 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the webinar that I'm recording for you today for Product School. Today I will be talking about how to prepare for interview stages when seeking a product management job. My name is Kasia. As you can see here on my first slide, I am a talent acquisition lead currently working for the zone. And today I'm actually doing the recording for you from Spain and you usually I am based in Netherlands, but I'm on my holidays. So that's why you see the nice surrounding behind me. But I hope I'll not have also any disturbances and the connection will be stable. But let's say let's see. Thank you for joining. Thank you for tuning in. Let's let's start. So first, as always, because some of you may already know me, some of you may not. I will do a short intro about myself so you know who is talking to you today. So I am a senior recruiter as well as talent acquisition lead currently working for the zone. In general, I have spent around eight years in the industry as a recruiter. So always working as a recruiter by past companies were, for example, gg.com and Tom Tom. And after work, what I like to do is I enjoy to ride motorbikes. I enjoy hiking and traveling. And actually now I am doing everything. All of this. So I am in travel. We have our motorbikes here. And we also go for some hikes. So, yeah, you caught me doing all my favorite things. But let's stop talking about me and let's talk about some stuff which I hope will be helpful to you. So today what I would like to talk about is, first of all, a little bit about how to prepare for different interview stages. Meaning, you know, when you apply for the job, when you apply for the product management job, usually go through a couple of interview stages. So I'll try to focus on each one of them and explain a little bit more about them. I'll also try to tell you what is the general purpose from the other side. So for example, from interviewer side of those steps, of those interview steps and how to distinguish them. And I also try to mention a little bit when to ask which questions while interviewing. So at which steps you should ask which questions. So, yeah, but first of all, yeah, I really do hope that after this webinar, you will not be this sub little boy next to Johnny Depp. I really do hope that you will get some some good insights and the interviews will be a little bit of an easier process for you. But let's start with, yeah, actually, what is the usual process. So of course, it can be very different depending on the company, etc. But usually there is, there are a lot of similarities, right, you probably also went through already a couple of processes and you know that usually the interviews will start with a call with a recruiter. Then you will mostly have some sort of an interview with the manager so your future manager and the manager of the team that you are about to join. Then you will probably have interview with a team and now interview with the team can be actually both here it can be either your future peers so exactly maybe another product manager or another senior product manager from your team. It can also be an interview with your stakeholders and I also like to call it a team right because when you work as a product manager. Yes, you have a lot of different stakeholders around you, but in general you usually form sort of a team, which goes around one goal. And of course, those actually two steps interview with a manager interview with a team can very often be like interchangeable so maybe we'll start actually with an interview with a team and the interview with the manager will be the last step. Sometimes there might be also some additional short call with a with a person maybe somewhere higher up in the carer she so some kind of a VP of product, or some kind of a business leader, even sometimes a C level, people can join. But today I would like to focus on those three main I would say interview steps. Because usually when you get to meet, let's you know somewhere from from from higher up on the interview. It's kind of like a very last final step just a sort of a formality check. And also a chance for you to to get to introduce to someone who is running the company. Of course, you know, that's just a usual frame, it may differ so please don't like you know call me out afterwards. If, if you have had some different process. That's that's just a frame. It can be sometimes you know a little bit different you can have maybe no two steps of the interview with the team, you know because it will be split it into two different days, etc, etc. But I would say for the purpose of today presentation, today's presentation, it's it's kind of, you know, good enough, a little bit, you know, more high level overview of the of the process. Yeah. So let's start now I would like to know go through each of those three steps a little bit more into the details. And, and walk you through each of those steps and start with the purpose. So let's start with a call with recruiter. So the purpose of the call with recruiter from my site for example so now I can really tell you what is the purpose usually that I tried to fulfill with such a such a call if I, if I'm talking with with candidates who are applying to the zone. So first of all, I want to introduce the candidate to the company. So I want to, like, you know, tell them about the role. I want to tell them about the team. I want to tell them in general about the zone and the company that I work for. And also of course a part that I have to fulfill as well which is evaluation of some essential skills needed for the job. So these are really like you know those essential ones which means that you know if you. This is kind of like you know like passing the first bar that they set and these are so essential skills that someone who doesn't possess them shouldn't go through the next steps. Often it's also a first check first evaluation of the communication skills, because as you can probably probably imagine all communication is really a key in product management jobs, and you for sure know it. If someone struggles with clear concise communication. It just really difficult to be then you know to go for example to the next level of influencing your stakeholders, getting that the