An interview is inherently stressful for a lot of folks, particularly early in career. It’s a short window to talk with a person about changing companies, changing roles, returning to the workforce, starting a career. You might not seal the deal in a given interview, but you can certainly close the door in one. Perhaps there’s something about the gloriously, infuriatingly squishy product management role that increases the stress. What is the hiring manager (HM) looking for? Surely it’s not just what’s in the job description (JD)?
Well, a typical PM JD might read like this (copied from a job I currently have posted, with identifying material filed off):
- Present roadmaps and investigate use cases with customers and partners
- Triage and prioritize incoming feature requests, bug reports, and project ideas
- Maintain development team backlog in light of company strategy and team goals
- Maintain status visibility with leadership and stakeholders across the company
- Understand and communicate the fiscal cost-benefit and license impact of projects
- Work with marketing and customer success to establish clear “golden path” use cases and enable the field with these materials
- Develop and deliver public resources (videos, blogs, talks) supporting the product
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify and fill gaps in product offering or product enablement
- Monitor and analyze the effectiveness of your product through metrics and stakeholder feedback to drive continuous improvement
- Serve as the central point of contact for your product, providing proactive assistance and expertise to elevate team performance
- We are a remote-first company and work happens across many time-zones – you may be required to occasionally perform duties outside your standard working hours
- 5+ years of experience in Product Management or a related role, with a focus on relevant technology, or 5+ years of experience working in a customer-facing Technical Sales role, preferably in this industry, and strong familiarity with this space
- Proven ability to manage delivery and maintenance of systems that drive measurable outcomes
- Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple programs and priorities simultaneously
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate business requirements and technical concepts into actionable requirements
- Experience collaborating across departments, including Sales, Product, Marketing, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success teams
- Familiarity with enterprise development platforms and tools
- Experience with our free online product
- Self-starter with a strategic mindset, attention to detail, and a drive for continuous improvement
Those requirements are accurate. People who fall short on some of them might still get the job and coaching, but they’ll need to come up to speed fast. Still, that’s a lot of words! Let’s ask ChatGPT to summarize:
The role involves managing the product lifecycle by prioritizing feature requests, maintaining team backlogs, and ensuring alignment with company goals. You’ll collaborate across departments (Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Customer Success) to define use cases, drive product adoption, and support enablement. Responsibilities include engaging with customers and partners, developing public-facing resources, analyzing product effectiveness, and serving as the central contact for the product. The position requires strong communication and project management skills, a strategic mindset, and experience in product management or technical sales. It also demands cross-functional collaboration and comfort working in a remote, distributed environment.
Not wrong, but note that it removes the “use our free online product” which probably explains why candidates often show up without product familiarity. Tip: if you get a PM interview with a company that has a free online trial, you should take a few minutes to try that thing out.
What I don’t understand is why candidates show up to an interview with ChatGPT open on the side. Several times in this cycle I have had candidates respond to a simple question with “give me a moment to organize my thoughts.” Sometimes they hold a pen in their hand to hide that they’re typing. But it’s kind of a tell when they respond with ChatGPT’s answer, in the same order, using the same framework recommendations. The answers aren’t wrong: they’re motherhood and apple pie pablum with no recognition that prioritization hurts.
This job’s salary range is $190,000 – $215,000, plus benefits and pre-IPO options… it’s well above the worry line. This pay does not come in exchange for typing prompts into ChatGPT… I am able to do that myself. Rather, I am looking for people who think and work on their own. As I have experienced these interviews and rejected these candidates, I have asked myself if I am being fair. After all, maybe the chatbot is just another tool, like a spreadsheet! I certainly can’t do the work in a spreadsheet’s pivot table on my own with a piece of paper, after all! So maybe I should cut these people a break for using a tool to support their interview? And yet, no. I am a pretty gentle and cuddly interviewer, I want people to succeed. I am looking for signal that they know the industry and have opinions about product management and our tech stack. I typically defer the technical grilling to another member of my team who’ll be better at it anyway. If people need to go to a chatbot to answer “how do you prioritize a backlog” and “how do you solve a long tail market problem”, they’re not comfortable with fundamentals. That means they’re not going to be successful at this job, which includes plenty of pressure and doubt. My expectation is that a candidate is able to do the job. Thinking and talking are part of the job.
And that’s whycome using a chatbot in your interview is an automatic disqualifier.
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