The Top 7 Most Challenging Product Manager Interview Questions - And How To Answer Them To Land A Job Offer Fast!

If you're seeking a product management position, you know how challenging the interview questions can be. With so much competition, fewer than 1% of all candidates actually land the job they're applying for. In fact, most applicants don't make it past the first round of interviews. The question is, why is this process so difficult, and how can you give yourself an edge over the competition? 

Dr. Nancy Li, who developed a proven framework for helping thousands land product management jobs in their dream FAANG or unicorn startup company, found it generally comes down to the questions being asked. These questions are designed to challenge you and often catch the applicant off-guard. Proper preparation is the only way to ensure you're ready for whatever the interviewer throws your way. Fortunately, we've compiled a list of the most challenging questions you can expect when applying for a product management position and provided the proven framework developed by Dr. Nancy Li on how to answer them effectively.

Preparing for the Interview

Challenging product management interview questions occur in a wide range of industries, including FAANG companies, healthcare, fintech, AI, and even unicorn startups. Companies within these fields all ask the following interview questions. Let's explore these questions and discuss the best way to answer them. 

Question 1 - Product Design 

By far, product design questions are a favorite for hiring managers since they let them see your creativity and get a better understanding of your problem-solving abilities. When it comes to these types of questions, Dr. Nancy Li suggests using a modified version of the CIRCLES framework. The traditional CIRCLES framework involves:

• Comprehending the situation
• Identifying the customer
• Reporting the customer's needs
• Cutting through prioritization
• Listing solutions
• Evaluating tradeoffs
• Summarizing recommendations

While this approach works, it falls short when accounting for today's highly competitive PM environment. The modified framework Dr. Li created enables you to deliver more thoughtful, well-rounded responses to the interviewer's product design questions. The modified CIRCLES framework entails:

• Determining the mission of the project and why it's needed
• Asking clarifying questions
• Utilizing customer segmentation, including sub-customer segmentation
• Prioritization
• Pain point identification
• Prioritization (again)
• Listing solutions
• Prioritize solutions by current importance

As you can see, the updated framework allows for more customized responses based on the needs of the company, its customers, and the product being developed. You can apply this methodology to any product design questions like: Design an app for a museum or design an Uber app for bling people. By implementing steps like determining the mission of the project and asking clarifying questions, you can show the interviewer your critical thinking skills. 

Utilizing customer segmentation, prioritization, and pain point identification shows a comprehensive understanding of the customer and how the company can meet their needs. Listing solutions in order of importance showcases your ability to prioritize under pressure, a vital skill for any product manager. 

You can check out this blog for more information on how to effectively use the modified CIRCLES framework to help ace your interview. 

Questions 2 - Product Strategy Questions

The second hardest question asked during many product management interviews concerns product strategy. While these questions may seem relatively straightforward on the surface, the problem is that many people try to answer them with long-term profit goals in mind, instead of thinking about the customer. It's understandable that you want to show the value you bring by demonstrating how your solutions will help grow the company, but this mindset isn't what interviewers are looking for. 

They want to see how your solutions solve the customer's pain points and create long-term solutions that enhance their lives. In other words, don't fall into the trap of making it all about the company; remember your goal is to solve the needs of the customer. For product strategy questions, Dr. Li created the GUCCI framework, which stands for:

G - Goals and Mission

U - Unmet Customer Needs

C - Customer Segmentation

C- Competition

I - Integrated Ecosystem

Now, let's look at how to use this framework with a typical product strategy question. How should LYFT enter the Indian market? Start by determining the company's goals and mission, keeping their current business strategy in mind. Next, turn your focus to the Indian customer and their unique needs. Consider pain points like crowded streets, economic circumstances, and public transportation availability and accessibility. 

With customer segmentation, you can determine who will use the service and what features would make them consider it a good value. It's also important to consider the current and future competition in the region. Finally, create a long-term growth plan with related services and products, showing how the company could deliver more comprehensive and valuable experiences to its customers.

For more information on this cutting-edge strategy, you can check out this blog. 

Question 3 - Execution and Metrics

Execution and metrics questions help the interviewer analyze your problem-solving skills and ability to analyze the current market and develop future goals. They can be very in-depth, requiring you to develop ten to twenty metrics that are necessary for the product's success. To do this, you'll want to focus on the North Star metric or the product's most important criteria.

If you pick the right North Star metric, you can show the interviewer you thoroughly grasp the company's mission and have the skills to comprehend what their products need to succeed. But how can you determine the most important metrics for a product? Using Dr. Li's MYCSPHD framework. MYCSPHD stands for:

• Mission and Why
• Customer Segmentation
• Prioritization and Mission-Related Metrics
• Product Health Metrics
• Derisk

Using each step of the framework you can answer questions like, "What's the goal of FB events?" or "Set success metrics for YouTube Live." Start by considering the company's mission and delve into its customer segmentation. Consider factors like demographics, psychographics, geography, and behavioral data. Prioritize your metrics based on how they relate to the customer's pain points and determine the product health baseline. These metrics will help you monitor the success and effectiveness over time. 

