An Eigenquestion for your PM interview
"We have a few minutes left before we wrap; do you have any questions for me?"
Per request from a reader: this post is for those of you who are actively job searching as PMs or product folks. I hope it offers you a practical & valuable tool in your interviewing tool-belt!
Asymmetric nature of interviews
I’ve always found job interviews to be somewhat awkward due to their asymmetry. In contrast to regular conversations between humans, which tend to be balanced & bilateral, interview settings typically put one participant - either the interviewer or the candidate (depending on the type of interview) - in the ‘driver’ seat in terms of leading the conversation. This puts the other participant in the ‘passenger’ seat, relegated to primarily reacting & responding to the ‘driver’.
This asymmetry is most evident when you reach the final stages of a typical interview and the candidate is offered the opportunity to ask questions of the interviewer about the role, the company, etc. As candidates, we’ve all been there - a couple of minutes left on the clock, and you’re on the hook to select 1-2 thoughtful questions (out of potential 10s or 100s running through your mind) to learn as much as you can in what feels like a high-stakes moment. Good luck!
While there are numerous listicles available on the internet for candidates to brainstorm what ‘good’ questions may be in this circumstance - to be frank, I’ve found general advice of this sort to be limited in value. My recommendation for people in product roles is to be highly strategic when it comes to what they wish to learn through an interview process, and prioritize questions in this moment that offer:
Insight: how much can you learn beyond the surface level details contained in job descriptions, recruiter scripts, etc.
Conversation: questions that open up discussion tend to be more engaging than questions that seek quick closure.
Memorability: evocative, non-obvious interview questions tend to demonstrate creativity & curiosity, which are leading indicators to PM performance.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that many of the best interview questions that I’ve been asked, or have asked interviewers myself, tend to fit these criteria in some shape or form. And I’ve also found that a specific line of inquiry - that of product decision-making - tends to check all of these boxes quite consistently.
A question that cuts to the core
How would you describe the culture of decision-making around product in your organization?
I was first asked a variant of this question by a candidate a few years ago, as a relatively new hiring manager at Dropbox. Admittedly, I was a bit thrown in the moment by the atypical nature of the question. For the first time in my brief tenure at the company, I felt the need to share a cogent assessment of the general nature of a very specific aspect of our company’s culture - that of decision-making. It took me a few moments to collect my thoughts and emphasize the key patterns about decision-making at Dropbox that had resonated with me up to that point: principled, deeply collaborative and highly detail-oriented. This response opened up further conversation about both the pros & cons of our culture, and we ended up going about 10 minutes over the scheduled interview time. Fortunately this story ended well, and the candidate ended up being a hire and a strong performer for us subsequently.
In a previous post, I argued that PM, at its core, is a decision-making discipline. And in the context of being a PM in a larger company or team, it’s critical to understand how organizations seek to address the inherent tensions and polarities within decision-making (ex: speed vs. quality, data vs. intuition, autonomy vs. codependency, etc.). Finding alignment in your approach to decision-making with the org should be a key input & consideration in your job search process. Organizational decision-making culture can have an outsized role on your ability to drive impact, influence and satisfaction as a PM.
I consider the question quoted above an Eigenquestion (h/t
) of sorts - a 1st-order question that can provide rich insight & clarity into many additional 2nd-order questions you may have, ex:How empowered are individual product teams in making decisions for their product areas? Do executives & leaders tend to drive top-down strategies or mandates that teams make plans around?
How much time are PMs expected to spend building alignment and collaboration with adjacent teams & functions? Are there specific processes or rituals in place to facilitate that?
How much is data leveraged in decision-making, and at what stages of the product process?
What happens when product decisions turn out to be the wrong ones in hindsight?
Questions like the above tend to be more engaging and memorable for interviewers on the loop too (often PMs themselves, PM leaders or other product folks) then the typical ones they hear. To answer a thoughtful question like this requires them to reflect on recent product decision-making they’ve done & calibrate their experiences with others they have seen in the org. At the same time, this is a question that seeks individualistic perspective, and doesn’t have a ‘wrong’ answer per se. Since it requires speaking authentically to tradeoffs, a question like this can also help to break the awkward 4th wall of the typical interview; after all, we’ve all dealt with “way too slow” or “not enough data” scenarios when making decisions as PMs. :)
How to approach a question on decision-making
If the focus area of decision-making culture resonates for you, you may consider other variants of the question above to suit your fancy ex:
“How do product decisions generally get made at Acme Inc?” (this is the question I first received years back)
“What is your favorite and least favorite aspect of decision-making at Acme Inc?”
“How have you seen the decision-making culture evolve over time at Acme Inc?” (best suited for interviewers with longer tenures)
As you ask this question, it’s important to look for insight into the types of tradeoffs that are most common at the organization you’re considering, and the general leaning or bent of the org in addressing those tradeoffs. For example, you may want to see if the org actively identifies and adjusts approach to Type 1 vs. Type 2 decisions, or if the organization generally gravitates towards autonomy/speed of decisioning, or what time horizon they consider to be ‘short-term’ vs. ‘long-term’.
I also recommend you ask this question of multiple interviewers, if possible, to receive and calibrate different perspectives and identify signal vs. noise. As an example, hearing responses to the question from a would-be peer PM and a senior product leader can be quite revealing in both their similarities and differences.
Lastly, having your own opinion on this question - knowing what a good answer is, for you - is probably the most important guidance to keep in mind. As I mentioned above, there is no one right answer to this question - only the right answer for you in your current search. Ultimately more than anything else, when it comes to decision-making, you are looking for a mindset and approach that fits with what you value as a PM or product person.
All the best!