 All right, well, thank you folks. Thanks for joining this little session on product interviewing and some of the basics that I've observed over interviewing a whole ton of people. If you were here at the last career fair, this might be a little bit repetitive, but I think there's a lot of new folks. So hopefully this will be new and hopefully interesting information. So just a little bit about me. My name is Tim Hawley. I'm one of our VPs of product at Etsy. I joined back in 2011 when we were small. I think I was the fifth or something like that PM on the team at the time. And we've grown a lot since then. And so over the years, I've spent a lot of time interviewing product people from entry level product managers all the way through to directors and senior directors. So I have a little bit of experience in this. Just a little bit more about what I do at Etsy. My main focus is on our buyer experience. So really thinking about how do we deliver an excellent product experience and product journey for people who are looking to purchase things from Etsy sellers. And we do that work across our website, you know, desktop and mobile web as well as our native apps. And we really think about two things. We think about how do we optimize for conversion rate, meaning how do we get more people to buy things? And then how do we get them to come back? Now, once they've had hopefully an excellent experience buying from one of our sellers, how do we bring them back time and again, such that they treat Etsy as a habit? So the first thing I'll say before we jump into a little bit of content that I have is, your mileage may vary. Each company has very different interviewing practices, processes, and they approach it in a different way or in different ways. But from what I've seen, there are many common themes. And so you might bump into slightly different processes, but I think that these tips and tricks will hopefully be useful for many of you as you, you know, you're either starting your product career or you're looking for the next opportunity. So really to me, the things I wanted to touch on, break down into four key areas, curiosity, impact, communication, and ultimately you yourself as the person who is interviewing. And some of these probably are not particularly rocket science. I'm sure you've heard similar themes in the past, but I think they're really important and they really, I think, set people up for a successful interview process. And so I'll go through these relatively quickly and then we can jump into questions because I think that's where hopefully they'll be the most value. So curiosity, you know, one of the things that I think makes a really good product manager is that ultimately they're very interested in a wide range of things. You know, you wanna unpack a problem, you wanna really understand the root cause of why something's happening. And that can come across in the product interview. And so really be prepared to ask questions. You know, it might seem like an obvious one, but typically an interviewer will ask you, so what questions do you have? You know, how can I help you learn more about the company that they represent? Have something ready. Because that shows one that you've done your homework and two that you actually are genuinely interested in the subject matter, in the company that you're talking to. The caveat I'll put is don't try to be too smart. Interviewers can really see through when, you know, you've read an article online and you're kind of just quoting something that has been stated by the company. Try to, you know, really hone in on things that you're genuinely interested about, that you're genuinely curious about, because ultimately that will show through in the interview and will lead to hopefully a much better discussion with the interviewer or the hiring manager. The next area is around impact. You know, as product managers, as product people, ultimately we wanna have impact on the customers and the business, the customers we're building for and the business we work on. And so using really specific examples of the impact that you've had is really important. And sometimes people get caught up in thinking, well, it's a very small example. Is it kind of useful enough to talk about? I found that very specific examples that you're excited about are by far the most interesting conversations, because one, you know the subject matter with a lot of detail. And two, if you're excited about it, you're gonna be able to get into lots of nuance and answer the questions that an interviewer may have. So, you know, being as specific as possible, I found to be very, very helpful. And the other thing, as product people, typically we're working with a cross-functional team. We're working with our engineering counterparts, our designers, researchers, analysts, marketing peers, you know, a whole range of folks. But ultimately being really clear about the work that you did is very important. You know, we launched a thing, okay, that's great. But what did you do specifically? Did you identify the opportunity? Did you, you know, write all of the tickets? Did you do the user research, whatever it may be, really delineating the work that you did versus the work of the team is very clarifying and understanding what someone is capable of. The next area is around communication. And it's especially true in person. It's especially important when you're, you know, often now you will be interviewing over video or over Zoom is to make sure that you're really clear on what the interviewer is asking. You know, sometimes someone might not be very clear. They might use jargon. If you don't understand, just ask. Hey, could you repeat that question? I don't fully understand what you're getting or what you're trying to get at. And that just shows that you're really listening. You want to, you know, provide the interviewer with the information that they're looking for. And so, you know, don't assume if you ask the question of can you clarify for me is often a really, really useful way for you to get a little bit more understanding of what's actually being asked. And for the interviewer, interviewer, it's very useful because it shows that you're