Acing that Associate Product Manager Interview
Here's a framework that will help you prepare for and crack your APM interview. No sweat!
If you’re new to Product Management and looking to throw your hat into the ring for the first time, my last article set of articles should have helped you get a better understanding of how Early Stage tech companies work and how to go about finding or creating an Associate Product Manager position by offering value to the decision-makers. If you haven’t seen my earlier posts on Product Management in Early Stage companies, I’d ask you to give the previous posts in this series a lookover before continuing on with this one.
Over the course of my career so far, I’ve been on both sides of the table, interviewing dozens of candidates and being interviewed as an applicant at Early Stage startups. I aim to distill the knowledge gathered from both these scenarios to present a working guide to what you need to know before interviewing at an Early Stage startup. This article is going to be tailored toward people who aim to land their first position in Product Management at an Early Stage startup. However, the insights you gain from here can definitely be applied to more senior Product positions and interviews at big tech.
1. Know the ins and outs of the company you’re interviewing at
You’ll find me repeating this over and over throughout the course of this series. This is because I cannot stress this enough. Unlike big tech where tens of resumes are sifted through a mesh of AI and word analytics, Early Stage startups only have the time to personally look at a handful of profiles. You also find instances where a job title and a job description are personally created just to match with a profile. Doing your research on the company, their goals, their last capital raise or even the person you’re speaking with will make a fantastic first impression.
In order to familiarise yourself with company facts,
Review the company website closely
Scan through the company's social media posts for insights into the daily happenings
Review the Profiles of the people you’re going to be speaking with during the interview and proactively connect with them on LinkedIn
Talk to current employees to get a feel for the company culture
The best time to flaunt your knowledge of the company would be at the very beginning of the interview (eg. open with a congratulatory message about their new office/ investment) or at the very end during the question session
2. Spend time using the Product
One of the hallmarks that makes a good product manager is curiosity. Make sure that you download the target company’s application and spend time on every screen and function. Ask yourself very simple questions like why a certain button is placed in a particular position, is an API response taking longer than normal, and why the signup flow is different from other apps on the market. The purpose of this exercise is to develop your curiosity - a skill that will serve you well for the rest of your Product Management career and to get you into the thinking mindset of a Product Manager at the target company.
Make sure that you don’t fall into the vagueness trap with this one. Firm up your questions so that they are straight and to the point asking about a single flow or element of the Product or service.
In terms of when you should bring this insider knowledge up, that depends on how you landed your interview. If you used the Value Deck approach, I’m assuming that you’ve already completed this step and can bring this up right at the start of the interview. If you applied through a job post or without a Value Deck, you can wait until the question session to bring up these insider Product questions.
3. The nitty-gritty of the interview
Most Product Management interviews use a pretty standard series of interview rounds. The only area I would ask you to focus on would be analytical questions eg. how many tennis balls would fit into an Olympic-sized swimming pool? Here the interviewer is testing your thought process to better understand if you are a structured thinker and not really testing the numerical accuracy of the outcome. Apart from analytical curveball questions, there are a few standard Product Management interview rounds such as the infamous Product Sense question, Metric Analysis with cases, Root Cause Analysis, Prioritization, and Project Management.
If you’re curious, look these terms up by all means but I’m going to go ahead and ask you not to focus on these too much. This is because if you’re new to Product Management, a deep knowledge of everyday Product Management tasks is not expected of you and interviewers are looking at potential rather than immediate results.
4. Be yourself
One of the most enjoyable things of working in an Early Stage startup is that you can be yourself without feeling like just a statistic. Apart from knowing all your coworkers by name, you are often invested in the health and well-being of everyone on your team. As self-proclaimed disruptors, quirks and a sense of individuality are deeply valued in an Early Stage startup.
Don’t try too hard to fit into the stereotype of a diligent Product Manager but get comfortable and be yourself. Being genuine will definitely fetch you some brownie points with the interviewer.
5. Don’t spend too much time on your CV
I intentionally have not covered how to frame your CV. This is because if you’re applying to an APM position as someone who is new to Product Management, just like what I said earlier, the interviewer is not really going to scrutinize your work unless it is directly related to Product Management. If you’ve done related work in the past that overlaps with Product Management, Marketing, Project Management, or Operations Management, make sure to highlight this experience and frame it in relation to the job that you’re applying for.
The only tip I have for you is to be honest and genuine about what you put on your CV.
Just putting in the work to follow these steps will already put you in the top 5% of applicants. Now take a deep breath before you start and go ace that interview.
Good luck!
Stay frosty.