common sense for everyone around you and really making sure that the project goes forward and the products are delivered. And the call with recruiter has also one more purpose is the kind of check of some formalities which also needs to be in line with with what what is kind of the idea for the for the role. And that's the step where the recruiter and myself, we will check the solid expectations or a solid level of the candidate and eligibility to work in center in certain countries for example, and the availability so availability it means when you can start the earliest. And yes and now, knowing this. What could you prepare for such a call so imagine, you know you got the, you applied for the job. You're getting the invite, usually via email from a recruiter, and you are about to have such a call with a recruiter let's say next day or in two days from now. So what you could think of, I would say, try to think of a smooth and short summary of your past experience. Because this is also very often what the recruiter will start with so they will start with a question. Can you tell me a little bit more about you know your past career, how did it went etc. You know, here, very often I see, you know the question may arise, should this summary start from the current job and go down, you know into the past, or should you start from your first job and drive up to the, to the last one. I see candidates doing actually both. And I would say, it doesn't matter in the, in the long run. I would say choose the one that fits you that makes sense kind of for you in your head so if you prefer to go chronologically, you know from the first job you had until the current one. It's not perfect, or if you prefer to go actually backwards. That's also good. Just think of, you know, what works better for you because that will allow you to be more clear. If you try to do it the other way, which doesn't fit very well with your I don't know like really your your likes. You have to force yourself to do something that is not natural for you and that may stops your clear communication. Right, so try to go with the easy way. So don't put you for yourself unnecessarily blockers. And I assure you, for for recruiters I think the majority of us, it really doesn't matter if you start from the past or from the up until now as long as it's clear, concise, smooth, and we kind of you know we can really it's easy really easy to follow right the whole path that you that you went through. Then think also of course why you want to work in this company right so very often, you know, one of my top top questions and I can reveal it you know it's not, you know, a brainer here. It's also like you know why you have applied for this role. Why you have chosen, you know, to click the button and send the CV, and why this company why out of like, you know, quite a lot of offers as be honest. There is quite a lot of choice for for the product management jobs around the world. Why you have decided to actually pick this one. And think about it upfront so you will have the answer ready. Then also think about your seller expectations because that's really I would say like you know 99%. That will be the question that that you will be asked on the first call with the recruiter. What are your seller expectations. If you're applying for example from another country, anyone to relocate. Think about, you know, try to do the research about what is the cost of living there. What are the average salaries offered for the role that you're applying. So do a little bit of the research of your own if you have friends. Ask them, you know, hey, what do you think I should I should be asking for. Because that's really also makes the whole of the rest of the process easier when you already clearly state, you know, more or less what are your expectations. And then of course, like, you know, check the things like your notice period if you're not sure. Because you will also probably be asked when you can start so how soon after the decision a positive one is made, you can be available to start a new company. So it's you know your notice period your any plant holidays or plant trips that may disturb your start date. Also do mention those it's really. It just makes you you know much more, I would say credible as well and you know thinking forward when you are immediately like you know saying hey by the way in a month from now I actually have to go for two weeks somewhere. And it's also a good practice of course to inform yourself a little bit about the company. Right now, you know, you will not be probably discredited at the very first stage. If you know nothing about the company because the market is anyways quite driven by the candidates. But I would say it's really much better if you know already something because that leads to the last thing of course questions. If you inform yourself about the company upfront it will be easier for you to know which questions you want to ask. And from the recruiter, you may expect you know they can tell you probably quite a lot about the culture about the team that you will work. Maybe sometimes about some you know challenging tasks that are in the job. But I would say any any type of more you know high level kind of you know entry information about the company. That's you know that's the time to ask them plus the benefits. If you want to know usually the recruiters will you know if they will not tell you immediately about the benefits and everything that is kind of you know around the actual offer. And you can you can really you know easily ask the recruiter. They usually should know it I have to say they should because of course you know I I'm not working with all the recruiters. I just know that for example in my team every recruiter knows all the benefits by hearts. So you know it's a it's a given and in my past companies usually as well it worked like that but I have to you know keep some. Some safe space for some other recruiters who maybe you know just working a bit different way. So yeah the benefits type of the contract all those you know kind of formalities which also the recruiter wants to check. You can also check for yourself at this very stage. All right so I think that's that's about the call with the recruiter. So now let's go to the