Why the Product Interview Process is a Never Ending Gauntlet
As an aspiring product manager, I need to know why employers structure their interview as they do, so that I can master the process.
The most difficult part of breaking into product management is the ruthless & seemingly endless interview process you must endure to land any product job.
Those of you who’ve interviewed for ANY product role know the pain.
It’s having to clear your entire day to meet with 5 different people from 3 different teams.
It’s thinking your finally at the last round, then some random VP pops up out of the bushes requiring a 30 minute same day meeting, with no explanation given.
Its having to prep 10 hours for a presentation and feeling you nailed it - only for the recruiter coming back and say
“The team REALLY loved you! They just now realized they REALLY need someone with experience in Digital Display Ads for toddler shoes displayed in changing rooms in the southwest corridor. “
With any product management job interview process comes an excessive amount of bullshit.
For your own sanity, I’m here to break down“Why”, and how I can help.
Why Product Management Interviews are Ruthless
Product Managers are simultaneously one of the most expensive resources a company can spend on and most cross-functional.
PMs talk to every team in relation to shepherding the most valuable company resource into existence - the software itself!
For every PM hired by a company, the stakes are high. Hire the right one and your Product, captures marketshare, and launches your entire company into the stratosphere.
Hire wrong, and your developers rebel. The wrong features get built, and even in the case where the right features are shipped1 they’re fatally around the edges rendering them useless. The wrong Product Manager causes bloodshed to the PNL2.
I know first hand. It was working as an Account Manager for a product with a shitty PM that made me break into product in the first place. I couldn’t believe how both how bad their judgement was, how much they were paid, and why anyone listened to them about anything.
Time after time after time meaningless features were released. I’d fight tooth and nail for something I knew was critical, but this PM, viewing me as a “Threat” and would put up every wall possible against my proposals.
Spoiler: That PM was fired, and I now call the shots now! But I digress…
PMs need to show good judgement, and demonstrate such when engaging other teams outside the tech side of the business.
Companies try and vet for this in the interview process.
Cross Team Interviews
Outside of other product managers, the most regular interview you can expect with an engineering lead. After that, it runs the gambit.
I’ve met with UX Directors, Heads of Sales, Heads of Partnerships, CS Directors, Operations Managers, VPs of Marketing, and even CEOs themselves!
The reason for this political. Whoever you are talking to likely carries some weight in the organization. As Product Managers are the Cool Kids™, these non-product people use their weight to ensure a critical collaborator isn’t someone who will totally mess up their day.
The goal of these interviews is to speak the language and to the incentive of the interviewer. Demonstrate you understand how they are judged at their job, and how you accommodate for that in how you operate as a product manager. If you’re REALLY are unsure what these peoples incentives are, read a few blogs on their role in tech. Still stumped? Then give me a ring.
One of the most frustrating forms of this comes in the form of a last second executive wanting to meet you, on very short notice, after you think you’ve spoken to just about everyone. Typically some form of VP, and usually when this occurs, it’s someone who had “Juice” and insists they meet you to bless an offer before its officially extended.
This person thinks highly of themselves. Act accordingly.
Why won’t it end already? Why Product Interviewing Drags on and on…
As you approach receiving an offer, the process tends to get more unpredictable.
The company preparing to commit hundred of thousands of dollars for your services - as such, the need to feel extra confident you are “The right hire”.
To confirm this, I’ve regularly seen an ask to prepare some piece of work - either for presentation or simulated collaboration in the form of a Case Study Interview.
Whatever the ask, the goal is to get a proxy of how you would approach a real problem the company was is or tasked at solving.
It’s also a test to see how serious you really are about the role.
One can tell the level of effort put into these things. If you mail it and do not think through an answer and execute effectively, that will come across on the call.
You want to go above and beyond with your effort on the case study, as it’s the biggest indicator for an interview that you could be a Top Performer.
It sucks to do, but it’s worth sacrificing time elsewhere to nail this particular portion of the interview. You’ll want to approach the case study like its a real assignment with real stakes - because it is!
It’s you first assignment for a job not quite landed… yet.
This is especially important for if you land the job, as this meeting if the first opportunity to show your future co-workers you got the goods. You’ll want to approach the case study with a solid product framework, grounding the discussion in your structure.
