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Navigating PM Hiring Red Flags

Welcome to our Product Newsletter, a biweekly email highlighting top discussions, and learning resources for product managers.

What We Will Cover In This Edition:-

Top Discussions:Ā 

1) Red flag in a potential PM hire

2) Is the Product Manager the most replaceable member of the company?

3) PM with 2 years of experience, want to get into my dream company: Microsoft, or Google. How?

Top Learning Resources:

1. Observations On Product Management

2. Good Product Team/Bad Product Team

3. What makes a strong product culture?

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Top Discussions

Question 1) Red flag in a potential PM hire

Product Management recruiters and Hiring Managers, whatā€™s a red flag in a potential PM hire, either on their resume or in the process of interviewing?

– Karan Trivedi

Discussion

A]Ā A few things come to mind:

  • Talking about past failures as failures of others. Theyā€™ll rarely say it outright, most are smart enough to realize theyĀ shouldnā€™tĀ say that, but the ego-stoked ones canā€™t help themselves from avoiding pinning anything on themselves, so look for that. PM is a high accountability role. If you canā€™t eat humble pie now and then, I see that as a risk for toxicity.
  • Lack of demonstrated experience actually talking to ā€œcustomersā€ (Be creative for internal-only experience) as part of their path to a solution. For instanceĀ ā€œI analyzed the market and competitorsā€ vs “I spoke with {personas} in the {target market} industry and learned thatā€¦Ā this shows me they are user-centric. Saying you are means nothing.
  • taking credit for solutions but not ever taking credit for problem discovery. I believe they should be focusing on taking credit for the latter, not the former.
  • Talking about their team in a way that sounds like they see themselves as being ā€˜aboveā€™ them in some way, instead of being gracious and recognizing that their team are the key to any success theyā€™ve achieved. Itā€™s a tough one to speak about in absolute terms, but depending on how the candidate talks about it – thereā€™s something aboutĀ howĀ some people talk about ā€œtheir teamā€ that rubs me the wrong way. Think Boss vs Leader crap you usually see in LinkedIn feeds etc.
  • Candidates that never seem to structure their answer to the common ā€œproduct-thinkingā€ questions. A PM needs to be an excellent communicator. Itā€™s not enough to answer my question (correctly), you have to explain why, and how you came to a conclusion. Look at all my other bullet points
  • An indication that someone is reactive in their implementation based on easy-to-regurgitate industry common knowledge rather than user needs, business goals, or data-based research. Thereā€™s something about this (and a lot of it is dependent on intangibles in the conversation) that gives me a feeling about how problem-focused they are in their research.
  • A candidate that struggles to speak about value proposition in terms of outcomes and customer benefit, but rather dives into the weeds of specific features

– Michael Yoffe

B]Ā Iā€™m in implementation & integration consulting, going through the interview process for a product owner role in my company. I have a great reputation for knowledge of the product, the team needs the role filled ASAP, and I also come highly recommended by someone on the team. I will probably get the position, but Iā€™m still genuinely curious because I want to do a good job. Can you elaborate on your last bullet?

Before I worked here, I had interviewed for a pre-sales solution consultant position. I didnā€™t get that job. I think I remember hearing from somewhere (maybe it was the recruiter giving me the debrief after turning me down) that the difference between implementation & pre-sales consulting is that in implementation, youā€™ll show a customer how to use a part of the system, and in pre-sales consulting, youā€™ll tell them what the value is in using that part of the system. Is that an accurate analogy to your last bullet?

– Marco Silva

C]Ā Letā€™s take a scenario on Spotify, where youā€™re asked what feature youā€™d add. For starters, itā€™s important to ask first what the focus area/theme/improvement metric is. Say for instance the scenario is to improve music discovery for users. Well, as a quickly concocted scenario, you could talk about adding a ā€œdislikeā€ button as YouTube Music has.

