to assess it during the interview?

It depends on seniority level of hire, but typically I look for experience in a customer-centric role: marketing or customer success in SaaS (B2B a plus). Key attributes for me are: detail oriented/technical prowess, storytelling/written abilities, empathy, collaborative, curious, systems mindset and high level of owernship/autonomy.  You can suss out traits like these by choosing a short take home assignment upfront as a screening assessment. Ask the candidate to "teach you something" (anything ...Read More

Every PMM role is unique and comes with its own demands on skills, experience and cultural traits. However, I expect any PMM to be good at, (or have aptitude for) three core skills Ability to answer three questions well "What, Why, How" for any product , for any audience (Positioning and messaging) Ability to train an internal team (ideally sales or CS) on that narrative. (Enablement) Ability to storytell the product to a customer (Demo) The way to assess these is Example questions - I ask quest ...Read More

The key things that standout are when a candidate's responses highlight cross-functional collaboration, trust building with stakeholders, and a 'we'll figure it" mindset. A great way to assess this is by not only asking for examples of how they would launch a product, or how they develop go-to-market strategies but it's also by digging into questions like: Have you ever had to change someone's mind on a strategy you were suggesting and how did you go about it? How have you been able to influence ...Read More

I'll list out things I always look for and example questions that help me answer: -Key partner alignment - who are your most important stakeholders in your current role? How do you manage the relationship? -Content quality - what work are you most proud of in your career? Can you send me a link to it after our conversation and walk me though why you're so proud of the work? -Collaborative disposition - [insert question you're currently thinking through in your day to day] See what it's like to t ...Read More

Storytelling is the biggest trait is look for. I want all of my product marketers to be able to tell stories that anyone can follow that inspire action. Everyone I interview is asked to provide a writing sample so I can see if they’ve got “it.” The next trait is problem solving: In every interview I ask the same question: Tell me about a go-to-market that failed. I don’t care so much about the “why” of the failure; I want to know how you determined it was off track, and what you did about it to ...Read More