A free seed packet · Interviewing

Interview questions, by level.

Questions I have actually asked, for product managers and product designers, split by level. Each one says what it tests, what a good answer sounds like, and the answer that means someone has read the books but not done the job. That last part is the one most lists leave out.

Use them from either side of the table. Free, and nothing to sign up for.

Three rules before you start

Ask about work they actually did. The moment someone answers in the abstract, stop and ask for the specific instance.
Ask what it cost. Anyone can describe a success. Ask what they gave up, who disagreed, and what they would not do again.
Let silence sit. The best answers arrive after four seconds of thinking, and most interviewers fill that gap.

Product Manager

At this level you are testing whether they can hold a problem rather than a task list, and whether evidence changes what they do.

Senior Product Manager

Now you are testing judgment under constraint, and whether they can be trusted with a problem nobody has framed yet.

Principal and Group Product Manager

Here you are testing whether they can make other people better, and whether they can operate where the problem is the organisation.

Director of Product

Now it is about the system: how decisions get made when they are not in the room, and whether they can be honest with people who outrank them.

The four questions underneath all of these

Whatever the level, you are testing the same four things. Do people want it. Can we build it. Can they use it. Does it make money.

Someone who understands the product operating model treats those as tests to run before committing. Someone who does not will describe a process where they get answered by whoever is most senior in the room.

Hiring, or being hired?

I scope roles, screen against a real competency bar, and stay until the hire lands. And I coach people through the interviews that matter. Either way it starts with a conversation.

Start with an intro call