A resource guide 'good enough' to get you started with PM interviews
Hello Hello 👋
Welcome to another edition of my newsletter. This resource guide has been one of the most requested articles by the community. I’ve finally put together a guide based on my own experience and included resources that genuinely helped me get better and crack interviews.
Books are the first and foremost thing that I recommend starting preparation with. Here it goes!
Books 📚
Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell and Jackie Bavaro
This book is a must read! No preparation would be complete without reading this book at least once. It talks about the PM role, how it differs in different companies, how to get the right experience, how to transition into the role, personal accounts of PMs before finally getting deeper into the PM interview process and how to crack it.
I recommend reading this book from a hard copy as you can literally open this book from any page and start reading it.
Decode and Conquer by Lewis Lin
This book contains all the necessary (and famous!) frameworks that you need to crack a PM interview. These include frameworks like CIRCLES method, AARM method, and DIGS method along with some sample questions and answers showing the application of these frameworks.
The Product Manager Interview by Lewis Lin
This book gives you actual PM interview questions to practice with fully solved solutions and is a supplement to Decode and Conquer. It contains questions on product design, pricing, metrics, estimation, etc. It is helpful while you are solving questions on your own. Use this as a resource on side to evaluate your thought process and answers.
Some other books that I recommend reading to learn more about the PM role and how PMs build great products but are not required to start interviewing:
Swipe to Unlock: The Primer on Technology and Business Strategy
The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
In addition to the books, I recommend knowing and understanding some of the following PM interview frameworks. These may already be covered in the books above!
PM Interview Frameworks ⛩
STAR framework to structure behavioral stories.
CIRCLES method to find innovative solutions to any problem with a structured approach.
Double Diamond design framework to tackle a problem in structured way.
RICE framework to prioritize features on a product roadmap or backlog.
AARM framework to brainstorm product metrics.
5Ws and H to effectively investigate a problem space.
5Es to build customer journey maps effectively.
PEDALS method to systematically answer system design questions.
AIDA framework to model the customer decision making process.
4Ps or the Marketing Mix to understand the different aspects of a product’s approach to marketing.
SWOT framework to analyze companies, products, their opportunities and strategies.
Porter’s 5 Forces to analyze an industry.
5Cs to provide the overview of the environment for a product or decision.
RFM framework to segment customers based on their behavior.
HEART framework to choose the right UX metrics for the product.
4D’s to prioritize work and manage time effectively.
While you are reading the books and understanding the frameworks above, it is time for you to see all the theoretical knowledge and frameworks in action. I recommend watching mock interview videos on the following Youtube channels.
Youtube Channels 🎥
This is one of my favorite and the best Youtube channel out there to start preparing for interviews. They have numerous videos explaining different frameworks and mock interviews with actual PMs for different question types. I watched one video almost everyday while I was preparing for my PM interviews!
This channel has some great PM interview preparation videos as well and I used this as a supplement to Exponent. The videos on this channel follow a very structured and methodical interviewing approach, which is great!
Some other recommended channels that are worth taking a look at:
After reading the books and watching the videos, it is time for you to practice different questions and internalize whatever you have learnt so far. I recommend joining online PM communities where you can practice mock interviews with people who are preparing for the interviews as well. Here are some communities that I recommend.
PM Communities 🤝
This community is free to join and has good quality and quantity of candidates preparing for PM interviews. This is the where I practiced the most number of interviews and found the most value. You can also sign up for paid group or individual coaching sessions.
Exponent offers a robust platform for peer mock interviews where they match you with a peer between 8 AM to 6 PM PST everyday.
Lewis Lin’s Interview Community
You can join this Slack community to find yourself peers to practice with.
Some other platforms that offer peer mock interviews:
I recommend doing at least 20 mock interviews across different types of questions before you can start feeling confident about interviews. If you’d like to practice a few questions on your own before doing mock interviews, here are some question banks that I’d recommend practicing with.
PM Interview Question Banks❓
This would be my top recommendation to start practicing questions as you can practice questions aloud along with a timer to see if you can wrap up your answers within an appropriate time. It contains questions from all question categories and has a neat interface to use!
Behavioral Interviews Preparation Matrix - The Ultimate Question Bank
I created this question bank as a one-stop shop to get better at behavioral interviews and storytelling! It contains 110+ curated behavioral questions across 11 categories based on my personal interviewing experience. This preparation matrix will help your stories become really crisp and impactful! You can read more about it here👇
As a subscriber of Pragmatism, you can use the discount code pragmatism-30 on the checkout page to avail a 30% discount on the template.
They have a great question bank with over 2000+ questions and answers added by the community across different question types. Though you might have to pay to unlock all the questions. I recommend taking a 1 month subscription and power through the questions.
Top 50 Product Manager Interview Questions [2022 Guide] by Exponent
This question bank has top 50 questions with mock interview videos for each question type.
Some other question banks that are worth taking a look at:
Note: Be sure to review the interview questions on Glassdoor before interviewing for a particular company.
While it is great to know and practice with all of the resources above, different blogs and publications always come in handy with unique perspectives and resources. Here is the list that I have always referred to and found helpful.
Miscellaneous Blogs, Publications and Resources 🗞
Jackie Bavaro’s blog. Her blog has everything right from interviewing to building a successful PM career. This is one of my favorite article from her and helped me crack a bunch of technical PM interview rounds.
Product Manager HQ blog. This is one of my favorite article from the blog and again, helped me crack technical PM interview rounds.
🛑 BUT.. 🛑
No matter how much you prepare, you'll never ever feel ready to interview. You just need to start interviewing right away! You really have nothing to lose. The worst that can happen is receiving a rejection, which is completely normal. Do not take rejections personally and get demotivated. Rejections are not a reflection of your skill or capability. Actual product interviews are the best way to learn and get better. Interview more and more and interviewing will no longer seem tedious.
Keep preparing and keep interviewing, in tandem :)
If there are resources that you’ve found helpful, be sure to leave them in the comments or send me a note about it. I’ll be sure to update the post and include that resource here as well for the larger community.
Questions? Just reply to this email and ask! Or let me know about a topic that you’d like to read about next :)
Sincerely,
Tanay 👋