Mastering product management interviews
Proven principles and an actionable framework for conducting product management interviews and assessing candidates with ease.
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I’m Mikhail and I'm excited to share my learnings to help you navigate the murky waters of product management, leadership, and corporate dynamics. Subscribe to unlock the full value.
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In today’s newsletter
(Free) Structure of a product interview.
(Free) Key principles of an effective product interview.
(Paid) Actionable framework for candidate evaluation.
Recently, I've reached a milestone of having conducted 300 job interviews. From humble first rounds in 2016 to the present day, where I've learned to lead the Director-level interviews. I've been fortunate to interview product managers (~90%), data analysts (~5%), product designers (~5%) from all over the world and experience a diversity of perspectives.
This hasn’t been an easy ride, however. There have been many instances where I misjudged people - undervaluing some and overvaluing others. What seemed like a superstar candidate often turned out to be just a smooth talker without any execution skills. Conversely, a candidate who completely flunked the interview turned out to be a top performer.
Fine-tuning my compass to distinguish between a strong candidate and an aspiring one took me years of trial and error. I want to share the key learnings I've gotten out of this process so you could potentially avoid the same pitfalls I've encountered. I'm a big believer that hiring mistakes are the most expensive ones your company can make.
👉 Structure of a great product interview
The structure that I've come up with consists of three stages:
(1) Setting the stage and warm-up (~ 10-15 mins)
(2) Problem solving (~40 mins, ~10-15 mins for past experience and the rest for your case)
(3) Closure (~ 5-10 mins)
Setting the stage
Frame the context
I used to jump directly to questions or cases, but started noticing that more and more candidates went overboard and couldn't finish the task on time. The root cause was that they were not understanding the structure of the interview and how the time for each question should be allocated.
Then, I decided to make a slight adjustment and give candidates the following disclaimer before the start of the interview: “We have an hour. We'll do a quick 2-3 minute intro, then talk about your experience, switch gears to the case, and at the end, if we have 5-7 minutes remaining, I'd be glad to answer any of your questions.” This approach worked wonders. Once the context was set and the candidate had a rough map of the interview in mind, it was much easier to navigate between stages, and fewer candidates went overtime.
Introduce
The candidate is investing an hour of her time into having a conversation with you. Who are you? Why are you in a position to interview the candidate? The candidate has the right to know at least a bit about who you are and what your background is. Essentially, you're at the first step of establishing a professional relationship.
Back in 2015 I was interviewing with Booking.com and had a preliminary screening call. It was led by a seasoned recruiter. The interview was exceptionally structured, but what blew my mind was that he took about a minute of the interview time to introduce himself and share his past experience and what led him to his current job. This introduction served as a great ice-breaker because it transformed him from an abstract figure into a relatable person. Now you’re equals that are having a constructive conversation and are on the mutual path of figuring whether there’s a fit.
Since then, I never skip intros. Over time I have devised a short 40-second pitch, which gives a helicopter view of my past experience in reverse chronological order. I always take the initiative to do the intro first because it sets the expectations of the format and the duration of this part for the candidate. If the candidate ignores it, it's a reliable indicator of her listening skills and, to some extent, even her empathy.
Ask basic questions
This is a crucial part of the warm-up stage. Not only can you evaluate the candidate’s interest in the actual position, but also identify her areas for improvement. I usually ask questions about the reasons for choosing product management and the motivation for joining the company. A candidate who is just shopping around and has only a vague idea of what your company does is probably not the best fit in the long run.
Problem Solving
Past experience case
“Pick up a case from your past experience and tell me about it”. It’s a “comfort-zone” question and an opportunity for the candidate to show herself without the pressure of the unfamiliar case. This step gives a pretty good insight into some of the skills, strong sides and cultural biases the candidate can have from past workplace experience.
Once the candidate has finished, I usually follow-up with 2-4 questions to zoom in and clarify some bits of the case and afterwards transition to the next stage.
Your case
Once the candidate has warmed up, you can proceed to the most challenging part of the interview - your actual case. It can be whatever you choose, but my rule of thumb is that it should be as uncertain as possible.
