My interview prep routine 🔁

Preparing for an interview is never easy, and often involves a lot of prep work, research, and commitment. There really isn’t a shortcut for that part. When I became a PM, I studied for 2 weeks straight. And that was for a ladder change inside the company I worked for at the time. I did compile a couple of tactical things for the day-of, to increase my chances of success, and I’d like to share them with you. Hopefully they prove useful in your endeavors.

Back then I was new to the PM role, so a lot of what I did was studying and learning about what a PM does. In addition I spent countless hours researching PM interview questions online. I wrote them down, and solved them one by one. Then I discussed the answers with my peers and friends, getting a different perspective or another angle on the problem. Then I went back into the same question after a few days to see if I exhausted every level of the question, sometimes finding more depth, or a door which I haven’t yet opened.

Shortly before the interviews were happening, I received the list of interviewers. This is common in most places, but I have come to learn from some of you that it isn’t always the case. I’d say be curious and ask to get the names of the people who you talk to upfront. It is a great help to research them a bit.

With the list of individuals who I would speak with, I prepped my ‘cheat sheets’. They weren’t anything magical, but they helped me tremendously during the actual interviews. I reserved one page for each person I’d speak with, and split it into 3 sections. At the top, I had the summary section. Below that the notes section, which took over the biggest part of the page, and at the bottom I had the closer section. The notes section was left blank and used for note taking during the interview. But let’s talk about the other two sections, which I pre-filled with some info.

Part 1: Summary section

The summary section serves as the basic info I needed for each interview. Often interviews are slotted back to back, with little time in between. I felt it would be useful to get a brief, condensed summary so I could anchor myself when talking to my next interviewer. Here is what I out into this section:

• Name of the person. It shows respect and sends a strong signal of prep to the interviewer if you know who you are talking to. They have busy days, they often squeeze this meeting in while juggling multiple fires at the same time. Knowing their name starts the conversion off right.
  
• Time they have been in the industry. Gives context to how senior they are, how much experience they have. It helps me with managing my anxiety from being intimidated. If they have been in the industry 3-4 times longer than I have, of course they’ll know more, and that is ok.
  
• Time they spent with the current company. This can help provide context about how well they know the process, and how much they might (or might not) know the details about the current company. This is useful if you talk about the companies products or for asking the right questions if you are offered that opportunity.
  
• Time they spent with companies prior to this one. I am not going into too much detail but I like to go on LinkedIn and check at least their more recent history. What companies did they work for? Have they been in different roles before? It can give you clues about how they think, and what angle they might take on a given question.
  
• What they studied. The degree they have done can be very indicative of the way they think about problems. I am a CS major. I like details. I don’t have an MBA. My problem solving framework is homegrown over a long time. All of this matters.

Part 2: Closer section

The closer section is my favorite. It helped me with the challenging part of how to end the interview on a good note. Even a mediocre interview can end on a high note, and here is how.

Select one project that the interviewer worked on that you believe he or she might be very passionate about. This could be a digital marketing PM who has once worked on digital civics services, and launched a prototype in uni for digital voting. Or the DIY videos of a cloud AI PM Director where he builds robotic toys in his garage. Knowing this will allow you to formulate a great closing question. Try and tie it back to the interview, and something related to the role.

Formulating the final question can really change the way the interviewer thinks about you and the interview. There is nothing more damaging than the opportunity which you didn’t take when it was offered. In this case, a candidate who blanks or asks a standard, generic, impersonal question.

Take Action 🎬

📅 Book a private coaching session with me to grow your PM career. I will share my 15+ years of experience as a Product Manager, interviewing hundreds of PMs (and hiring many of them, too). Mock interviews are a crazy effective way to build a muscle for mastering the PM hiring process.

📚 I found it helpful to read the book Who, which explains the hiring process and teaches you how to think about the other person at the table. It helps ‘reverse engineer’ the process and come up with better questiosn, better information, and ultimately, a better job / manager.

📚 The book How to Talk to Anyone helped me build trust with individuals quickly when I needed to. It is a bit of a ‘guide to sure fire icebreakers’, applicable in any situation. Trust is the number one path to more objective information, especially so when the odds are stacked against you.