You couldĀ open with ā€œbecause YouTube music is a competitor and they do itā€ and proceed to go on and on about how it gives you an extra learning dimension that allows you to improve ML of the AI to improve heuristics of calculating the set of songs the user will like by combining the intersection of liked and disliked songs of others to build a set of suggestions. You cover all your ā€œlook at me I know AI because keywords usedā€ bases and you may think you look smart. The thing is youā€™re not being hired to actually doĀ that.

Alternatively:

Imagine if as a user, you could not just tell Spotify what you do like, but also directly teach Spotify what you donā€™t like. Now, with one quick tap, you can influence it so that you donā€™t hear songs from that artist whose voice you just canā€™t stand, but in the process, thereā€™s a whole new way for Spotify to curate a selection of new music discovery in a whole new way, reducing poor recommendations and making you want to explore new music even more, which increases engagement.

Same feature; different story.

– Michael Yoffe

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Question 2) Is the Product Manager the most replaceable member of the company?

As startups are starting to lay off people, I am seeing this emerging trend of PMs being laid off first. In fact, although the demand for PMs is high right now in developed countries, the supply is equally present, unlike software engineering, designers, and data scientists. Additionally, most PM roles donā€™t have a pre-requisite degree, so any function can apply for a Product role, and many bankers, marketers, and designers also come into the field. I wanted to confirm this conjecture with other PMs as well – do you feel like you are easily replaceable?

– Damian Marshall

Discussion

A]Ā I think this sub-trends younger and hipper than the product population overall.

If youā€™re in a junior role in a large, trendy companyā€¦yeah youā€™re probably sweating a bit more.

But in a lot of boring organizations the PM (from what Iā€™ve seen) holds so much legacy knowledge they become a difficult asset to replace based on pure numbers/talent competition.

I read Shape Up a few months ago and using some of the ideas in there, introduced the idea of an Investment Budget. It was a way to get around saying ā€œdeadlineā€, but thatā€™s what it amounted to.

– Nathan Endicott

B] Iā€™ll be honest, thereā€™s just a flood of people that have no business being PMs out there right now. PM is seen, on this very sub even, as a career path to go from business/MBA degree to tech engineer salary, and thereā€™s no shortage of people who have absolutely no business being PMs in tech trying to be ones.

So, are they the most replaceable member? Hardly. Sales, support, and marketing are all getting the axe right now as well. Itā€™s entirely dependent on how your company planned to grow over the next 2-3 years and how that plan has changed based on the economy and VC landscape. If your company was planning on investing in R+D and now theyā€™re not? Thatā€™s when PMs are laid off (and other expendable engineering/managers, designers/design managers, etc.). But if your company is now over-staffed in sales or marketing, thatā€™s whoā€™s going to go.

– Richard Soneva

C] Agreed, if you want longevity in the PM space, learning how to code at least basic apps helps tremendously. This gives you a leg up on 90% of PMs. It is a steep learning curve for non-technical folks though and can take many years to produce something worthwhile. Combine this with an MBA or other business-type masterā€™s degree and youā€™re golden. I have 12 years as a PM and 5 years as a software engineer, and I spend half my day helping non-technical PMs avoid catastrophes. Sorry but itā€™s a hard pill to swallow and I think what your comment is getting at. The engineering team and leadership respect my judgement much more because of this.

– Jesus Rojas

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Question 3) PM with 2 years of experience, want to get into my dream company: Microsoft, or Google. How?

Hey guys! So Iā€™m a PM with 2 years of PM work in the whole ā€˜startupā€™ scene. Iā€™d like to switch to corporate, and learn more at a company like Microsoft and Google. Iā€™ve always been pretty insecure about my CV, so Iā€™m looking for how to get into something like that.

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I reached out to someone who had my dream job on LinkedIn and applied to Google as a PM, which got me the fastest reply ever but got rejected. But the silver lining is that I ended up finding a perfect job for my experiences at a huge company thatā€™s turning into ā€˜techā€™ which is a hybrid startup/corporate. So Iā€™m super happy! The lesson for me here was: just when you want to give up ā€“ donā€™t. Youā€™re probably almost there.

