Product Manager Interview Questions

In order to ace a Product Manager interview, you need to be prepared for a range of interview questions. Although the hiring process will be different from one company to the next, you can expect that Hiring Managers will be looking to understand who you are as a candidate, your experience as a Product Manager, and what you can bring to their team.

You want to make sure that you are the right fit for the role, so there are a few steps you can take to get ready for your Product Manager interview process.

• Research the company and have a thorough understanding of its product/service. Employers may ask how you would improve their products.
• Review the results of your past work. Consider your accomplishments as a Product Manager and make notes about how many people used your product, the revenue you

You will be asked about your past experience, and employers will be eager to learn about the impact of your work.

The best way to prepare for your Product Manager interview is to practice, practice, practice.

If possible, find an experienced Product Manager to go over interview questions with you. This will set you up for success, and help you prepare answers, no matter the type of question.

To help you with your interview preparation, we have compiled a list of questions you may encounter in Product Manager interviews, as well as some questions and answers to help you stand out as a product management candidate.

Often referred to as a Mini-CEO, Product Managers are responsible for a wide variety of tasks, from understanding users to coordinating teams. To see whether you have the necessary experience for the role, a Hiring Manager will ask questions about your work and your understanding of product management practices.

Here are two examples of skills-based Product Manager interview questions and how to answer them:

Question: Pretend you’re talking to a stranger. How would you explain product management?

Answer: Product Managers make strategic, creative, and data-driven product decisions, conducting user research and market analysis to help lead a product team to create unique and attractive products that meet customers’ needs and ultimately help a company meet its business goals.

In addition to supplying a simply worded explanation of what product management is, it’s also worth treating this similar to strategy questions and including a bit more of your philosophy on the value that a product management team can bring by carefully steering products from the ideation and product design phase through launch.

Question: Please explain your approach to monitoring performance and success?

Answer: Product questions like this one should be looked at as an opportunity both to show the process you use for evaluating the success of your products, as well as a chance to brag about the success of some of your past products.

Talk about how you define relevant KPIs for each product and project you work on, then carefully monitor them whether you’re evaluating based on:

• The number of users
• Revenue
• Funnel
• Customer lifetime value
• Testing results

In your interviews, you should also mention the analytics tools, user research strategies, and other tactics you employ to build an understanding of how your products are being received and used.

Emphasize your attention to detail and adaptability in adjusting on the fly to boost lagging performance, as well as your dedication to data-driven decision-making.

Product Managers will need to understand technical concepts and translate them to non-technical audiences. You may already know how to communicate these concepts to someone on your team, but how would you explain something technical to someone else?

The purpose of this type of interview question is to assess your product management knowledge and how well you can communicate your understanding.

Here are two examples of technical Product Manager interview questions and how to answer them:

Question: Explain the key to a good user interface.

Answer: Simplicity and functionality are both crucial to a good user interface. They should be intuitive to use and navigate, with a consistent look and feel.

Try showcase a product that you think has a particularly attractive and functional interface (you could even consider showing your own work here) and another that you think doesn’t work (along with an idea or two to improve it).

Question: Do you have any technical skills that set you apart from other Product Managers?

Answer: Different companies require different levels of technical know-how from their PMs – it’s often said that Google, for instance, prefers Product Managers who have learned to code like a Software Engineer.

Before your interview, jot down all the programming languages you feel you’ve mastered, along with other areas of technical strength. Also, keep in mind that your interviewer might not come from a technical background, so be prepared to provide a layman’s translation for how those skills could bring value in a Product Manager job role.

During the interview, employers are assessing how well a candidate would fit in with their company. The purpose behind these personal questions is for an employer to get to know a candidate better and learn about their work habits, passions, and interests.

Personal questions that interviewers may ask a Product Manager include:

Question: Think back to a product idea of yours that didn’t come out as intended. Where did you go wrong, and what would you do differently?

Answer: As a Product Manager, you need to be a critical thinker. You have to know how to monitor performance and pivot on a dime, how to test and evaluate your design ideas, and how to conduct a thorough and unbiased post-mortem.

This question is an opportunity to show that you are capable of handling criticism and taking a clear-eyed critical look at your own work. It’s also a chance to show that you take ownership of your mistakes and don’t shift the blame to others. But you still want to make sure the project you choose to discuss wasn’t a total disaster.

Instead, provide an example of when you realized through some form of analytic reflection that your initial concept wouldn’t work and you made changes on the fly to fix it.

Leadership and communication are two essential skills for all Product Managers.

Most PMs sit at the head of design and development teams, and all Product Managers have to collaborate with a diverse roster of stakeholders with different job responsibilities, specialties, and goals.

To get a sense of whether you have these soft skills, questions to ask for interviewers include:

Question: Do you recall working on a project that required you to influence people that did not report to you?

Answer: It’s pretty commonplace for PMs to work with more senior employees, from Program Manager categories right up to CEOs and top company leadership.

It’s a priority for any PM to know how to achieve stakeholder alignment and not only get engineers and development teams on the same page, but also gather buy-in from senior business leadership.

Try to provide concrete strategies for how you influence them, whether it’s creating attractive data visualizations to illustrate your point, delving into user research, or other tactics.

The purpose behind behavioral questions is to see how job candidates handled past situations, since similar situations may arise in the future.

When asked for examples of conflict with more senior employees, be honest but make sure you ultimately speak in only a positive way about any colleagues, current or ex. Interviewers will be on the lookout for any signs of a difficult or stubborn personality, and any red flags here could be disqualifying.

Here is an example of a behavioral interview question for a Product Manager job:

Question: Describe a scenario that required you to say no to an idea or project.

Answer: Product Managers guide products from ideation to launch, and that means they’re involved in a great number of decisions – and brainstorming sessions. So if you’ve been in the job for any amount of time, you’ll likely have a long list of suggestions, concepts, and even projects that you’ve had to shoot down as being ineffective, unrealistic, or unoriginal.

The key in answering this question in an interview, however, is showing that you can be tactful and encouraging even in saying no. Show that you can be flexible and open-minded.

Examples of Product Manager interview questions that some of the top tech companies (including Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft) ask candidates include: