Cracking your next PM Interview: Team fitment
Again this is also not a round that is done separately by most companies. Some of them test the team fitment during your usual product rounds others have a separate round ( read “Bar raiser” “As appropriate” or “Googleyness”). You can expect mostly behavioural questions in this round. Some along these lines…
“Tell me about a time when you faced most challenging situation in launching your product?”
“How do you manage disagreements with your engineering partners? Can you point an example”
“Tell me about a time when your product launch was stuck and what did you do to solve this problem”
“How do you deal with a stakeholder or peer from another group if there is disagreement on priorities?”
If there is one type of interview that you can prepare thoroughly, it is this. Although you may already have the answers ready for these kind of questions, putting those answers in a structure is likely to take more time than you think. And it will also be more impactful as you are likely to distill information as you keep preparing.
How to Prepare?
Start by making an excel sheet where you list down all the situations on the left most column followed by 4 columns each covering S.T.A.R (Situation, Task, Action and Result).
Make this repository as long as possible, covering every type of situation. A weeks scouring internet can cover 90% of the scenarios that may be tested. The rigour here is how do you keep distilling this information. You have to strike a balance between how deep you want to go vs ensuring that the impact is understood by the interviewer.
Impactful examples: When picking examples ensure you ask yourself “So what” at each level and pick only those that have real good impact for the company or customers. Rest all is noise, should be eliminated.
Impact in numbers:Pick examples where you can specify the impact in clear numbers. Also the numbers have to be mentioned in a way that can be understood by the interviewer. For eg., instead of saying you “added $1M revenue”, you can say “$1M which was about 20% of overall business”.
Examples that align with your level: Ensure that you pick examples that display qualities that are expected of “level above” the role you are being considered for.
Align with leadership principles: The reason you are being asked these behavioural questions is to see your fitment in the team and to the organisation. So pick examples that also display some of these leadership principles, it becomes easy for the interviewer to relate.
Be genuine: Where ever you failed, it’s okay to admit. But important thing is to demonstrate what you learned from your failure so you can never repeat the mistake. Trust me interviewers can sense and know if you are faking an example.
Avoid “WE” focus on “I”: When you are bringing up examples, interviewer is not interested in knowing what the team did — they are not hiring the team. They are specifically and only interested in what you did, so focus on “I”. I had a lot of difficulty in moving from “we” to “I” since in all the meetings I was so focused on saying “we”. But don’t be dismissive of others contribution.
Be prepared for follow up questions: Interviewer may like to go deep and ask follow up questions, so ensure that you are prepared for Level 1 to Level 3 at least. It is also likely that the interviewer is unable to relate to the example you have quoted, some interviewers would like to give you another chance and tell you honestly that they are unable to relate to this example so “can you give me another example of this situation?”
Do mocks: Mocks for these kind of questions is more easier than for other types of questions, so you can ask your friends and relatives to do these mocks as well. Ensure that you video record these mocks and time your self. Make corrections where ever you feel you are too detailed or less detailed.
Some tips…
- Take time to frame the response. Even if you have prepared well, just take a minute or 2 to recollect all possible details.
- Stick to the example chosen unless interviewer asks you to provide one. I have seen and have personally made mistakes of shifting between examples. Makes interviewer difficult to focus.
- Focus on the difficult parts in the situation, they are likely to bring out your character well and differentiate you from others.
- Don’t be a douchebag — acknowledge support received in you achieving your impact.