next step, which is interview with the monitor. Usually the purpose of the interview with the manager, especially when it starts right after right after the call with the recruiter. It's like you know it's a next consecutive step. The purpose is to evaluate the team fit. So your team fit how you will kind of you know fit with all the different personalities that are there in the team. And the usual flow that is that is in the team. There is also you know another purpose is actually to check of your core scales. So you have like you know you have kind of this usually goes gradually so we start with the essential ones then we go to the core ones. And then we would go to the really like almost like a whole variety of the requirements that are needed for the job. So for the for the manager is usually you know just just checking the core skills. And also they are trying to define of how successful you will be on the job in this company environment so they will try to really define you know this this kind of success ratio of yours. And also they will probably try to define already your seniority level. So they will also want to make sure if the job is for example, you know, for some really senior people and they will want to see that you meet the bar. Or if the job is for, you know, maybe more like a mid range product manager standard level. Then they will also want to see and check for themselves that this job will be the right one for you and it will give you enough challenges. So I'll probably ask a little bit also around your ambitions, and so on. And how you can prepare for this in majority of cases, this interview will be built around behavior questions. It can be either behavioral one or situational one hypothetical ones. So the behavioral question would be about your past examples from your career, which showcase some of your core skills and the core skills can be different. I can't of course like tell you because each interview will be built a little bit differently around different skills. But I think you can try to see read through maybe the job description and see what kind of skills are mentioned there and try to expect questions around those. So what you can prepare upfront is think about those examples which showcase maybe your adaptability to different like, you know, changing situations, you know, usually as a product manager you work in, for example, agile companies which have to, you know, sometimes change immediately a lot of things. So your adaptability, flexibility and dealing with challenges, conflict resolution, et cetera, et cetera. And what you can also think in here is to use the star method. The star method, if you have never heard about it, I doubt it's usually already quite common one, but you can easily Google it. It's a method recommended actually for both interviewers and interviewees. So the interviewers use it sometimes as a frame for when they ask a question and how to ask the follow up questions. And the star is translated into situation, task, action and result, meaning that you describe the situation that you were in. You describe the task that you have kind of, you know, figured out that needs to be done, sorry. Then you describe the actions that you took to, you know, kind of complete the task. And what was the result? Positive, negative, did you manage to achieve everything that you managed to achieve it partially, et cetera. So it really helps while giving a clear answer to the question, which usually starts, for example, describe a situation in which you had to, or maybe you were disagreeing with someone from your team, or you have faced a conflict in your team. So describe the situation, tell us what you have done, et cetera, et cetera. And to prepare for the interview with the monitor, I would also recommend to think of the examples which are both the wins and the failures. Why? Because it's through the failures that we learn the most. And it's sometimes through the failures that we can really get to know you. When everything goes well, it's easy. It's simple. It's actually those situations which are the challenging ones, and the ones in which maybe at the beginning you kind of fail, but then through the way you learn how to get better, how to improve. That's the stuff that it's usually quite important. And I see also quite a lot of candidates have, of course, problems with talking about the failures. And it's natural, because in the interview scenario, you want to show yourself right from the best side. So it's natural for us to try to avoid to talk about something that didn't go exactly as we wanted, or maybe we actually failed and we had to kind of revamp a little bit. But let's not forget that failing is supernatural. It's like you don't have people that are no people who exist who never failed at all once. But what's important is that we can, you know, fail fast, right? So fail, learn from it, and just, you know, adapt, change, apply something different, and improve and win. So that's the best showcases that you can think of. So somewhere where you actually failed, but then managed to improve based on the learnings that you got from your failure. And of course, before the interview with the monitor, get to know the company even better. You have now some information from the call with the recruiter, use that, dig a little bit deeper. You can also, by the way, going a little bit backwards, because now I thought about it. When you talk with the recruiter, you can ask for some maybe materials that they recommend to go through any type of the website, you know, careers website, anything else that can describe, you know, a little bit better the company. So it will be helpful for you to prepare for the interview, like next step, for example. Now questions. It's also now like quite crucial to ask questions at this interview. I always say it's at every interview step you need to ask questions. It's really, really, really good, good practice. So please never leave this window for you empty. Because now you are talking to your future monitor. So ask them the questions, for example, about what is their practice of setting the goals? Can they give you an example of the goal that they think will be your first goal when you join? How they evaluate them? How they run the performance