Product Manager Interview Questions
About the role
A product manager is responsible for identifying customer needs and the larger business objectives that the product should working towards. They generally spend their time collecting, analysis and prioritising customer needs as well as working on the larger features/updates that'll push the product forward. Product manager roles require strong organisational and prioritisation skills as well as a deeper understanding of what customers and competitors/ the wider market is doing.
Product manager responsibilities
- Understanding and representing user needs in product changes
- Monitoring the market and developing competitive analyses
- Defining the product roadmap and overall vision for the product
- Aligning stakeholders and the wider organisation around the vision for the product
- Prioritising product features and bug fixes
What skills should you be looking for?
The dev team has been working towards the big release of a new tool. The planned release date is end of day tomorrow, but there are a number of bugs in it. What would you do?
How would you go about designing a ride-sharing app for blind people?
(We're interested in the process and your approach, not features)
One of the teams has had an awesome idea for a big new feature but you're concerned that it might impact users negatively.
Outline briefly how you might go about deciding whether to build it or not.
Imagine the Customer Success Team come to you with a list of bugs to solve today. What pieces of information would you need to help you prioritise and how would you weigh them against the current features we are building in a sprint?
What digital product do you use regularly and love? What problem(s) does it solve and why is it awesome?
What are structured interview questions?
Structured questions (or work samples) are highly predictive, job-specific questions designed to simulate parts of a job.
Structured work sample questions are the most predictive form of assessment you can use. Why? Because they directly test for skills by asking candidates to think as if they were already in the job.
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Diversity
Testing for skills instead of just experience makes interviews a more inclusive process. 60%+ of candidates hired through our process would've been missed using CVs/traditional interviews - most of whom are from underrepresented groups.
Accuracy
By simulating tasks that would realistically occur in the role, you can see how candidates would think and work should they get the job.What could be more predictive than having candidates do small parts of the job before actually getting it?
Candidate experience
Candidates genuinely enjoy being given a chance to showcase their ability - this is why we have a 9/10 average candidate experience rating (including unsuccessful candidates).
Decide on the skills you’re looking for
Choose 6-8 core skills required for success in the role. These can be a mix of hard, technical skills as well as soft skills and general working characteristics.You could also include one or two of your organisation's most relevant values.
Think of scenarios that would test these skills
Next, come up with either everyday tasks or rarer, more challenging scenarios that would test some of these skills. They can be day-to-day duties, bigger projects or specific dilemmas that a candidate may realistically face. Should they get the job.
Pose scenarios hypothetically to create your questions
Instead of your typical ‘tell me a time when’ questions, ask candidates what they would do if faced with a given scenario.It's not that experience doesn't have any value… it's just more predictive to test directly for skills, without making assumptions based on background.
Give yourself scoring criteria
Want to make more data-driven hiring decisions? Score candidates against set criteria.We’d recommend starting out with a simple 1-5 star scale and a few bullet points noting what a good, mediocre and bad answer might include.
Use review panels
Having team members join your interviews will result in fairer, more accurate scores.Three is the magic number - you’ll start seeing diminishing return after that