Low-fidelity cases give a pretty good sense of how a candidate can cope with uncertainty, build context, choose the right strategy, and ask for relevant pieces of information from the interviewer.
A typical example of such a case is, “We’re thinking about business opportunity X, but have no idea whether it will work out or not. What should we do?”
Closure
Wrap up the case
As the facilitator of the process, I usually indicate that the interview has reached a logical end and try to loosen up the candidate a bit by saying, “there are no right or wrong answers.” This statement serves as a segue to the actual Q&A part.
Q&A
This stage is critically important. I've had instances where a candidate, who fell apart on the case, asked questions that were so well thought out that I had to re-evaluate my total scoring. Conversely, there were candidates who performed decently on the case, but asked junior-level, “how did I do” questions or had nothing to ask at all. Usually, this is a pretty good indicator of maturity and interest in the position.
👉 Key principles of an effective product interview
Lead with context
Once the interview starts, you're setting the stage and leading the candidate with questions. The closer you get to the actual cases, the less control you should exert over the conversation. Ideally, you should just share the high-level context of the low-fidelity case. My expectation is that both cases would be led by the candidate, with relevant follow-up questions directed to the interviewer. Instances where this doesn't occur, and the process continues in the “interviewer-led” format, usually signal a lack of maturity.
Write everything down
Once the interview starts, I open up my Notion interview section and start typing key points about the candidate. This is critically important for two reasons:
Firstly, as my memory cache is limited, it prevents me from losing track and allows me to ask detail-specific questions later on.
Secondly, having these notes helps with my evaluation of the candidate after the interview has finished.
Sometimes candidates overshare information about a topic where I lack context. Not having notes is a surefire way to lose context completely and inaccurately assess the candidate's actual skills.
Always have scripted questions
There are instances where your mind simply goes blank. Maybe you're exhausted, didn't fully understand the case the candidate has shared, or whatever the reason - always have scripted questions as a plan B.
Scripted questions are generic and can be applied to any case or industry, yet they're still useful for gaining valuable insights about the candidate's skills. My favourite ones are:
“What would you have done differently?”
“What's your biggest learning?”
“Why this project and not the other one?” etc.
Supplementing the case with follow-up questions shows that you are actually interested in whatever candidate has to say and allows for a smooth transition between parts of the interview. Keep in mind, this is only applicable for the “past experience case”.
Segue between parts of the interview
It's the interviewer's job to help the candidate transition between parts of the case. Abrupt shifts from one case to another can make the whole process seem forced (like you're reading a script), can break the candidate's focus, and could be negatively interpreted (“I failed this question; that’s why we’re jumping to the next topic”). I usually use phrases like “let’s switch gears and talk about X”, “let's reflect on your past background”, etc.
It’s all relative
Initially, when I was shadowing my first interview at OLX, I thought, “Wow, this candidate failed every single question. It’s a definite no-go.” When I calibrated the results with the interview lead, I was surprised that he was quite positive about giving the candidate a green light. He justified it by saying, “Relative to a dozen candidates I’ve interviewed in the past, this is a strong mid-level PM.”
I’ve reaffirmed this later; the more candidates I interviewed, the more aware I became of nuances and less rushed to make go/no-go decisions.
Know your limits
In my first year of conducting interviews, I wasn't immune to the superhero syndrome. “Can you take on an interview at 2pm? Sure! Can you take one afterwards at 3pm? Absolutely! What about at 6pm that same day? You can count on me!” What this led to was exhaustion, inability to sustain an engaging conversation, and difficulty properly assessing the candidate's skillset later on.
Over time, I've learned that the maximum number of interviews I can physically handle in a day is two. However, to be at my creative best and maintain the sharpest focus, it should be only one. In a week, I usually limit myself to 2-3 interviews at most, due to the time tax it imposes on my work schedule (3 interviews already equate to 6 hours of calls and written evaluations). I'm very vocal in conversations with our HR department regarding my daily and weekly interview limits.
👉 How to evaluate candidates
Over the years, I've assembled an actionable framework for assessing candidate skills and gauging seniority levels. It’s ready for the immediate implementation in your interview process and is shared below exclusively for my Substack subscribers.