reviews? Will you have the one-on-ones with them on the regular basis? Et cetera, et cetera, right? So try to ask, you know, how they work, et cetera. So you have quite a lot of information to see if you also fit with this monitor. Because I always say it's a two-way street. Interview is never one way. It's also your chance to, you know, maybe actually avoid getting into the company that you don't want to get into, or maybe working with the monitor that you don't want to work with. So ask those questions and don't be afraid to kind of, you know, like evaluate the monitor, your future monitor as well. All right. And yes, that's the final part, the third part of our today's webinar. It will be quite simple and short. So I hope you will like it. Because I also think I prefer a bit now snappier and shorter versions of the webinar. Now it's the part with about interview with the team. So yeah, usually it goes as the third step, for example. But as I said, again, it can be also you can start with it, et cetera. And again, by the team, I mean here, your future peers and your future stakeholders. It can be that you will not even meet your future peers. Some of the companies will only introduce you to the stakeholders. It really depends on the, you know, on the company and the situation, et cetera. But the interview with the team is sort of the main evaluation of the requirements and the skills that are needed for the job. And sometimes you may also have a live assessment during such a step. So you will be given a short task. Sometimes the task is actually given to you to home before the interview. And then sometimes you need to present it on the interview. It's really very different, different ways. But also this step is kind of like a final definition of your seniority level as well. And it's really the main, as I mentioned before, it's kind of like a main step which will really try to define all the skills that are required for the job. So for this one, it's also that the good preparation is very, very needed. And what you can do, again, the STAR method, you will be probably be asked again the behavioral questions and also hypothetical one. Hypothetical one will be imagine you are given, I don't know, a backlog left by someone to kind of work through. Like by the previous PM, maybe not finished one or something. And you are given this and you have to work through it and what do you do, right? What kind of steps you are planning and so on, what are the actions you are taking? And so think about the STAR method because it will again, you know, it helps actually for both to answer behavioral questions and the situational hypothetical one. Because for the hypothetical one, you can again think first, okay, so what is the situation? What is the task that you have to complete? And then you think, okay, so I'll take these and these actions and you describe them. And then the result, well, hypothetically, you can imagine about the result, but the result will be actually like, you know, here, your answers. And how to prepare for this one? Of course, besides like, you know, like, googling a lot about, you know, maybe find some information on the on the internet about the interviewing with this specific company, or in general interviewing and so on. I would also say, go through the job description again, you have a lot of details very often in the job description, which will define actually the required skills and it will help you to understand around which skills the questions might be. And for example, in my previous webinar, I was also showing a little bit about how to see those keywords in the job description, which will define, you know, what kind of skills are needed. And those are different ones, for example, sometimes, you know, you can see that you need to be very data driven in the job, or you need to be very self starters, you have to have bias for action. So think about those situations from your past, which will describe, you know, how you took ownership, how you took initiative, and things were completed with the with the success. So try to really go to the job description and focus on those keywords. And, and, yeah, and prepare based on this. If you can't find the job description, a little tip here, little, little positive to start for for a tip from the recruiter. Ask the recruiter. So you should be in contact with the recruiter throughout the whole process should have at least their phone number or an email maybe ask them because sometimes maybe throughout the process you know it's already the final step. It might be that the job posting is already gone. So, because they may be closed it because you know they got enough applicants etc. The recruiter should always be able to help and send you this prior to your final interview. And also, really feel free to ask a recruiter about maybe some tips, ask them, what do they think like you know what you should prepare. And try to kind of, you know, be proactive as well around the around the interview if you don't get enough information from the from the recruiter already. And what, what is the final thing here to talk about is questions to your future team. So again, as I mentioned the questions I think are really important to ask on every single interview step you go through. It also now with the question it depends a little bit if you are talking actually with your peers, or with your stakeholders. But of course the questions to your peers will be a little bit about like you know how you organize maybe how they organize the work between each other, how, how for example, because they have, you know, if it's really a product manager job, you can already ask them, you know, who is establishing the roadmap how the process looks like. How many teams they they work with like development teams from teams with, you know, all these really detailed questions which will help you also understand. I don't wish it of course to anyone but there are sometimes the companies where for example, the teams are really overloaded right so they work with too many scrum teams at once. And it's, it's good for you to know it before so that's why really, you know, I know that I like repeat repeat repeat this but it's really important. I think to ask those questions during the interview