actually listening. You're not just kind of coming with prepared remarks to whatever question is asked. And the other related to communication, the other point related to communication is around, you know, making sure that you feel comfortable taking time to collect your thoughts. You know, interviews can move quickly. They can cover a wide range of topics. And so saying, hey, let me just take a moment to collect my thoughts so I can, you know, respond to your question accurately and appropriately shows that you're really thinking deeply about what you want to say. It also shows a bit of maturity. It really says that you want to be, you know, you want to make sure that the things you say are the most relevant to that topic. I've seen people get really flustered and want to just kind of talk and talk and talk. And that's not, is often not the best tactic in an interview, making sure that you're, you know, sharing information and insights in a logical way is really valuable. And then the last point I'll make before we talk questions is, you know, remember that you as the interviewee are a really key part of the experience. You know, of course the company wants to learn more about your experience and your skills and your interests, but ultimately you are, you know, interviewing the company as well. You want to make sure that it's the right fit for you to spend hopefully a meaningful amount of time at and have real material impact on. And so, you know, it kind of comes back a little bit to the curiosity question, but, you know, really use the time to dig in, ask questions, really take notes as you're going through the interview to say, is this a place that I'm really excited to spend time? Is this a worthwhile thing for me to do? And, you know, ultimately remember that the product world is relatively small. And so if a role doesn't work out, the chances that you might, you know, come across that person in a different company or in a different role are pretty high. And so, you know, don't get discouraged, but the more that you're, you know, learning about people and learning about companies, ultimately, you know, over time, I believe you will be able to find better fits because you have existing relationships with, you know, more people in industry and you have a little bit better insight into kind of the companies that are out there and the work they're doing and whether that word or would not be a great fit for you and the things you're trying to learn and achieve in your career. So that was a lot, a lot of words on the slide. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't say we are hiring, we are hiring across the board. If you go to etsy.com slash careers, we have a lot of our job posts listed. We have some wonderful folks who are manning our virtual career booth here today. So if you're interested in learning more about Etsy, about product at Etsy or about specific roles, please jump over and they will be more than happy to answer your questions. And with that, I will open up for questions here. From you all, I think the best way is to just add your questions into the chat and then I'll try to get through as many of them as we have time for. While you're all posting questions, hopefully many, Jack asked one earlier as we were getting started and his question was, what's your favorite part about working at Etsy? So the, a few things really. One, and you know, it's easy to say when you work to the company for quite a long time, but I truly believe in our mission of keeping commerce human. When you think about the kind of world of retail generally and certainly e-commerce, you know, it can be a pretty bland experience, stuff that just looks the same that arrives tomorrow that is low cost and might break quickly because it's not particularly well made. And Etsy really stands as a kind of counter to that, almost the antithesis of, you know, quick and fast and cheap experiences where, you know, the sellers who make things that sell on Etsy are true craftspeople. They really understand the things that they make. They put a lot of time and effort into making them. And so, you know, we're really adding a lot of value to people's lives by helping them find hopefully really meaningful items. And for sellers, the fact that they're able to reach a global audience in a way that maybe they would really struggle to if they were left to their own devices to kind of, you know, set up their own website is a real unlock for them. And being able to connect them with buyers who are interested in their items is a hugely, hugely, in my mind, meaningful way to spend time. And then internally, the way we work is relatively typical in the sense that we have, you know, cross-functional squads of PMs, engineers, designers, researchers, analysts. But ultimately, we place a lot of emphasis on our product teams and our PMs ultimately to make decisions and really drive the business forward. And so working in a kind of environment that empowers people up and down the organization to really have impact and solve the problems that our customers have is a really inspiring environment to work in. So those would be two of the things that I really, really enjoy about working at Etsy. Okay, Brittany has one here. How do you get a company to take a chance on you as a brand new PM? That's a great question. So I guess, Brittany, just one clarification as a PM in, it was like a first PM to the company or as someone who has not worked in product before. Give you one sec. Very little PM experience, great, yeah. So I would say that of course, people with a product manager title are hopefully doing work that is true to the function of product management. But the reality is that a lot of people in a lot of functions do things that look a lot like product management. Ultimately, you're taking a business goal and translating it into something that solves a customer pain point. That customer could be the end customer, it could be an internal customer, meaning it might be the sales team, it might be the marketing team, whoever it is. And so I would really encourage you to kind of try to frame the work and the experience you have in the context of what you believe to be product