The Product Manager
The job of a product manager is to oversee the development and performance of a product, from the conceptualisation through to its launch and beyond. This is a role that requires the person to coordinate with a cross-functional team and look into all aspects of the product viz. designing, production, marketing, forecasting and the financials. Thus the product manager will need to be involved in the strategic decisions and be responsible for the product vision. They are responsible for pulling all the cross-functional efforts together so that the product is brought to the market as per plan. They generate and nurture new product ideas, and they are the ones who have to mix and match the product features after taking the often difficult trade-off decisions.
What to expect from an interview?
In view of the importance of their role and the aspects attached to their job profile, it is only fair of interviewers to expect certain specific attributes from an aspiring product manager. A successful product manager would be someone who is high on emotional intelligence and good in relationship management. He or she must be self-aware in their decision making so that their preferences don’t cloud their judgments. In order to work closely with the engineering team, a product manager must be hands-on, if not expert, in technical skills. An aspiring product manager appearing for an interview will face product manager interview questions that will scratch beneath the surface of their past work experiences, or put them in hypothetical scenarios and test their worth. Thus it could be a question about the hardest decision you took as a product manager, about your failures and what you learned from it, about a difference of opinion with someone from another team and how you resolved it etc. While these are questions that test your personal side, there will be questions testing your technical and leadership skills as well. Besides, just like in any other interview there always are questions about your general background.
Typical preparation methods
While preparing for product manager interview questions, you will be covering specific areas like product management-related knowledge, company information, the job profile, summary of your past experiences etc. You will try to talk to someone working in the company (preferably a product manager), browse the company website, revisit your B-school books and so on. Apart from reading books and discussing your upcoming interview with relevant people, you will probably do a lot of secondary research online in preparation for your interview. While scrolling through reams of webpages is quite common, have you considered looking for a video that helps you with your product manager interview questions?
YouTube as a video option
Almost synonymous with free internet videos is Google’s premier video sharing service, YouTube. Although 93% of the most-watched videos on YouTube are music videos, it does have some very helpful videos on interview preparation too. What’s even better is that some of these videos are actually about preparing for product manager interview questions! You can shortlist such videos and even save them available offline as well, using a YouTube video downloader. Videos are far more effective than texts for the simple reason that the former grabs our attention faster. Videos are more engaging because human eyes are attracted to movements. Besides videos also have a higher recall value compared to monotonous texts, be it on a web page or a book. But then again, you may not be able to grasp all the information available therein, so make sure you turn on YouTube video downloader and save these videos for repeat watch.
How are YouTube interview guidance videos better?
As you start watching most of these guidance videos, somewhere at the onset you will be given a background of the speaker. If the video guidance is provided by an illustrious Product Manager with a well-decorated CV, it will automatically increase your intrigue and focus as the video unfolds. Thus you end up benefiting more from the video than what you would have from a book or a web page. Because of the ‘personal’ touch in the message delivery, you will be able to identify the more important points among a plethora of tips. For example, one YouTube video about product manager interview questions talks of the need for demonstrating ‘impact’ on your CV. You may design a very impressive CV by describing your past successes, but it is only when the interviewer sees the impact of your past work that he or she is actually impressed. So while you may mention that you added ‘so and so’ feature in a product you developed if you are able to establish that, say, the product sales enhanced due to your feature add decision, the interviewer will actually be in awe of your past success. In another such tutorial video about product manager interview questions, the anchor of the video conducts mock interviews in order to give you a live simulation of how things pan out in front of the interview panel. Unlike in texts, in a mock interview, you can actually see how the interviewee addresses the questions, asks clarifying questions, builds the reply and responds to being nudged by the interviewer in the right direction.
Making the most out of YouTube
As already discussed, YouTube video downloader will ensure that you are never disconnected from your preferred interview guidance videos. But to be able to make the most of YouTube while preparing for your product manager interview, you have to take a more holistic look at the YouTube search results or buy youtube views. Apart from the guidance and mock interviews, you will find excellent thought leadership videos, presentations, and discussions and forums on various aspects related to product management. A look at these will make your preparation more wholesome, as you will soak in lessons that have been distilled out of years of successful product management experience from industry luminaries. With YouTube you can, therefore, be better prepared to face product manager interview questions in a more confident and impressive manner.
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