The Product Management

Interview Guide

Questions + Common Pitfalls

+ Resources

Ankit Shukla
Index

1. Product Management Skills

2. Types of Questions

3. Product Sense

4. Metrics

5. Guesstimates

6. Strategy

7. Behavioral

8. Free Resources and Question Bank

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Product Management Skills
The purpose of any product management
interview is to understand whether a candidate
has all or most of the following skills or not.

📌 User Empathy

📌 Strategic Thinking

📌 Prioritization

📌 Stakeholder Management

📌 Creative Problem Solving

📌 Data Fluency

📌 Execution Abilities

📌 Leadership and Communication

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Types of Questions
To assess these skills, companies ask a range
of questions.
Common Types are:

1️⃣ Product Sense Questions

2️⃣ Analytical and Metric Questions

3️⃣ Guesstimates & RCA

4️⃣ Technical Questions

5️⃣ Strategy Questions

6️⃣ Behavioral Questions

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Product Sense Questions
These questions are asked to understand your
problem solving skills, user empathy and
general product sense.

Examples:

📌 How would you improve your favorite

product?

📌 What would you design Facebook for travel?

📌 Design a refrigerator for kids.

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Product Sense Questions

Tips to solve these questions

🎯 Never jump to solutions.

🎯 Ask questions to understand the problem

well.

🎯 Make it interactive and repeat yourself.

🎯 Understand the context well before jumping

to any framework like CIRCLES.

🎯 Its okay to take a pause.

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Product Sense Questions

A common flow to solve these questions

1️⃣ Find Objectives

2️⃣ List Users

3️⃣ Find Pain Points

4️⃣ Brainstorm Solutions for Top Pain Points

5️⃣ Prioritize (Estimate Impact v/s Efforts)

6️⃣ Metrics (North Star, Funnel)

7️⃣ Cover any Trade-offs

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Metrics & Analytical Questions
These questions are asked to understand your
analytical skills and see how data driven or
informed you are.

Examples:

📌 How would you measure the success of

Facebook Marketplace.

📌 What are the goals of Twitter verified tick?

📌 What were the success metrics of the

product you've recently worked on?

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Metrics & Analytical Questions

Tips to solve these questions

🎯 Start with why!

🎯 Make it interactive and repeat yourself.

🎯 Understand the context well before jumping

to any framework.

🎯 Make the complete user journey and find

how would you measure success.

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Metrics & Analytical Questions

A common flow to solve these questions

1️⃣ Find Why this feature was created. North Star.

2️⃣ Map the user flow.

3️⃣ Find major points of conversion.

4️⃣ Define what is success for users and business,

how is it visible?

5️⃣ Find any "do not disturb" metrics.

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Guesstimates and RCA
These questions are aimed to find your
problem diagnoses and solving skills - a super
helpful skill for product managers.

Examples:

📌 How do you measure the impact of any

feature?

📌 How many planes fly each day from Mumbai

Airport?

📌 Number of songs played on Spotify have

gone down by 20%, how would you diagnose
the situation?

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Guesstimates and RCA

Tips to solve these questions

🎯 Don't get overwhelmed by the vagueness of

these questions.

🎯 Show your ability to think on your feet.

🎯 The answer always never matters, your

approach does.

🎯 Keep your solution structured to keep it

simple for you and your interviewer.

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Guesstimates and RCA

A common flow to solve Guesstimates questions

1️⃣ Clarify the questions and identify the key

variables involved.

2️⃣ Make reasonable assumptions and estimate

each variable independently.

3️⃣ Combine the estimated variables to arrive at a

solution

4️⃣ Iterate and refine your estimates if necessary,

considering additional factors or adjusting

assumptions.

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Guesstimates and RCA

A common flow to solve RCA questions

1️⃣ Setup why the subject metric is important.

2️⃣ Identify is this is a trend of one-off phenomenon

3️⃣ Specify scope: OS, Geography, User Segment

etc.

4️⃣ Identify internal factors: New features, Tech

Glitches etc.

5️⃣ Identify external factors: Market changes,

Competition launches.

6️⃣ Articulate the possible reasons and suggested

solutions

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Strategy and Business Sense
These questions are aimed to find your
strategic thinking abilities.

Examples:

📌 Should Google enter into commute and

travel?

📌 Should Microsoft acquire Canva?

📌 How to launch a product in a new market?

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Strategy and Business Sense

Tips to solve these questions

🎯 There is no one framework that fits these

questions well. Understand the context in
detail.

Use a combination of mental models like

👉🏽 SWOT analysis

👉🏽 PORTER's 5 Forces

👉🏽 PESTLE

👉🏽 ANSOFF Matrix

Build your domain matter expertise by referring

to resource in the end.

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Behavioral Questions
These questions are aimed to find your
communication, leadership and stakeholder
management skills.

Examples:

📌 Explain one situation when you managed a

difficult reportee.

📌 What are your weaknesses?

📌 Sales people are after you with a request for

a new feature, while developers are busy. What
would you do?

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Behavioral Questions

Tips to solve these questions

📌 Read between the lines. These questions are

asked to get specific insights about your
personality.

📌 Complaining never helps.

📌 Always add: what you learned from that

situation.

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Behavioral Questions

Common Structure to answer

1️⃣ Analyze the specific behavior or scenario

being asked and identify the key elements.

2️⃣ Recall relevant personal experiences or

examples that demonstrate the desired
behavior or skill.

3️⃣ Structure your response using the STAR

method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to
provide a clear and concise answer.

4️⃣ Highlight the impact and lessons learned

from your behavior, emphasizing your ability to
handle similar situations effectively.

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