management. Because I would argue that a lot of the skills that you probably have and some of the projects that you've worked on are likely transferable to the world of product management. And so really trying to show that line of, okay, here's a problem I was tasked with solving and here's the impact it had. Ultimately, that's product 101 in my mind. Solving a problem that then actually has impact for a customer and the business. And that happens in many functions. And so really being able to draw that connection I think is important. And the other I would say is being really open about why you want to get into product and what you don't know. Many companies are very interested in bringing less seasoned product people into an organization because they can be the next leaders and really not kind of putting that under the rug and saying like, I know everything, you probably don't if you haven't worked in the function for very long. And so really owning that I think is a really great way to not only show that you have a lot of self-awareness but also help the company say, can we really support this person? Will we have the mentorship and the trainings that this person might need in order to be truly successful? Awesome. Okay, just scrolling back up. All right, Shreya asks, is there a specific format that you suggest or recommend when answering questions? What does Etsy look for in their product managers? I wouldn't say there's a specific format. And in fact, I wouldn't want to put out like a template because I think ultimately you answering in your own voice in your own tone with your own experience is ultimately the most important. And so making sure that, you know, you're kind of being true to yourself and not trying to kind of conform to some preconceived notion of what a good answer looks like. I would say, you know, try to have your own personality come through. But ultimately, as I just mentioned previously, really try to tie back work to impact, I think is really important. You know, I've seen a lot of people who essentially describe their role, they describe the things that they do day to day. We all do work day to day, right? We show up in the morning and we do things and then we go home at night. But ultimately, if you're able to say, these are the things that I do and this is what I accomplished and the impact I had, that's a really, really powerful kind of framing for work that I think can sometimes get lost because it's easy to describe what you did. It's sometimes less clear exactly the impact that you had. The second part of your question was around what does Etsy look for in their product managers? So, you know, unsurprisingly, we expect our product managers to be able to have impact on the customer experience and the company. And so that's one thing that we really try to unpack through the interview process is, you know, how do you think about solving new problems, really making sure that someone enjoys a world where they are accountable for goals? That's one side. The other thing that I think is not unique to product management, but is certainly very important to us at Etsy is collaboration. Ultimately, we're all of the product and engineering team at Etsy builds one product and that's our marketplace. And so the level of collaboration that we have is really, really important to make sure that, you know, if you're building a product for a buyer, there's gonna be implications on the seller side of the business. Conversely, if you're adding a new feature for sellers, you know, thinking through how that shows up in the buyer experience is really important. And so we really value being able to collaborate not only with your engineering and your design counterparts, for example, but also to work across functions, to be able to work closely with marketing, to be able to work with legal as just two examples and really drive successful outcomes. So like I said, that's not unique to product management, but it's something we really over index it on and look for in our product managers at Etsy. Okay. Another question here. If I find out during an interview that the role is rather too senior for me after getting to know the details and expectations, what would you recommend you do if you'd like to be considered for more junior roles in a product team within the same company? That's a good question. I think part of my answer would be, let the company, let the interviewer drive some of that discussion in terms of the other roles that they might have open at the company that maybe in the example, you're saying a little bit more junior, but to your point, even through an interview process, you probably won't have all of the details about a role. So I wouldn't assume that you are to junior necessarily. I would have that be a conversation either with the recruiter or the hiring manager. And as most companies will have an open discussion if you're, they're seriously considering you for the role of what do you think? What are you excited about this? So do you have any concerns? And that would be a moment to talk through some of that. But ultimately, I wouldn't assume that you would be to junior. And ultimately, if the hiring panel or interviewers are really diligent, they will surface the fact that this person could be a great fit, but maybe is a little bit too junior. So maybe we should be looking for other roles that we're opening. And so it probably will happen a little bit organically if the fit or the skills are really strong and the things you've done are very relevant for the company, but maybe that specific role isn't the right one. Just looking, there's a lot of text here. Just gonna read through. Okay. Some startups are looking for people who you would call product managers, but most will require people who are technical and can also design. Roast companies don't follow conventional road maps. Not at time. Okay. Bilal, I'm not really sure what the question is. Let me just read through this next section. But one kind of trying to intuit some of from what you wrote here. Um, especially startups, they are fighting for survival. Every moment matters. The, you know, every decision that a product manager or a product team makes