In my last post, I wrote about tips for cracking the Product Manager interview in India. This post is about some of the interview questions I have faced while looking for a Product Manager job in 2017 and then during 2020. The questions below are categorised based on the type of questions, about which I have written in details in my previous post.
1. Define yourself
- Introduce yourself (asked at all interviews).
- Why are you looking for a change?
- Why did you apply to this job?
- If I were to ask your current manager of your strong point and areas of improvement, what would that be?
- If I were to talk to your colleagues from 2,3 years ago and ask them to tell me 3 of your qualities what would that be?
- What would be your biggest stretch if you take up this job?
- What are 3 adjectives that define you?
- What is your legacy at the company you worked the longest?
- What are the 3 things you look for in a company?
2. Behavioral questions
Experience specific questions I faced: (though they are not the typical Behavioral Questions, preparing for Behavioral Questions help answer these questions in a structured manner).
- Explain your latest project.
- What is the most frustrating part of your work?
- What is the best part of your work? Which is the part you enjoy the most?
- For the user interviews that conducted for a previous project, what are the types of customers and personas that were interviewed?
- What were some of the key metrics that were tracked at the start of the project and which you compared towards the end to make sure the project was successful?
- What inputs did you consider to prioritize stories for the subsequent releases after the first launch?
- What did you do during your break from work?
3. Product and Design questions
- You are a consultant recruited by an large MNC to help reduce stress and improve collaboration of its employees who are undergoing tremendous stress from the long working hours and the new open office culture. Employees use the ping-pong tables installed on each floor to take breaks.
Additional information:
- You would be given 90 mins to work on the case study. Your screen should be shared during this time so the interviewer can see your approach. At the end of the 90 mins, please provide your solution along with a wireframe of the solution.
- You would have the opportunity to interview a user, business sponsor, buddy PM and product designer.
- The emphasis is on the approach taken to solve the case study.
4. Case Study questions
- Imagine you are the PM for Uber. You notice that cabs are not getting rides from airport back to the city. How would you solve this problem? What data would you look at to see what might be the issue?
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Imagine you are the PM for Flipkart which is merging with Walmart.
- What would be some of the requirements to list Walmart products in the Flipkart website?
- How would be the ranking and blending algorithm to be used to list the products?
- What would be some requirements for customer feedback when the customer places an order for a Walmart product in the Flipkart website?
- Imagine in future, the 2 systems are to be integrated. What are some parameters you would use to decide which system would stay and which one would be made redundant.
5. Estimation questions
I have attended PM interviews for 7 firms in India so far and I have never been asked an estimation question and I have not known anyone who has been asked an estimation question.
6. Cloud based questions
- What is unique about the cloud?
- What are some unique challenges with cloud?
- Assume you are the CEO of a cloud based start-up. Create a business plan to present to your investors showing the value and costs from using cloud.
- What is the difference between a platform and an application?
- Imagine you are the PM for a group creating APIs. What would be some of the requirements you would be writing?
- What are the authentications you would implement as a PM for a team creating APIs.
7. Others
Some other questions I faced: You don’t need a lot of preparation to answer these if you have past PM work experience.
Sprint Management
- Explain how your sprints worked? Explain the various sprint ceremonies.
- What formats do you write requirements in?
- How do you prioritize the requirements?
- What is your role as a product manager in the sprint planning meeting?
- What part of the product manager role involves project management?
- Do you have any certifications in Agile?
- Did you use any project management tools related to Agile in your current project?
- How long is your current sprint?
- What are any issues with delay in deliverables that you face while working in Scrum? And how did you handle it?
- Where is your Scrum team located and what is the size of your Scrum team?
- How do you communicate with your Scrum team?
Stakeholder Management
- How do you handle multiple stakeholders when all of them demand their requirements be prioritized?
- How do you work with virtual teams?
- What has been your experience working with situations where the business priorities keep changing?
- Email me a sample communication you would send out to your stakeholders that was sent as part of your PO role.
- What are some technical challenges that you faced while working with technical teams?
- Role play: If you were presenting a meeting where you were listing the prioritised requirement and one of the participants were upset that they didn’t see their requirement in the list, how would you handle this situation?
- Role play: if this person is upset and says you should have already known about this, how would you say?
- Now you have received the requirement from the business area, what would you do next?
- What are the parameters you would collect before you meet the project sponsor to prioritise the requirement?
- Would you always consult the project sponsor?
- Suppose the user impact was quite low, what would you handle this?
- How would you communicate with the person who originally raised this concern in the earlier meeting?
- Working in teams: If I was working with you and you were dependent on me to give you something to complete a piece of work and I didn’t give it to you, how would be deal with it?
- What if in spite of reminders, I refuse to give you the deliverable?
- I have proven to you that I am a slacker, how would you deal with it?
- At what point are you going to confront me with the issue?
Product Manager Role related
- What is the difference in a PO and a BA?
- How do you do road mapping?
- While doing MVP, how do you decide on which feature to prioritise on?
- If you were to tell someone who is trying to become a product owner, what would be the 3 important things you would tell them.
- When you join a new team/project? How do you go about coming up to speed?
- How do you prioritise work?
You can check out this post for tips for cracking the Product Manager interview in India.