so you don't end up in, yeah, in a team for example which would just get too much of a workload. And another thing if you are talking for example with the with the stakeholders. And you can. Yeah, you can already start asking a little bit of the first questions that you would ask if you if you joined the company and you're about to meet your stakeholders right so maybe try to ask them also so you understand the map of the stakeholders so So try to ask them like you know, whom you will be involved with besides them, because you may talk with some people from from marketing, or maybe some people from engineering side from from finance from legal and try to get an understanding and also know what will be the whole whole stakeholder map of of yours if you if you joined the company. And, yeah, and I think that's, that's it that's about the final stage of the interview process of the interview with the team. One of the ways from this today short short webinar would be that the purpose of each interview step is slightly different. It's really good to think about it right so think up front, which, which step you're going through, is it the call with the recruiter, is it the call with the monitor, is it the call with your team or the stakeholders, and thinking about this purpose, knowing actually from my side what is the usual purpose from it. Think, you know, how, how to adjust your, your responses, the thing that you will prepare for the interview. And how to adjust also your questions. And then think also read a little bit more about the star method. So you could see it was really like a common thing and joining basically all the all the three steps of the call with the recruiter, the call with the interview with the monitor and interview with the team. In each of those steps, the star method might be useful. The call with the recruiter, it's sometimes the least because usually you get, you don't get many behavioral questions at this stage. But sometimes you also do. So it may be also good to kind of, you know, work through it. I don't know, maybe, maybe even try to record yourself to when giving an answer to some hypothetical question or behavioral one that you have thought of or found online. And try to see for yourself, for example, based on this recording, how clear your communication sounds. Because the communication is also something that will be evaluated through all the steps as I also mentioned before. The star method helps you to really clearly plan out your answer and and go, you know, through each step, situation, task, action, result. Clearly, and it also it's it also is like much clearer for your listener. And yeah, and the final thing here is your questions. So write them down, ideally, I think, write your questions down before each step. And an answer like, sorry, ask them all and find the answers that will suit you. Also, when you think about your questions, don't, I would say, you know, don't try to just ask them for the purpose of asking. Ask them because you really are seeking for some information for yourself that will help you to evaluate if the company that you're applying to and the job that you're applying to is really the right one for you. So, because sometimes I also think that it's easy to go into the trap and just, you know, every like, you know, everywhere online, everyone will tell you it's a good practice to ask questions on the interview. And, and it's also like, you know, it shows that you kind of, you know, you care you want to get to know more information, etc. But don't try to ask those questions because you want to show something to the interviewer. Think about yourself here, really focus on I think that's really the important kind of change in the mindset that when you are thinking about your questions. You're thinking about yourself, you're thinking about you who want to check the company for yourself before you join this company. So that's the goal always always that's that should be always the goal. Never you should be thinking about, you know, or I should, I should ask smart questions so then they will hire me. I really do not recommend this approach. Because I really truly believe that once we really check the company as well through the interview process, we will end up in a much better job for us. It's much more fitted for us will be happier, satisfied, and, and probably will stay stay much longer, actually in the in the company. And it is also like, you know, of course now in general the time spans throughout the different, you know, career steps are in general short and it's also fine. It's natural. Everything is changing super fast. But I think there's also a value in. And sometimes just, you know, for the peace of your mind simply staying in in the company for slightly longer and just be happy with that company, etc. All right, so that's that's basically it for today. So the summary from today no presentation will be, you know, think about the purpose of each step of the interview process. Prepare the star methods and think about your questions. And thank you very much for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned some some stuff and I hope it was helpful. I wish you also all good luck in your interview stages, new jobs, etc. As you can see here, I am more of a cat person while I am in general of all animals but for this. On this slide I have found the cute cut gift. And I hope you will find your dream job. A little bit easier now with, you know, with few tips from my side. So thank you very much. Enjoy your evenings mornings or afternoons wherever you are. I am happy that you tuned today to see my webinar. And also if you will have any questions afterwards, feel free to reach out actually to me directly on LinkedIn. You can easily find me by my name and surname so Katarzyna Paczynska actually the longer version you need to find out but if you just use the surname you should also find me. In any ways you can always contact the school and they will have the details of mine. So they will for sure help. And yeah, happy interviewing, happy job finding. Good luck to you all. And if you have any some, you know, any more detailed questions, feel free to reach out I'm always happy to help and answer. Thank you very much. And enjoy the rest of your days.