Learn more about using this powerful framework to nail your interview and impress the hiring manager here. 

Question 4 - Problem Solving

Problem-solving questions are another popular choice in PM interviews since they give the interviewer valuable insight into how you analyze situations and your ability to execute your vision. The hardest part about answering these types of questions is knowing how to think strategically so you can complete the whole answer without getting sidetracked. To keep your thoughts organized and give a complete answer, it's crucial to consider the customer's journey. To do this, You can use Dr. Li's CPTE framework. It stands for:

• C - Customers
• P - Product
• T - Technology
• E - External Factors

Let's look at it in action with the question, "The Wayfair furniture return rate increased from 15% to 20%; what should you do?" Start by considering the customer and why they choose to shop at Wayfair. Dive into factors surrounding the products they are interested in, like the quality of the offerings, the number of products available, and more. 

Next, consider the technology available and how you can use it to make the buying process more enjoyable and effective. Consider steps like providing better pictures or even videos. Finally, assess the external factors that could cause customers to return their purchases and determine what, if anything, the company could do to remedy them. 

Using the CPTE framework against the customer journey makes it easy to determine why the return rate has increased and what went wrong. Download the Top 50 Product Manager Interview Questions Database at Tier 1 companies so you can better prepare for your interview and land your dream job offer in just 60 days! 

Question 5 - System Design

While not every company will ask about system design, this line of questioning is becoming more common. Even if coding isn't your specialty, Dr. Li created a trick to accurately answer system design questions. Keeping the customer's perspective in mind, the key is to consider the high-level functions necessary for the system to perform. Once you know what they are, you can break them down further into subfunctions. These can include:

• Performance requirements
• Functional requirements
• Scalability requirements
• Reliability requirements

While you may not understand the technicalities of each function, you can give an outline of the data structures you believe are necessary for the space to function at its best. Let's look at a typical system design question, "How would you design Twitter using AWS?" Even if you don't require AWS-accessible options, put yourself into the customer's place. What would make the product easier and more enjoyable to use? What current functions would you wish weren't there, and what would you replace them with? Once you have a better understanding of the data structure, you can finish by laying out the system architecture diagram based on the requirements you determined above.

Question 6 - Take Home Exam

The take-home exam is by far the hardest part of the interview, as it allows the company to see how well you understand and execute the product management role. The good news is you'll have more time to complete the question; the bad news is you'll need it! The secret is to treat this exam as if it were a real-life product management case. Conduct customer interviews, research the market and the customer's needs, imagine future problems you'll solve for the customer, and create effective solutions. Even run a go-to-market strategy to figure out a real-world business model you can build. So, what could a take-home exam question look like? 

Create a product feature for Stubhub to help companies grow their business. The feature could be brand new or improving an existing product; tell us the revenue projection and business model of the new feature.This real-life interview question is asked by FAANG companies and requires in-depth thought and analysis. You'll have to put your product management skills to work and follow steps like:

• Investigating and meeting the customer's needs
• Creating a customer persona 
• Writing product requirements
• Evaluating existing product features
• Creating a long-term strategic product roadmap

While the take-home exam requires intense preparation and research, the good news is that Dr. Li created comprehensive end-to-end training to help you succeed in this crucial part of your interview using a REAL take-home exam, which you can find here. 

Question 7 - What's Your Favorite Product

One common question companies ask is for you to identify your favorite product that they sell and how you think they should improve it. While it can be a bit scary answering this question since you don't want to put the company down, it's a great way to show how much value you bring. The trick here is knowing how to make your answer stand out from the crowd. To do that, Dr. Li suggests avoiding using only one product as an example; instead, preparing a list of three or four digital ones along with one physical product. Skip over common products and focus on ones that most people would overlook. 

When answering, don't limit yourself by only focusing on the features. Identifying pain points and how they impact the customer is key. Deep dive into how the company can better connect the product to the customer's needs, developing strategic proposals of how they can make it happen. Dr. Li recently created an in-depth video showing how to answer these questions, which you can watch here.

For even more information on acing this top interview question, check out this video.

Bonus Tips- Behavioral Questions

Behavioral management questions are by far some of the trickiest to answer since they involve talking about your past work and assessing how you would handle numerous situations while on the job. These questions can cover everything from changing up a product to make it more functional to handling disagreements with coworkers. Keeping your answers concise and on point is essential, and you can do that using the GRAIL framework. This framework involves:

• Get to the Point
• Reason and Why
• Actions
• Impact
• Learning

Understanding not only how to market your product but the mindset of your customer will also help you stand out with this crucial question. For more information on answering product manager behavioral questions, check out this video.

Knowing how to effectively answer product management interview questions is the key to standing out and landing the job. Using the tools in this article, you can go into your interview confident, prepared, and ready to answer any questions they ask!

Dr. Nancy Li is proud to offer in-depth information for product managers that will help you land the high-paying job of your dreams. Using proven tactics, she uses insider information to help you stand out and succeed! Check out our end-to-end job-hunting program, PMA Pro here.