 Hello, everyone. Hi, I am Shepra and it's really good to meet you all today. I'll be talking about the unwritten norms in product interviews. Let me clarify what I mean by that. Today there is tons of advice out there for PM interviews, tons of resources, tons of advice and I really do not want to add to the noise. My intent here is to try to talk about some key insights I have learned in my time interviewing and taking interviews that have worked for me in practice. These insights are not generally mentioned pretty much anywhere on the internet, but I felt were extremely useful in going from good to great and being able to stand out. And hence I want to share those with you today. So I have categorized my talk into three different parts before the interview, during the interview and after the interview. And I will talk about what are some key things you could do at each stage to help you go from good to great. So what you must do before the interview, talk to someone working at the company. The moment you have had a conversation with the recruiter and you are scheduled to interview with the company, you should start looking for someone who works inside the company. One basic conversation with someone on the inside is infinitely more valuable than hours of extensive research about the company from the outside. It really is. It's a really good use of time to try to get hold of someone working at the company and having a very quick conversation with them. How are you going to be able to find someone? For me, LinkedIn has worked. I search for works working in the company and reach out to them through connections that I may have with them. So these are second degree or third degree contacts. I will ping them for one quick conversation. Most people are happy to oblige. Most people really want to help. So please don't feel shy about doing this. So when you talk to someone working at the company, what is the conversation about? The key thing you want to get at is the top concerns of the executives of the company for the current year. You want to get at what are the top key challenges the company is facing today and who they consider to be their strongest competitors. Essentially, you are trying to get at what the executives might be telling all the people at the all hands internally. If you think about it, the product managers who are working at the company are essentially trying to solve these top concerns of the leadership. It is their job. And so if you can find out what those concerns are, give those some deep thought and then bring your knowledge and thinking about those problems during the interview. You are going to stand out from the crowd. It's extremely useful. It also helps you understand the company further. Let's say you want to assess the company for yourself as well and really decide whether you want to work there. This conversation is also going to help you with that. So strongly recommend being trying to do this. It can make a significant difference. All right. So what do you do during the interview? The first piece of advice I have is to not slot an interview into a type. What do I mean by this? All of the product manager interview advice out there categorizes interviews into different types, product design, product analytical, product strategy and so on. Most folks will study for each type of interview in isolation and get really good at it. And that's great. But when it comes to the real world, we all know that real world problems don't neatly fit into one type. And most often, PMs will have to bring the bag of all of their skills, including design, analytics, market research and strategy into solving a particular problem. And so if you want your interview to feel like a real conversation about solving a real problem, you have to be careful about not slotting the interview into a type, but about thinking about how you would actually solve it. The access you can keep in mind is all the rubric of skills that a PM needs to have. And if anything, you should be thinking about those rubric of skills and trying to demonstrate as many of those as possible, every chance you get. Right. Let me explain this also using an example. Let's say you are asked a quintessential product analytical question about troubleshooting the metrics for a product, metrics that have gone down recently. You could approach this question from a purely analytical perspective. However, if you take a minute or two, diving a little bit into the strategy behind the product, into the market of users of this product and their current conditions, you are standing out. You could also end your answer by proposing some design choices that could be incorporated into the product to troubleshoot such metric issues in the future. Here you have demonstrated design and creativity skills. So take every chance you get to think about the question in a real-world way and think about all the skills you want to demonstrate. It will be extremely useful. Another way in which I can explain this is by saying that you know you're getting really good at product interviews when you are able to come up with the framework for a question on the fly. All the PM advice out there on the internet includes lots of standardized frameworks for each type of question. Most folks will master these frameworks and get really good at them. But if you want to be great, you have to understand that those frameworks don't neatly apply to real-world questions and real-world problems. And those frameworks have to be modified dynamically on the fly to suit the question. Try doing this and you will get