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Guide to interviewing Product Managers
Guide to interviewing Product Managers
Customer Support avatar
Written by Customer Support
Updated over a week ago

Dover recommends tailoring your interview plan to each specific role. For Product roles, you can tailor your Interview Plan in Dover using the suggested interview plan, interview questions, scheduling templates, and feedback forms.

📆 Interview Plan

First Interview ⏰ 30 mins

  • Dover Interviewer or Recruiter Screen

  • High level job requirement confirmation

Second Interview - Hiring Manager Interview ⏰ 60 mins

  • Deep dive on requisite skills

Take Home Assessment ⏰ 3-4 hrs

Please see take home assignment examples below. Typically take home assignments are completed in less than 7 days.

Onsite ⏰ 2 hrs 30 mins

  1. Intro/Prep - ⏰ 15mins

    1. Overview of what the day will look like

    2. Interviewer: Recruiter / Head of Talent

  2. Behavioral 1 - ⏰ 30mins

    1. Review cultural fit questions

    2. Design challenge with a designer

    3. Interviewer: Hiring Manager / Leadership in Business Area

  3. Technical Screen / Role Play - ⏰ 30mins

    1. Review remaining technical / role-specific skillset content

    2. Interviewer: Full time Employee from Business Area

  4. Social Interview - ⏰ 30mins

    1. Casual non-evaluative opportunity for candidate to meet people from other Business Areas

    2. Interviewers: 2 Full time Employees from different Business Areas

  5. Behavioral 2 - ⏰ 30mins

    1. Review cultural fit questions

      1. Product intuition and prioritization

      2. Analytical

    2. Interviewers: Other Hiring Manager / Leadership in Business Area

  6. Wrap-Up - ⏰ 15mins

    1. Close out the day with the candidate, sell company

    2. Interviewers: Chief of Staff / C-Suite / Founder / Executive

👩‍💻 Take home assignment examples

Below are some sample take home assignments

Writing Assignment

Prompt: Should Dover double down on executive searches?

Dover is focused on automating the manual and repetitive parts of the recruiting process. We've found success by helping companies automatically source candidates for their open roles, leveraging all channels like outbound, inbound and referrals. Moreover, we provide our customers with a whitelabeled phone screen service where our Interview Specialists can help conduct basic screeners.

Executive Search has always been a slightly different process in the recruiting world. Firms like Kornferry, Heidrick and Struggles and Egon Zender help place top executives for Fortune 500 companies. Smaller firms like Daversa and Riviera Partners help startups in Silicon Valley. These firms charge exorbitant amounts for similar pipeline-building services. As a data point, these smaller firms charge startups ~100k flat fee retainer, and might include a placement fee as well. Unlike Dover, they have relationships with candidates and also provide help with offer negotiation and pitching candidates.

Please explore this idea and help make a recommendation. Here's some suggestions of areas to cover:

  • What is the potential upside of Dover entering executive search?

  • How would you implement this offering? Consider what product and go-to-market changes might need to occur. How would you price this offering?

  • What are some of the short-term and long-term risks?

  • What recommendation would you make, overall?

Format: Memo 1-3 page doc. Feel free to use images/flowcharts/any supporting material but please keep the basic format as text, not a deck or powerpoint.

Design Exercise

The goal of this exercise is to ignore all business constraints and see if candidates can really put themselves in the mind of a user who is pretty different from them.

  • Design an alarm clock for the blind

  • How would you remake the dashboard of a self driving car?

    • Key to this one is to identify the use case they want to solve for and the customer

Product Intuition and Prioritization

  1. Share 3 products you use regularly that we probably have roughly equivalent knowledge of. Try not to pick huge products like Gmail, iPhone but instead focus on things with less than hundreds of millions of users. Good examples include things like Asana, Strava, etc. Let’s say you are now the head of product for that company. What 3 features would you want to build and why?

    1. A good candidate should identify company goals first and not just jump into ideas. They should say “We care about revenue” or “We care about profitability” and then focus on some ideas in that category. They will also generate more than 3 ideas and prune back to 3.

  2. Let’s say you’re a PM at Uber and your boss asks you to design Uber for Kids. The basic idea is parents are tired of driving their kids around and want to call an Uber for them. Let’s spend an hour designing as much of this as possible. The goal is not to get to wireframes but instead to identify all the key tradeoffs and risks we’d need to get a handle on and then form opinions on each of them.

    1. I give them a concrete set of features that I ask them to prioritize. I really want them doing back of the envelope math and coming up with an actual priority order. I use Lyft because I prefer not to ask interview questions about my company - there’s too much information asymmetry. I tell people at the beginning that a good response will get to priority order but a great response will actually include estimates of impact.

