Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology (Cracking the Interview & Career)

by Gayle Laakmann McDowell

is a troubled industry. However, their sales have declined 10% while those of their closest competitor have declined just over 5%. How would you handle this issue? A particular page on Facebook results in an error 10% of the time. What could cause t...

would you go about creating a plan to do this? You own a small ecommerce website that specializes in selling sporting goods. Last year you made almost $200k in profit. This year it was just $80k. What could have happened, and how wou...

of pricing: free, standard, and premium. What would you do if you see that the sales of the premium product have fallen but those of the standard product have increased? Two children are running lemonade stands, just a few blocks awa...

than the other? You are about to launch a major change to the user interface of your company’s website. What sort of metrics would you want to monitor to notify you if there’s a problem? You notice that the Google AdWords...

last 30 days. This is an important one, so Google has asked you to figure out what has happened...

“Startup Metrics for Pirates.” Dave McClure. 8 August, 2007. http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version 2 “...

Evaluation of your performance is not about whether you got the problem “right” or not. This has little meaning. Rather, the evaluation is a lot more qualitative and, frankly, subjective:

How willing were you to solve the problem? If you get scared and give up, that’s a red flag. Interviewers want candidates who are excited about solving hard problems. They tend to make good employees. How quickly did you solve it? How optimal was your algorithm? How did you approach the problem? How much help did you need?

How clean was your code? How was your communication in discussing the problem? How did you react to feedback and guidance from the interviewer? None of these aspects are yes/no decisions.

How To Approach Coding and algorithm questions are designed to test your problem-solving skills. Therefore, you want to show the interviewer how you’re approaching the problem. The following approach works well: Clarify the Problem: Make sure

you understand what the problem is asking. Ask questions to verify any assumptions. For example, if it’s a binary tree, is it a binary search tree? Is it balanced? You might even want to repeat the problem back in your own words. Go to the Whiteboard: When you hear a problem, go to the whiteboard and create an example for

this problem. Your example should be general enough to help you solve the problem and should avoid special cases. Talk Out Loud: Talk out loud and brainstorm solutions with your interviewer. If you can think of a brute-force solution, but you don’t ...

interviewer. At least it will give you a jumping-off point for solving the problem. Think Critically: Once you’ve come up with an algorithm, think through whether it really works. What is its big O time? Can you do better? Does it actu...

Code, Slowly and Methodically: Once you and your interviewer are comfortable with the code, go ahead and start coding on the whiteboard. If it helps, you can write out some pseudocode first. Make sure when you’re coding that you really, truly understand wha...

back and think through your algorithm. Rushing will not help you do better. Test and Fix: Just because there’s no computer doesn’t mean you don’t test. You must test your code. In this case, you’ll walk through your code with the edge ca...

Whatever you do, approach the problem energetically. Don’t be discouraged when you struggle, and don’t give up. Interviewers want to see that you’ll push your way through problems.