better. All right. What's the second piece of advice I have? Admitting ignorance is a desirable behavioral quality. And I have dedicated an entire slide to this because this is something that folks shy away from doing during interviews. It is understandable. Interviews are a time when people are supposed to sell themselves, present their perfect selves. However, admitting ignorance shows humility and humility is an extremely desirable quality in not just leadership, but in any role where you have to engender the trust and respect of your peers. It's an extremely important quality in a product manager. So please do not shy away from admitting ignorance and demonstrating humility. What you must do, however, is end your answer with some sort of a solution that helps you get from there to another question or a real answer. As an example, let's say you are asked the question, how would you improve the product TaskRabbit? And let's say you have never used TaskRabbit. Be willing to admit that. Be willing to say, hey, I've never used TaskRabbit. I'll not be able to talk about what they have done in the past or what they're currently doing. However, I do know that it is a marketplace for gig workers. And so if you wish, I can approach this question from a first principles perspective and talk about how I might build a marketplace for gig workers. If I were to build one today, right? So you have not just admitted ignorance and ended at a roadblock. You have actually proposed a solution to go forward from there. This will be respected and appreciated by your interviewer. So do not shy away from doing this. Okay, my next advice is speak from your counterparts perspective. Now, this is especially applicable to behavioral type questions. But since we're not slotting any interview into any type, please keep this in cognizance at all times. Whenever you are talking about a third person, please talk about what you think was going on in their mind. Whether you're talking about the user of your product or a peer you had a conflict with or an exec you had to give a presentation to. Or a data scientist you had to negotiate a project deadline with whatever it may be. When you're telling a story, talk about what was going on in the mind of the other person. You're demonstrating the quality of empathy, another extremely important quality. Most folks will focus on getting the facts of their story right. Most folks will focus on communicating the story succinctly according to the star framework. And that's all great. But the key ingredient that could be missing from your answer is demonstration of empathy. So please remember to include that in your answer as well. Another corollary to this is showing awareness of what was going on in your own mind. That is demonstrating the quality of self-awareness. This is something that you can do as part of all your answers, especially in the retelling of stories. Instead of just saying, this, this happened, then I did this and then the problem was resolved. Be sure to include the story that happened in your head at that time. What did you realize? What did you think before talking about what you did? These are the ways in which the most important qualities that folks are looking for in a behavioral interview really shine and come out. So keep these pointers in mind, especially when answering any type of behavioral question and when retelling a story. Okay. So lastly, I want to talk about what you should do after the interview. And the most important thing here is to keep in touch with the hiring manager and all the other interviewers on your panel. The least cost way of doing this is to send them a connection request on LinkedIn with an honest thank you about the fun conversation you had and all the learnings you got during the interview. However, if you really want to work at this company and you have a real keen interest, you can go further than that. How do you do it? There's one idea I have used and explored and it has worked to my advantage. These days, homework interviews are really common in PM roles. Most of those homework assignments contain questions that are real problems the company or the team is facing today. Now, you may have already worked on that problem in an extremely nice way during your panel. However, that does not have to be the end. You can keep working on that problem, thinking about the extensions to that problem, thinking about the current market conditions that might affect the problem and its solution and share those insights with the hiring manager. What you're looking to do is create value for them. You want to create value for them without overloading or hounding them. Now, in the hiring manager's eyes, you are demonstrating keen interest, keen ability, humility and all of those are endearing qualities. There's a high chance the hiring manager then keeps you in mind for any future roles that come up. So this is a really good thing to do for companies that you're especially interested in working at. I have done this, I know other folks who have done this and it really helps you, especially in the current recessionary market, where you may not land your dream role immediately, but you want to keep those avenues and doors open. So try doing this and let me know what happens. Lastly, I'll wish you all the very, very best. I have kept this short deliberately, but I hope that the key points I made make a difference to your future interviewing journey. So all the very best and please do find me on LinkedIn if you have any question, any concerns or we generally like to keep in touch. Thank you very much.