Build a Product Manager’s Interview Script to Land your Dream Job
A product manager has to go through at least three rounds of interviews before receiving an offer. I will show you how to prepare for it.
In 2021 I was looking for a new job. My strategy was to get as many interviews as possible, treating each one as an opportunity to improve my personal pitch. The Personal Pitch helped me to land 3 jobs offer.
What will you learn from this article?
At the end of this article, you will be able to structure your own Personal Pitch (PP). You will also have access to a cheat sheet of 30 questions that your interviewer will most likely face you with.
What is a Personal Pitch
During an interview you will be asked the following question:
“<Your Name> tell us about yourself”
This is the moment where you should start your PP. The Personal Pitch will probably take up to 40% of your interview’s time, and your goal is that the interviewer should be able to paint a clear picture of who you are as a person and as a professional. Be prepared to know the highlights and lowlights of each working experience you have had. With a PP, you will be much more confident in answering those questions as you will have prepared and practised them beforehand.
Master your known knows
An interview has lots of unknown questions, however, the PP is a known part of it and the set of questions coming at you doesn’t differ much from interview to interview. This is why I attached a set of questions that you should be able to answer. In past interviews, when I didn’t have a Personal Pitch, I had to go through more thinking steps to provide a valuable answer during an interview. These moments were stressful and occasionally led me to rush into half-thought answers.
How can you structure your pitch?
The PP has three main building blocks:
- Work experience(s)
2. Skills and capabilities
3. Product management principles
Let’s deep dive into each of the topics.
Make a story out of your career
When you are given the opportunity to speak about yourself, start with the first job you had until the most recent one.
Prioritise your achievements
Do not list every bullet point written in your CV. Select a few achievements and explain why they are worth mentioning. Always include:
1. The problem you solved.
2. Why the problem was important to solve for the business.
3. What tactics did you deploy
4. What results did you achieve
When selecting your achievements, make sure that you demonstrate what skills and strengths you needed to succeed at that moment.
Be aware of your skills and capabilities
I recommend that you match your core skills with your best achievements, this shows the interviewer where you bring specialization. Depending on the job description, I would add one strength that is aligned to the position they are looking to fulfil. I.e. if you are interviewing for a PM Marketing role, then make sure one of your capabilities is in marketing, communication, etc.
Your view on Product Management
Be confident about general Product Management knowledge.
Your interviewer will ask you about your point of view on product management. There is no single right answer, thus be prepared. I like to use a Venn Diagram visualisation to structure my thought.
Show your approach towards problem-solving
“Tell me about a problem you solved” — in my opinion, this is the most important question an interviewer can ask you. In the next chapter I elaborate how i answer this question.
My Personal Pitch and a practical example
In every interview, when the question “Tell us about yourself” was asked I knew instantly how to answer in the best way possible. I focused on 2 achievements from my first job as a Data Analyst. Then I picked 3 outcomes on my second job as a PM. I focused on strengths that are seen as critical for the job I was applying for.
The next example is a key question for any PM, and I show you how I break this down. The framework used can be then adapted for many different questions.
How did you solve a complex problem?
My mental model is to use the double diamond, so that I do not rush into conclusion and present the recruiter my process to reach a final decision.
Mental Model for solving complex issues: 4 steps for a structured problem approach
I always used the same story, about a time when we had to increase user engagement. Increase engagement is the starting point, and has to be placed on the far left: problem. Make it clear that by solving this, you also help your company to impact their business goal.
Phase 1 — Expand your view: focus on problem discovery. As engagement is a huge topic, it can be impacted in many ways.
Phase 2 — Define the problem worth solving: I explained how we narrowed down through qualitative interviews the definition of the problem. It wasn’t anymore to increase engagement, but it was transformed into a challenge: How might we provide weekly recommendations to our users based on sales history.
Phase 3 — Expand your ideas: we developed several tactics that were — possibly — solving the defined challenge.
Phase 4 — Define an idea to move forward: we committed to moving forward with one solution which was to provide weekly notifications via our Saas product. After Phase 4, we provided all the learnings and ideas to the development team so that they could develop the MVP.
Mention the outcome:
Do not only say why this is a complex problem and how you solved it. Mention as well the outcome you achieved. Was this as successful as expected?
It is important to show that you are reflecting on the results of your approach, this shows that you are resilient and think iteratively, which is key for any PM role.
Stand out with your very own story
You can use your PP for a variety of different interview questions e.g. tell me of an occasion where you showed leadership, how do you solve conflicts at work, etc. Developing a PP is helpful for different scenarios and by tailoring slightly different it becomes a super useful interview tool. The Personal Pitch helped me and many other PM’s to land their dream job. Now it’s your turn to achieve that. If you think you are not able to build a PP or answer all the questions in the cheat sheet, think beyond your 9 to 5 job. Think about a situation that you experienced at school, in your sports club, with your hobby or family. Remember that a Personal Pitch is about yourself, so do not confine yourself only to job-related activities.
In conclusion, a Personal Pitch increases your confidence and chance to land your dream job. The probability to be successful in an interview is directly correlated to how polished your story is. Remember to have a clear pitch about your work experience, strengths and core PM principles. Your point of view on these things matter the most and is what the interviewer needs to remember when you leave the (virtual) room.
Go catch them all!
For more advice do not hesitate to contact me: Linkedin / tiz.nessi@gmail.com
Appendix
(1): https://hbr.org/2011/04/how-to-build-confidence
(2): https://www.impactinterview.com/2016/06/circles-method-product-design-framework/
