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About a year ago, I put together this well-received 2 week PM Interview Prep Plan.

I never explained the thinking that went through each line-item recommendation. So here it is. Apologies for the long ⏰.

And if you liked this post, please click the ❤️ symbol.

Lewis C. Lin

Week 1

Day 1–3: Product Design

Master the SCAMPER framework in Thinkertoys (~40 pages) to develop a creative thinking mindset.

Many of us are convergent thinkers. That is, we take the world of possibility and narrow it down to the best possible solution. I hope that doesn’t surprise you. If you’re a PM candidate, you’re likely analytical by nature. And analytical types are very good at convergent thought.

Brainstorming requires divergent thinking. And analytical types don’t practice divergent thinking often. To change how we think (and increase brainstorm effectiveness), apply brainstorming frameworks in Thinkertoys in your everyday life.

Try the framework without a time limit at first, then push yourself to define problems and solutions within 60–90 seconds to simulate an interview environment.

All product design should be based around solving current and potential customer problems. Exercise your ability to empathize with the customer by ranting about products you currently use. Move onto developing other personas and define the problems they might face.

The CIRCLES Method™ in Decode and Conquer is the key framework you need to know to answer product design interview questions. Pair up with a partner and breakdown core products of your target companies.

Interviewers love it when you can draw your product ideas on a whiteboard. Unfortunately, many of us are afraid to do so. Author and researcher Brené Brown says that a third of us have a creativity scar. That is, we recall a specific incident when we were told that we weren’t talented as an artist, musician, writer or singer. And Dan Roam says that roughly 75 percent of business people are afraid to pick up a whiteboard marker to do anything beyond highlighting other people’s drawings.

So to get comfortable with drawing wire-frames on a whiteboard, we need to do what designers do: build a UX vocabulary of common elements. Start by reviewing Web UI Design Patterns, Mobile UI Design Patterns, and the UX Guidebook for Product Managers. From there, it’s about overcoming that fear and practice doodling on the whiteboard canvas.

Goal: Think creatively, utilize a framework, and use relevant UX vocabulary when answering questions about product design.

Day 4–5: Metrics

Review the AARM Method™ in Decode and Conquer to learn how to evaluate and brainstorm top metrics for certain products or companies. Use the pros and cons approach to help you best determine which metric is the most important. From there, get into the practice of building issue trees to diagnose why metrics may be under or over performing.

Goal: Identify key product metrics, develop strong arguments on why one metric is more important than others and use issue trees to root cause metric performance.

Day 6–7: Estimation

Practice the exercises from Chapter 3 and 4 in Interview Math to develop research and critical-thinking skills for analytical problems. Start with a clear plan on how you plan to derive an answer. Then learn how to identify reasonable assumptions for a broad range of products and services. Be prepared to explain reasoning behind your assumptions.

Goal: Develop issue trees, identify assumptions, and estimate the value of products and services. This is also an area to expand your communication skills by asking clarifying questions to the interviewer.

Week 2

Day 8: Lifetime Value

Continue practicing Interview Math questions by finishing up Lifetime Value (LTV) estimation questions in Chapter 8. LTV determines product development and marketing retention strategies. Be sure to know industry-specific churn rates and customer acquisition costs.

Goal: Understand the implications of LTV in the product cycle.

Day 9–10: Behavioral

Master the DIGS Method™ in Decode and Conquer to pass the behavioral portion of the interview. Write down at least 5 stories that incorporate the highlights of your professional career. If you’re interviewing at Amazon, you might find this template helpful to organize your behavioral interview responses.

Practice modifying these stories to similar types of questions and have solid responses for the ubiquitous “Tell me about yourself?” and “Why do you want to work for this company?” questions prompts. This is another section that would be perfect to verbally practice with an interview partner.

Goal: Articulate your past work experiences by incorporating them into general behavioral questions. This section would be the most beneficial to practice with a partner.

Day 11–12: Technical

Review technical concepts in How to Ace the Software Engineering Interview, and create your own technical ‘cheat sheet’. Be comfortable explaining algorithms and data structures, as well as the pros and cons of different design approaches. Next, read ‘How to Approach a Technical Question’ in Decode and Conquer and practice solving the problems in the chapter. If you need more questions, be sure to check out other resources online. Google is one of the only companies that emphasizes technical questions, so focus on other sections, if you are pressed for time.

Goal: Handle technical questions that involve key concepts of the SE interview. Focus on the implications of product development, in relation to the methods of algorithms and data structures.

Day 13: New Market Entry/Go to Market Strategy

Memorize the new market entry checklist in Decode and Conquer and learn how to apply these concepts to tech products and services. Be mindful of customer empathy and cultural differences when introducing products to a new international market.

Walk-through the Big Picture Framework in Rise Above the Noise and study how popular marketing strategies fit into this model. Practice developing your own campaigns and pitch your ideas to your interview partner.

Goal: Introduce a product into market through campaigns and strategy. Use the Big Picture Framework when brainstorming ideas to your partner.

Day 14: Company Specific Preparation

Research your target company, its top competitors, and current industry trends. Perform a SWOT analysis and brainstorm potential product strategies that would benefit the company. As always, emphasize how your skills can contribute to the mission and goals of your employer.

Goal: Cite the major strengths and weaknesses of your target company, as well as its position in relation to current trends. Showcase your skills in relation to the responsibilities and requirements of the job position.

Final Thoughts on PM Interview Prep

Feel free to modify the 2 week PM Interview Prep Plan template to your own situation including target companies and deadline. For more PM interview practice questions, with sample answers, check out my new book, PM Interview Questions.

Thank you to Joseph Watabe for drafting the first version of this post and Daanish Khazi for reviewing.

Originally published at www.lewis-lin.com on August 16, 2016.

