Home > Work > Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology
1 " One reason product management is such an appealing career is you get to sit at the intersection of technology, business, and design. "
― Gayle Laakmann McDowell , Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology
2 " Clarify goals and gather satisfaction metrics. Determine the people and skills needed to complete a project. Set up project management tools, plans and processes. Run status meetings and gather status reports. Analyze data to identify opportunities. Identify & implement changes to improve efficiency. Manage changes that come in from the customer. Find ways to keep the project on track even when things go wrong. "
3 " You should also use the product yourself, and you should use it extensively across multiple user types. If it’s a product with free and paying users, try to use it in both scenarios (if possible). Think about what parts you enjoyed and what you didn’t. Pay particularly close attention to anything that would have turned you away if you weren’t “forced” to check it out. "
4 " Behavioral questions tend to fall into one of five areas, so you’ll want to make sure that you have good coverage of these topics across your five key stories. These common topics are: Leadership & Influence Challenges Mistakes / failures Successes Teamwork You should have at least one story per topic. Ideally, several of your stories will fall under two or more categories. "
5 " We wants people with inquisitive minds. People who look at things from multiple perspectives. As a PM, you’ll wear many hats, so how you think is more important than any particular technical skill. "
6 " The launch process varies from team to team but usually involves things like: Running through a launch checklist. There might be final approvals from key stakeholders like Legal or coordination steps with teams like Marketing and Operations. Making sure that the teams who will support the product going forward are prepared. For a web product this might be the customer service team; for a hardware product it could be the manufacturing team; for a service-based product it could be the operations team. Preparing for all the things that could go wrong. As the release nears, urgent issues inevitably pop up, and the PM thinks on her feet to fight the fires. "
7 " Ask about who you’ll be working with on your core and extended team. Find out how much of your time will be spent writing specs and how much you’ll be working with designers. Learn where the balance is between PMs, designers, and engineers in making product decisions. "
8 " One reason product management is such an appealing career is you get to sit at the intersection of technology, business, and design. You get to wear many hats and learn multiple points of view. As a product manager, you’ll be the advocate for the "
9 " Shipped software can also be great for people who want a good work/life balance, since there aren’t usually urgent issues that need to be fixed within hours. "
10 " Not trusting the engineers’ estimates and promising other teams that the work will be done sooner than the engineers agree to is one of the fastest ways to ruin your relationship with the team. "
11 " Here are some skills you can emphasize when looking for PM roles: "
12 " Prioritization is one of the product manager’s most important functions at this point; if the team were to fix every bug and build every new feature idea, the product would never launch. The "
13 " You’ll focus on everything from the big picture to the small details. One day you might brainstorm the three-year vision for your team, while the next day you work through the details of the buttons in a dialog. "
14 " Prioritization is one of the product manager’s most important functions at this point; if the team were to fix every bug and build every new feature idea, the product would never launch. "
15 " In the coming phases, everyone on the team will have questions, including “why are we working on this?”, and the PM will need to have answers. "
16 " Data-driven PMs can do very well working on consumer products because they’re able to make a strong case for their proposals, and they often can come up with features that will make a difference to the core metrics the company cares about. "
17 " PMs who like doing customer research and market analysis could enjoy working on B2B products. These are also the products where PMs tend to exert the most influence, so they can be a very satisfying place to work. "
18 " This desire will be reflected in the job descriptions for "
19 " If you’re interviewing to be a PM, it’s good to look at every problem starting with “Who is the customer?” and “What is success? "
20 " Credibility is the currency of a PM, "
