Product Manager Interview Questions

I have personally interviewed dozens of people throughout my career.  The majority of the people I interviewed were seeking product management roles on my team.  I have interviewed for roles where I am a direct manager but also for people under a manager or director who reported to me.  This is a list of the top questions I asked the candidates I interviewed.  

When you are being interviewed one of the most important things is to show your value to the interviewer, you want to be able to answer "Why should I hire you?"

I typically provided the HR team with a list of screener questions to gauge that the candidate met the minimum requirements of the role.   As a hiring manager, I looked for examples of their work, how they handled certain situations, problem-solving skills, and a culture fit. When I asked questions like "Tell me about a time when a project you were working on did not go as planned", I wanted to hear about the situation, what action the interviewee took and what were the outcomes or results. 

Phone Screening Questions: 

In the phone screen I want HR to understand if they can do the job, and why they want to work for us.

1. What does a typical day look like for you as a product manager? or 

2. What does a product manager do?

3. Why do you want this job?

4. What tools have you used to manage the development process?

5. Is there a single thing that you feel is most important as a Product Manager?

Top 10 Product Manager (PM) Interview Questions

1. Tell me what the job you are applying for and why it’s a great fit for your career. When I ask this question I am trying to determine career ambition, and drive, is the candidate interested in product management?

2. Share some insights on how you would improve our product. What would you do to improve conversions on our site?  Goals: Have they learned about our business on their own, initiative? Are they interested in working here?

3. Walk me through a successful major project you were heavily involved in, and tell me about your role during the project.

   1. Follow Up to this question: If you were to change anything about the project, what would you have done differently and why? 

4. Walk me through a time when you figured out what to build. How did you get to the decision to move forward? What was that process? What was the outcome?

5. Tell me about a situation where you had a conflict at work either with a peer, developer, or manager.  How did you resolve it?  What did you do?

6. How many people are flying out of SFO today?  How would you figure that out?  I want them to walk me through their thinking and how they would solve the problem.

7. Give me an example of a product you love or hate and why?

8. Give me an example of when you had to influence others who disagreed with you or where you had difficulty building consensus and how you overcame it.

9. Practical Question:  We want to a marketplace to our app.  How would you approach it?  I am your stakeholder, what questions would you ask?  What would your user story look like?  What data would you want to look at? 

10. How do you prioritize development work? 

    1. Follow-up:  How do you communicate your product strategy and roadmap?

Additional PM Interview Questions: 

1. How do you figure out what features your customers need? 

2. What is one of your favorite products?  Why do you like it?  Follow-up Question:  How would you improve it?

3. Have you ever built an MVP?  How did you decide what to build?