SEE ALSO: 60+ Brilliant Salary Negotiation Scripts

When I think about the underhanded negotiation tactics that others have used on me over the years, three categories come to mind:

Guilt

Example
“You want to pay $1 for this t-shirt?!? You are a rich Google employee. I work hard. You insult me.”

Why does guilt work
Exploits a person’s ego.

In this example, the buyer sees himself as a fair, generous person that doesn’t insult others.

What usually happens
“Ok, how about $10 for the shirt?”

The buyer could have bought the shirt for $1.50 from another seller. However, they rationalize the $10 purchase by saying the same shirt would have cost $45 in a Manhattan boutique.

How to counter
Don’t take it personally. Be assertive instead. E.g. “I understand you worked hard to sell this shirt. However, I could buy this shirt from a different vendor for $1.50.” You are no longer insulting the vendor. You are now explaining to him that you would do what any other rational person would do.

Scarcity

Example
“If you don’t accept this offer in the next 24 hours, I’ll cancel it.”

Why does it work
Loss aversion.

We get upset for days (sometimes years) when we miss an opportunity.

What usually happens
“Ok, I’ll take it.”

How to counter
If the proposer has a mutually interchangeable option, then their threat is credible. However, this is not as likely as it seems. For 99.9% of all negotiations, plan B is rarely as good as plan A.

So the response here should be, “I understand you want to move quickly. However, this is a decision that I’m not taking lightly. I’d like to have 5 business days to evaluate your offer before giving you my final decision.”

Lying

Example
“How do I know you’re a cop?”
“The Constitution says all cops have to admit whether or not they’re a cop when asked. So ask me.”
“Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Ok, here’s your dope.”
“I’m arresting you. I’m with the Albuquerque police.”
(dialogue paraphrased by Breaking Bad, the TV show)

Why does it work
Overconfidence bias.

We feel strongly about our abilities (in this case, intellect) that we conclude that this must be true, even though we’re not an expert in Constitutional law.

Ideal response
Do your homework before you go with your gut.

SEE ALSO: 60+ Brilliant Salary Negotiation Scripts

This article has moved to a new location. Here’s it is:

The Big List of 94 Marketing Interview Questions

We’ve moved this list to a new location:

The Big List of Product Manager Interview Questions.

We’ve moved this article to a new location:

205 Data Science Interview Questions

We’ve moved the location of this article. Find it here:

Big List of UX Interview Questions

We’ve moved this article to a new location:

176 Software Engineering Interview Questions

The annoying thing about hiring managers is that they prefer experienced candidates because they don’t require training or handholding. However, there are things you can do to help you get a developer job without experience:

Ask your professors. They will likely know which companies/organizations have intern opportunities, and can likely arrange introductions. — Gerry Mann

Do programming projects at home. Employers love this — it shows you love programming and have an interest in it outside work / college. — psynnott, a Stack Overflow user

Do volunteer research in computational biology, atmospheric science, or astronomy. In fact, if there’s any scientific subject you like, there’s probably someone doing computational research in it — just google the research area + site:edu — Alex Kuang Chen

Class projects are neat, but they don’t really matter so much. [Instead], come up with your own projects. They don’t have to be complicated, but write them, do bug fixes, and keep them in BitBucket or GitHub under open source licenses. — Sean Edwards

People can get internships without having much project experience outside of classrooms. I’ve seen this happen to my classmates. — Jane Huang

How do they determine that you’re smart? The best measure of that is your GPA. You’re pretty far along now, so hopefully you have a 3.5+ GPA, and failing that, you have a high GPA in your CS coursework. If you have the high GPA, put it on your resume. — Kevin, a Stack Overflow user

One of the biggest fears that companies have when hiring developers is whether or not that developer can actually produce anything. You can completely alleviate that fear if you can show the source code for an application you created yourself, and if you have it in a mobile app store and people are actually using it, even better. — John Sonmez

Talk with companies and say you want the experience. You might be able to get a short term contract (with no pay), but it’s something to put on your CV and you’ll learn a lot! — psynnott, a Stack Overflow user

Photo credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg

Have an open technical marketing manager job? Don’t create the job description (JD) from scratch. Use this technical marketing manager JD template and tailor to your needs.

Technical Marketing Engineer Job Description Sample

ABOUT THE COMPANY

<Insert information about the company>

The Technical Marketing Engineer (TME) is a technologist who works as a part of the product marketing team. The TME will work with a cross-functional team to ensure that the products that we bring to market are successful in a wide variety of customer engagements.

The TME must be a technical expert. The TME must have the ability to clearly articulate the technical differentiators of a product and also work with the Product Management teams to continually improve the products.

RESONSIBILITIES

• Create design guides, troubleshooting guides, evaluation guides, application notes, technical white papers, presentations, videos and demonstrations for our security solutions and products.
• Build and maintain a demonstration environment for our security solutions and products.
• Support sales and marketing efforts as required. Some travel required to support field and marketing activity.
• Support product launch activities and assist with Tradeshows, Conferences and Technical Sales Training or Channel Partner Training activities.
• Respond to customer or field inquiries, assist with Technical RFPs and work with a cross-functional team of PMs, SEs, Engineers as required.
• Work with the Competitive Team for market and competitive analysis.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Extensive customer and field experience is a must.
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills required.
• Extensive experience with enterprise and service provider security products.
• Prior experience as a TME or Sales Engineer is a must.
• Software development or scripting capabilities required
• A BS (business, marketing, or engineering preferred)
• Driven, with an entrepreneurial spirit and sense of urgency. Must be resourceful, proactive and aggressive.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented and possessing a high level of integrity.
• Team player that works well in collaborative situations and start-up environments.
• Natural leadership skills and the ability to work with all teams in the company.