– Rob Martin

Discussion

A] Iā€™d say that Google is easily the best company to work for, and that theyā€™re pretty open-minded about who they hire as PMs ā€“ but that most people who are successful in getting an offer are disgustingly qualified. That usually means top 10 universities, CS degrees, advanced degrees, and other interesting experiences.

I also think that itā€™s very difficult to get into a company like Google at your current stage ā€“ youā€™re right at the cusp of APM/PM1 for Google. That is, if you were part of the 2018 APM class, youā€™d be graduating to PM1 soon if youā€™d gone through that program. Therefore, itā€™s hard to hire you as a PM, and very tricky to hire you as an APM, since youā€™re not a new grad.

That said, Iā€™m happy to help if I can! Feel free to PM me your resume ā€“ Iā€™d be open to a VC in the next couple of weeks to figure out how I can help.

In the meantime, feel free to add questions here – I’m an open book =)

– Nathan Endicott

B]Ā Iā€™m used to satellite office life, thankfully ;). Working from outside the US with a US-focused business has its challenges, but tenacity and great documentation go a long way to build bridges in communication. B2B focus feels like it should be easier than B2C, but you end up having less time zone-friendly overlaps to meet with external stakeholders for discovery and validation – so thereā€™s a tradeoffā€¦ sleep tradeoff :).

I often think about what personality traits are best exemplified in a product manager. My top 5 would beĀ empathy, creativity, problem & solution focus, inclusiveness, and curiosity.Ā I try to head-check myself often to ensure I keep my eyes on these. Traits are always a little visceral and hard to measure.

Appreciate your perspective – and thanks for sharing so much guidance. This burgeoning community can be a little quiet but itā€™s great to see leaders in the field pop in and provide some guidance. Especially as product management is broadly a misunderstood discipline,Ā especially outside of California.

IĀ find it reassuring personally that you mention how youā€™d take any applicant who demonstrated capability in interviews and against criteria – even without University. Iā€™ve been very focused on work since I left school and despite my young age (Iā€™m only 27), I feel Iā€™m on a good path. I love the field and work, honestly. Itā€™s such a challenging, and yet stimulating field.

– Felipe Riberio

C] Iā€™m definitely reading the replies! The interview was very interesting! It wasnā€™t something I could prepare for very well. Which I tried to do based on reading material Google recruiter suggested (very helpful) in the interview I was asked to role play as a PM on a team working on tech related to diabetes. 3 PMs on a team one PM was responsible for the contact lens which monitors glucose levels, the second PM was responsible for a device which injects insulin and I would have a 3rd PM.

This is all theoretical as I was not applying to that team. The question was how I would contribute to the team. I talked about tying the other devices with an App which tracks dietary intake and compliments/aggregates/displays the data from the other 2 devices.

There were a few gotchas directly linked to knowing how diabetes works in relation to insulin and sugar levels. Iā€™m familiar on a high level only. And the interview was stressing the question of why build if you can buy software that does it. I felt that my answers were a bit underwhelming. Overall it felt like given some time to familiarize myself with diabetes I would probably not get stumped. The summary was that I had good goodliness, and scores well on communication but lacked in creativity and analytical departments, which is unfortunate because I know that Iā€™m good at both of those areas as a former software engineer and a consultant dealing with some obscure problem-solving in my past life.

– Heather Kurtz

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Top Learning Resources

Observations on Product Management

This first list of aphorisms is more general; Iā€™ll share observations on particular themes too. I also try and be explicit on the usage of Product Management (a discipline) and product generally (the stuff we create).

Good Product Team/Bad Product Team

What Iā€™ve learned is that there is a profound difference between how the very best product companies create technology products and the rest. And I donā€™t mean minor differences. Everything from how the leaders behave, to the level of empowerment of teams, to how the organization thinks about funding, staffing and producing products, down to how product, design and engineering collaborate to discover effective solutions for their customers.

What makes a strong Product Culture?

When considering such a career move, Cagan and Jonesā€™s categories can offer some guidance for sniffing out strong product companies before you join. Here are just a few examples of questions you can ask during a job search.

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