Most important is to be the driver of a productive conversation. You should be setting the frame to which everyone else is discussing the work at hand - something you should be doing on every call you lead.
The Robust Nature of Product Management Interviewing
The wide ranging nature of a Product Management interview process is in an attempt to proxy the wide ranging and robust responsibilities innate to product management.
To succeed in landing a job, you’re going to need reps.
The first time you make it all the way to the final round interview, you likely are encountering situations you never have before. This adds difficulty due to unfamiliarity.
Each round of interviewing presents its own unique challenges to master.
As part of my paid post series of breaking into product, I try and address each and every scenario you’ll find yourself in to give background. The reality - you’re going to have to get used to being in these pressure situations.
If your good at product, the stakes are only going to get higher. Best now to embrace that pressure.
If You Are Serious About Your Product Journey
Listen, I won’t be able to solve all your problems.
The slog of running through 5+ round of interviews is part of the write of passage for product.
How bad do you want it?
Nothing worthwhile in lift comes easy. Breaking into product management is no different.
If you want that 6 figure salary.
If you want an excess of remote work options, with multiple recruiters contacting you every week because your skill set is in such demand.
If you want to call the shots, and actually build.
Then you’ve got to - above all else - decide for yourself your committed to do what it takes to pivot to product.
If your truly committed, I’m here to save you some time, sweat, tears, and heartache.
White belt services are available to save you months of a/b testing, iteration, and learning by failure.
To dial in Resume, understand where your strength lie, and adopt the perfect application strategy I offer a Product Management Resume Review + 30 minute Consult Call.
If you want real life practice with honest, unadulterated feedback of how you present yourself in an interview setting, sign up for a mock Product Interview where an IRL product Hiring Manager can give you a taste of the big leagues.
For a product consultation for a process your trying to fix, a sticking point your career, or simply the expertise of another product practitioner, sign up for a 45 minute product consult call.
I can’t do the work for you.
I can save you months of tweaks and efforts to get to maximally effective place.
I can help you max out your comp on the next role you do get.
Considering we’re talking 6 figure jobs here, that difference could be to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars - all for a couple hundred bucks.
Choice is yours, folks.
Shipped: Code delivered into production for the user-base to engage with
PNL: Profit & Loss - are you actually making money?
BowTiedWhiteBelt – What to expect from an anon cartoon in the realm of Product
White Belt advertises their service as a Resume Review and consult call. In reality, as an early client of their service, they were able to over-deliver at every turn, providing moment to moment insights like a fighter coach in the boxing ring, slugging my way to a Manager role in Product shattering the 10% comp limit with a 20% raise.
Even before our session, White Belt provided pages upon pages of insights and recommendations for how to reframe my resume and experience in addition to resources I could dive into on my own. The outline of our call was four pages long! In reviewing where I was vs where I wanted to go, White Belt was able to assess the feasibility of my goals and what it would take to get there.
On my Resume, we discussed what experience should I underscore and what I should fade based on what Product Managers would care about. Some changes were as simple as changing words that better aligned with industry jargon, others were to include projects I never thought to even be relevant!
To strengthen my interviewing, he recommended projects and accomplishments that I should reframe as answers to various Product-related interview questions. I should have few surprises in interviews going forward, as I now had a collection of projects to highlight various Product skills / abilities in response to most frequent questions. And looking back, we discussed past interviews I had, the results, and identified patterns to improve upon.
But wait, I haven’t even mentioned how White Belt not only found posted jobs they thought would be a fit, they provided step by step recommendations to navigate A) My interview B) Title negotiation C) Comp negotiation, highlighting what would matter most, how much leverage I had, what the hiring manager would concede on, and when to push for more comp. It was like having a coach in the ring at each step, which combined with my own sources at the firm, landed me a Product Manager promotion and a 20% comp increase, working from home two additional days per week! All at a company with an HR policy of ‘10% limit for comp increases’!
I would have paid four figures for this. Flat out, full stop. White Belt can increase your Recurring Income by thousands for the rest of your life, with optionality of Remote work. At the rate they’re charging, even if they only improved your odds by 10%, you’d be a clown not take advantage.