How to Crack the Product Manager Interview by former Facebook PM
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Interviewing for a Product Manager position is never a piece of cake. It takes experience, spectacular communication skills, and extensive prep. In this session, Valentine Aseyo, former Product Manager at Facebook, shared the golden rules of interviewing that will help score the dream job.
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How to Crack the Product Manager Interview by former Facebook PM
- 1. How to Crack the Product Manager Interview by former Facebook PM www.productschool.com
- 2. FREE INVITE Join 20,000+ Product Managers on productschool.com/slack-community
- 5. Data Analytics for Managers 2-month part-time Courses
- 6. Include @productschool and #prodmgmt at the end of your tweet Tweet to get a free ticket for our next Event!
- 8. Test Slide -- Do Not Delete
- 9. How to Crack the Product Manager Interview Valentine Aseyo SVP of Product, Bandsintown
- 10. Valentine Aseyo SVP of Product @ Bandsintown
- 11. Prep, prep, and more prep
- 12. Brevity is a virtue
- 13. Demonstrate relevant skills and experiences
- 14. Focus on impact
- 15. Bring new ideas
- 17. To be, or not to be (analytical)
- 18. Once upon a time...
- 19. Keep on the right track
- 20. Curiosity feeds the cat
- 22. Be yourself
- 23. Recap No prep no gain Keep it succinct Talk about relevant background Focus on impact Bring innovation Think about big solutions to problem-solving questions Show your thought process for analytical questions Give real-life personal examples to situational questions Stay true to your role, speak as a PM Ask the right questions Show your passion Be yourself
- 24. Who’s awesome? YOU are!
- 25. Thank you!
- 26. Part-time Product Management Courses in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, London, Toronto www.productschool.com
Notas del editor
- When you checked in tonight, you got an email inviting you to join our slack community In that community, we have 15k product people who have come through different companies like google, facebook, uber Sharing information about events, job offers from our partner companies, and valuable online content Please check your email and join - it’s free
- In our PM Course, we teach how to build products and how to get a job as a software product manager All our classes are 2 months, part time, and compatible with full time jobs. We have two options, Tues/Thurs in the evening and Saturdays in the morning Instructors- are senior level product managers from companies like Google, FB, Uber, etc
- In addition to our PM class, we offer our Coding for Managers class Also two months and part time tailored for professionals who don’t come from a traditional engineering background The goal of this course is not to make you a software engineer, but to give you enough technical background to build a fully functional website and pass the technical interview
- Similar to our coding course, we also offer our Data Analytics for Managers Tailored for people who don’t have a technical background but to give them enough knowledge of analytics to become product managers Also two months, compatible with full time jobs The goal of the course is not to make you a data scientist, but to make you technical enough to understand web analytics, learn SQL, and machine learning concepts
- We are also live streaming our event to our online audience If you want to share, please tweet @productschool and #prodmgmt for a free ticket to our next event
- Test 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
- Hi everyone! Do you remember a time that you totally slayed during an interview? Or another time things didn’t go so well? Were you able to figure out why you got different results? Interviewing for a job is never a piece of cake. It takes courage, spectacular communication skills, and extensive prep. And sometimes, stars need to align and you need to wear your lucky underwear. I get it, it’s a tough job. When I had my first interview 15 years ago, I wish someone gave me these golden rules that took me a decade to learn. If you follow them religiously, I guarantee you, you can get the job of your dreams. And then you can thank me for it :) Today, I’ll talk about how to crack the product manager interview. But before we get started….
- My name is Valentine, SVP of Product at Bandsintown. For those of you who are not familiar with Bandsintown: it’s the #1 concert discovery platform. Based on your specific music taste, we curate a personalized list of live music events such as concerts, dj gigs, festivals. Definitely download the app! Before Bandsintown, I spent close to 8 years working at Facebook in Ireland, India, and US spanning many different roles Prior to that, Colgate & Palmolive and IBM Throughout my career, I interviewed roughly 2000 people and every so often, I witness a stellar candidate do so poorly in the interview just because they don’t follow the essential rules. So what are they? Let’s take a look! I’d like this to be an interactive session so feel free to ask questions throughout the presentation. When I worked at Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg banned wasting time on fancy slides. Also, Katie, the organizer of this event, asked me prepare black/white slides so that it’s legible on the video. So here I am standing in front of you with a series of ugly slides. But hey, I promise the content is great! Joke aside, today’s theme is movies so grab your popcorn :)
- Movie anecdote (they spent the first half of the movie prepping for the interview) This is the most important rule. If you have the perfect prep, not only you’ll be able to answer all the questions but it will also boost your confidence before and during the interview. Make sure to digest the company website perfectly to align with their mission, vision, values, and products/services they offer. Google is your best friend: read all the recent articles, market research on the topic, and industry news. I can’t emphasize how important it is to spend a ton of time using their product/services and exploring all the features available. Remember, you need to put yourself in the shoes of their target customer. In addition, you should definitely check out their competitors to get a better understanding of the ecosystem. This will help you identify areas of improvement and position them in the market.