is gonna hopefully be really material to their ongoing success. So you're naturally gonna be wearing many different hats at a startup, right? You're gonna be playing user researcher and product manager or project manager and product manager or, you know, a variety of different things. And so, you know, if you're thinking about a role at a startup, I would just encourage you to think whether that's an exciting mode for you to be wearing many different hats and having lots of context switches or whether you want to kind of really hone the craft of product management and in which case, you know, one example or one way to do that is to look at slightly larger companies who have more rigorous processes and potentially training programs within product management. A lot of big product companies do or product-focused companies have, you know, Associate PM programs and things like that. So I would say that. I also think it's a little unfair to look for someone who can do everything because that's a little bit of a unicorn and people have strengths in different areas. And so, you know, if the expectation is that you're defining, you know, user stories and building them technically and designing them, then that feels like a very, very hard role, in my opinion, to be successful in. And so that might be one thing you want to look for and to say like, is there enough focus and can I actually be successful there? So I'm not sure that answers your question exactly, but I'm gonna move on since there are a bunch of other questions here. I'm gonna come back to the, what's the feature you're most proud of at Etsy and why? Shama asks, I'm head of product operations with a small FinTech startup. I'm looking for new opportunities. Does it matter if I come from a FinTech background at Etsy? No, not at all. And I would say that we have certain product teams at Etsy who are very much focused on, for example, our payments platform. So there are certainly aspects of Etsy that a financial or a FinTech background can be very relevant. Ultimately, to me, the question is, are the skills you have transferable to a range of different areas? And so I would focus less on the specific domain and more on the type of work that you're excited to do and the type of problems that you're excited to solve. And I would imagine that those would be transferable to different types of problems outside of just FinTech. What are your favorite sites, periodicals, books, resources for staying up-to-date on product management other than product school, which is, of course, the best? Bailey, thanks for the question. There are a couple of things that I would say on that. One, there are a few resources that I find a very, very useful time. And again, one of those is SVPG, Silicon Valley Product Group. Marty Kagan does a lot of writing there. That's a really useful set of blogs or articles around kind of the craft of product management. I would highly recommend that you check that out. And that's a great way to kind of see someone who's been in the trenches and ultimately now does a lot of advising, their take on product management. I guess typically I try to do more reading about the kind of general business challenges and emerging trends than specifically about product management. So for example, Fred Wilson, who happens to be on the board at Etsy, he has a great blog, AVC, that he publishes pretty often. And those are really useful because they show kind of trends in the industry, talks about kind of larger macro dynamics that might be happening. And so I think you can learn a lot about how to approach problems and the type of problems that are coming up by following kind of a wide range of different blogs, books, and things like that. So I wouldn't necessarily just zoom in only on product specific things. Misha asks, what are the best types of questions to ask a best use of time for the hiring booths today? I really depends what you're trying to learn. If you wanna learn more about the roles, if you wanna learn more about the company and the culture, focus on that. So it's a little hard for me to answer that one specifically because ultimately it should do you service to make sure that your understanding whether in this case maybe product management at specifically Etsy or any of the companies in the hiring booths today would be a good fit for you. I'll take one more from Danielle. Do you see software engineers transitioning to product management? And if so, do you find them to be affected in those roles? I mean, certainly transitioning from engineering or from software development into product is a very common path. And it gives you in some instances a real leg up because you understand the technical feasibility of some of the things that you might be considering in a way that someone that doesn't have that kind of technical background wouldn't necessarily have intuition about. So yeah, I think high level answer is yes, it can be a very successful path. I think the challenge that I've seen is when you move from engineering into product you're no longer an engineer. And so you have to defer to your engineering counterparts on technical decisions, even if you think that, or maybe because you have a very strong opinion. And so I think it introduces challenges in a way that someone who isn't technical, they have to rely very heavily on their engineering partners to make decisions and someone who has that background maybe feels like, well, I can just make all the decisions. And ultimately, that doesn't set the team up for ongoing success and also positions you or positions the person as kind of a single point of failure where they're making product and technical decisions, which ultimately is not a way to scale yourself or your team in my experience. Awesome, thank you for those links Bailey. I will end us there seeing as we are just about or maybe just over time. Thank you all so much for taking the time to join the chat today. I hope that if you're interested, you can head over to the career booth and learn more about Etsy or any of the other companies that are represented here. And ultimately, good luck. I hope you find a really exciting and fulfilling product role. Thanks folks, bye.