✉️ Scheduling Email Templates

The following are examples of scheduling emails for each interview round.

First Interview

Scheduling Email A (Interview with person sending outreach)

Hi {{first_name}},

Great to hear from you, I'm excited to chat! To make scheduling easier, could you find some time on my calendar here: {{scheduling_link}}

Looking forward to it!

Scheduling Email B (Interview with person who did not send outreach)

Hi {{first_name}},

Great to hear from you! We’d love to schedule a call with a member of our recruiting team to learn further about your experience and share further information on this opportunity.

To make scheduling easier, could you please find a time here: {{scheduling_link}}

Thanks,

{{sender_first_name}}

Rejection

Hi {{first_name}},

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us about the {{job_title}} position. Your background is impressive, and we really enjoyed speaking with you. Unfortunately, at this time we feel it's not the right fit.

We appreciate the time you took to learn more about {{client_name}} and hope you don't mind if we reach back out in the future.

Best,

{{sender_first_name}}

Second Interview

Scheduling

Hi {{first_name}},

We enjoyed speaking with you about the {{job_title}} role and would love to move forward! The next step in our process involves meeting {{interviewer_first_name}}, {{interviewer_role_title_with_article}}, the hiring manager for this position. In this interview, {{interviewer_first_name}} will provide you with further insights into the role and the company and delve deeper into your skills, experience, and how they align with our requirements.

Here's {{interviewer_first_name}}'s calendar to find a time: {{scheduling_link}}.

Hope the two of you find a chance to connect soon.

Looking forward to hearing how it goes!

{{sender_first_name}}

Rejection

Hi {{first_name}},

Thanks for taking the time to learn about the {{job_title}} role at {{client_name}}. Our team enjoyed speaking with you, but ultimately we felt that it wasn't a fit at this time.

I hope you don't mind if we keep your information on file and reach out to you in the future! Best of luck in your search.

Thanks,

{{sender_first_name}}

Take home assessment

Scheduling

Hi {{first_name}},

We enjoyed speaking with you about the {{job_title}} role and would love to move forward!

The next step in our interview process is a short take home project. It should take about a 3-4 hours to complete, and we'd appreciate if you could submit it within 7 business days of receiving this email. Please submit your assignment by converting Google Sheets / Powerpoint presentation into a PDF format. Prompt below:

<Enter Prompt>

We will review your response and get back to you as soon as possible. Upon passing this stage, you will be progressed to a virtual onsite, the final round in our interview process.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or clarifications. We're looking forward to reading your response!

Thanks,

{{sender_first_name}}

Rejection

Hi {{first_name}},

Thanks for taking the time to learn about the {{job_title}} role at {{client_name}}. Our team enjoyed speaking with you, but ultimately we felt that it wasn't a fit at this time.

I hope you don't mind if we keep your information on file and reach out to you in the future! Best of luck in your search.

Thanks,

{{sender_first_name}}

Onsite

Scheduling

Hi {{first_name}},

We would love to move you forward to our next stage, where you would meet more of the team virtually. The onsite will last 2.5 hours and consist of the following rounds:

The virtual onsite should last about 2.5 hours, and below are some more details as to what you can expect from each panel:

  • Prep Session with < Interviewer Name> (Recruiter/HoT) - 15mins

  • Behavioral Interview with < Interviewer Name> (Hiring Manager)- 30mins

  • Take home interview discussion <Interviewer Name> - 30mins

  • Casual Chat with < Interviewer Name> and <Interviewer Name> - 30mins - Casual non-evaluative opportunity to learn more about the company’s culture - 2 FTE from other BAs

  • Behavioral Interview with <Interviewer Name> (Other HM/Leadership in BA) - 30mins

  • Close out the day with < Interview Name> ( CoS/C-Suite) - 15mins

Could you please share some time slots in the coming days that work for you? I'll then send over an invite that works best for everyone.

The team is looking forward to meeting you, please let me know if you have any questions! Congrats on reaching this final stage!

Best,

{{sender_first_name}}

Rejection

Hi {{first_name}},

Thank you for meeting the team for our {{job_title}} role. We really appreciate you taking the time to be part of our interview process over the last few weeks.

At this point, we will not be able to move forward with your candidacy. We'll keep your information on file and hope we can reconnect in the future.

Regards,

{{sender_first_name}}

📓 Feedback Forms / Evaluation criteria

Interview rubrics / feedback form criteria can be an effective tool to assess candidates consistently and objectively during the interview process across various interviewers. Here's an example of a rubric for evaluating candidates for a Product Manager role.