- You’ve made great efforts to prep and now you’re ready to rock! You start the interview, you have so much to say, you want to prove to them that you’re the best fit for this job. So you’ll talk and talk and talk. My best advice to you is to “pause”. PMs need to have killer communications skills. Be succinct! Elevator pitches are always the winner rather than a convoluted proposal with lots of details. If you can’t elaborate your idea in 2 or 3 minutes, then you know it’s not a good idea. If you find yourself talking and talking for over 5 minutes, you’re probably rambling and not being articulate. If I ask you a question, I’d prefer that you take 30 seconds to compose your thoughts and then give it to me in one shot succinctly, instead of jumping the gun to answer right away and then clutter the communication with unnecessary information. Be selective with what information you share. Pause, reflect, strategize, and then resume.
- Interviewers like to hear how your past experiences are relevant to the job position you’re applying for. Giving a variety of examples is always very helpful to show how applicable your background and skills are. Explain your past roles clearly, the skills you acquired, and how you could use them in this new role.
- As you talk about your work experience, it’s key to quantify the impact of past accomplishments: talk about the success metrics and KPIs. How many people used your product/services? How many stars did it get on the app store? How much revenue did you bring? How did it change people’s lives? The second situation where impact will come into play is prioritization. When you respond to prioritization questions such as product roadmap and resource allocation, always focus on the impact on the key metrics.
- No matter what job you apply for, you’ll be hired to make a change in the company. You’re expected to look at the existing business with fresh and critical eyes in order to generate dozens of ideas and take the product to the next level. When I interview people, I need them to be brutally critical of our products and surface big user issues. They should come up with creative ideas to boost business. If they can’t surface several things to improve or give me a few good ideas to innovate, then I don’t see the value of hiring this person.
- The interviewer is interested in knowing how you tackle daily problems and how you'd to improve the product? They try to probe into the creativity, scalability, measurability, and feasibility of your answers by asking problem-solving (aka critical thinking) questions. They may ask you something totally out of your comfort zone. E.g. design a parking lot Steps: Take a few seconds to gather your thoughts. Clarify the context if needed. Agree on goals & set boundaries. MOST IMPORTANT: When you’re asked to offer innovation, think about the BIG solutions. How will your ideas move the needle? - #1 thing to fix/improve on our platform (app, website, emails) - Million dollar product idea to build on our platform (app, website, emails) - Strategies we can use to double MAU in a month Now, keep in mind that you may not get the questions in this format so exaggerate the question in your mind (pretend it’s in this format) And that’s how you solve problem-solving problems
- The interviewer wants to see if you’re data-oriented. They may give you a couple of different scenarios or ask an estimation question. For example: how many people are sleeping in the world right now? I’ll give you a secret: the answer doesn’t matter. Nobody knows the actual answer. Plus, there isn’t one answer; it changes depending on the time of the day Talk about your thought process as you get to your actual answer. They want to hear your approach: are you able to break down this problem? Feel free to make assumptions: average person sleeps 8 hours from 11pm to 7am. Then use logic: It’s 7pm here now add 4 hours to get to 11pm so that takes us to Africa. Add 8 hours so time difference is 12 hours in total before people start waking up. Use relevant knowledge: I know that Singapore is 13 hours ahead, my best friend leaves there. Then use logic: okay so the regions africa, Europe, and half of mainland Asia are sleeping right now… etc. etc. You can use shortcuts too: 8 hours of sleep so that’s ⅓ of the time zones. The world population is 7.5 billion so I’ll take ⅓ of it. Answer is 2.5 billion.
- And there comes the situational questions to cover soft skills like leadership, communication & teamwork Tell me about a time you lead a time, had a disagreement with your peer, managed an XFN project, etc. You need to flex this muscle. You can’t have a beach body without working out so for these questions, you need to practice too. Go to online resources like Glassdoor. Have an archive of answers to a couple dozen questions Speak from experience, show examples
- Remember that you’re interviewing for a PM role. If you’re interviewing for a product role but you give examples of marketing initiatives to improve the business, then you’re not on the right track. The other day, I asked a candidate to give me strategies to acquire new users. He said: paid media on FB & app stores, partnerships with festivals, free giveaways, etc. All are great answers but that’s not what we do here at Product Team. Don’t answer the questions from the domain of your past expertise but answer them from the domain of your future role.
- You think you did a good job and now ready to end the interview? Not quite yet! The questions you ask at the end of the interview may make it or break it. Brainstorm a variety of questions in advance to show your interest and curiosity. Refrain from asking questions that can be googled to get answers. The questions you ask will reflect your intelligence, critical thinking, and investment in the process. Anecdote: questions changed my whole opinion on the candidate
- I get it, you may not check all the boxes. No one ever does! This is where your passion comes into play. Show them why you care about the mission of the company. Show them why you want this job more than anything Give them examples of things you learned on the job so that they know you’re coachable and have ability to learn quickly. Tell them how you’d go about improving yourself in the areas that you lack experience if you were to get this job. You may not check all the boxes but you sure have a plan to catch up.
- My last gem for you tonight: just be yourself. Don’t try to be something you’re not, you’re probably not a good actor or else you’d be interviewing on Broadway. Don’t be shy or overly polite, just relax. Confidence is the name of the game Smile, show your teeth. Crack a joke, warm up the air, have ice-breakers Be honest: what are your development areas (don’t make them sound positive)
- And remember…..
- And remember, you are a rockstar! You got this! Have confidence. You have absolutely nothing to lose. If you don’t get the job, you’ll go to Red Lobster, have some biscuits, and feel good. There’s no such thing as missing the right opportunity. The right opportunity is the one you get so use it wisely.
- Thank you so much everyone. It’s been such a pleasure. I hope you find it useful!