Evaluation

Product Knowledge: Assesses the interviewee’s understanding of product management principles, industry best practices, and relevant technologies.

  • Exceptional: The exceptional product manager candidate has a deep knowledge of product management principles and industry best practices. They have a passion for effective product design and in-depth understanding of the latest technologies and trends. They are able to apply their knowledge in order to provide strategic and insightful guidance on product development.

  • Good: The good product manager candidate has a basic understanding of product management principles and industry best practices. They demonstrate consistency by learning testing and iterating to optimize product design. They have a working knowledge of relevant technologies, and can apply this knowledge to aid in the development of the product.

  • Average: The average product manager candidate is able to apply some of their knowledge surrounding product management principles and industry best practices, but may lack expertise in specific areas. They may be able to provide basic direction on product development, but are not able to provide real strategies to optimize the product design.

  • Below Average: The below average product manager candidate has difficulty demonstrating their knowledge of product management principles and relevant industry best practices. They lack any real understanding of technology trends and their application in product design. They are unable to provide any insightful guidance to aid in product development.

Problem Solving: Evaluates the interviewee's ability to think through complex problems, create and test hypotheses, and make decisions.

  • Exceptional: The Exceptional Product Manager candidate actively crafts and evaluates hypotheses to solve complex problems. The Exceptional candidate also demonstrates creativity and innovativeness to come up with unexpected solutions and has the ability to make tough decisions quickly and confidently. They can also provide examples of successful decisions or problem resolutions which they initiated and how it affected the project.

  • Good: The Good Product Manager candidate is able to think through complex problems and create hypotheses to test solutions, but they might be more conservative in their approach than an Exceptional candidate. They are comfortable making decisions but might not necessarily be able to demonstrate any unique problem-solving skills.

  • Average: The Average Product Manager candidate is capable of understanding problem-solving situations, but they may be less inclided to come up with creative solutions or make tough decisions. They are capable of understanding and executing tasks but lack advanced problem-solving skills.

  • Below Average: The Below Average Product Manager candidate is not able to identify and address problems or craft and test hypotheses. They may be reticent to make decisions or lack the problem-solving skills necessary to be successful.

Stakeholder Management: Assesses the applicant's ability to lead a team, manage stakeholders, and communicate effectively.

  • Exceptional: The exceptional Product Manager candidate is able to lead a team of diverse stakeholders with clarity and strong communication skills. They can effectively identify the needs of the stakeholders, present solutions, and motivate the team through each product venture. They are proactive with their stakeholder relationships and have a proven history of successful product launches.

  • Good: The good Product Manager candidate is capable of leading a team and maintaining effective communication with stakeholders. They understand the needs of stakeholders and are able to develop and execute reasonable solutions. They are capable of problem solving and managing complexity.

  • Average: The average Product Manager candidate has basic knowledge of product management and a basic understanding of team dynamics. They are able to lead a team and maintain basic communication with stakeholders but may struggle with complex problem solving. They are able to come up with solutions, but the solutions may not be the most effective ones.

  • Below Average: The below average Product Manager candidate may lack the skills needed to effectively lead a team and communicate to stakeholders. They lack an in-depth understanding of product management and have little experience managing complex product projects. They may struggle to develop feasible solutions and communicate lack of clarity with stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Understanding: Evaluates the applicant's ability to collaborate and work with teams from different departments and organizations.

  • Exceptional: Exceptional product manager candidates have the ability to quickly become an expert in all areas related to the product. They understand the complexities and limitations of each team’s environment, tackling cross-functional challenges and finding creative ways to work through them. They are able to anticipate and resolve issues between teams, leveraging their relationships with other departments, stakeholders and the company to get results.

  • Good: Good product manager candidates have a basic understanding of various teams and functions that make up the product life cycle. They are able to recognize the importance of collaboration and can effectively communicate with members of other teams to ensure success. They have strong communication skills and are able to gain consensus across multiple disciplines.

  • Average: Average product manager candidates have an awareness of how different functions work together. They are able to see how their product decisions may impact other teams and processes, but are unable to effectively navigate the complexities. They have the ability to communicate broadly, but struggle to gain buy in from cross-functional partners without instructions or guidance.

  • Below Average: Below average product manager candidates have a limited understanding of the different functions within a product's life cycle. They may be narrowly focused on their specific area of expertise, without any ability to collaborate or interact with other teams. They may not understand the complexity of interdepartmental partnerships, leading to misunderstandings with other team members and slower progress.

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