How to Prepare for Product Strategy Interview Questions

One of the trending product strategy interview questions asked in the PM Exercises community is this: “If you were the PM for the Windows phone, how would you make it successful?” 

You have to admit that the question seems daunting especially if you haven’t prepared for this part of the product manager interview at all. With all the factors that come into play, plus the pain points, and the competitors that are way ahead of the game, where would you start?

If you’re not prepared to answer questions like this, your chances of landing a product management job at any company are slim to none.

Use this guide to understand product strategy interview questions and how to give answers that will showcase your strategic thinking and competency as a product manager. 

Why are product strategy questions important in a PM interview?

A product strategy outlines the path a product should take to reach its desired future state. A good strategy allows the company’s product to be competitive or to serve the target customers better than the competition. 

As a product manager, you have to know how to make this happen. And product strategy interview questions will determine if you do.

This part of the product management interview will:

• Assess your thinking process in dealing with abstract situations
• See if you have a good grasp of a company’s strengths and weaknesses
• Determine if you can make strategic choices for the company and the product
• Evaluate if you can analyze the pros and cons of your options
• Guage if you can make a meaningful executive decision that considers all the key aspects 

Although there are no right answers to product strategy interview questions, interviewers will see if you can follow a logical path to the conclusion you make. It’s the path as well as the “how” that is most important.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

There are pitfalls that PM candidates fall into when answering product strategy interview questions. Most are likely unaware that they’re making these common mistakes during the strategy part of the interview:

Trying to Force a Framework into a Particular Question

Using a framework to answer a product strategy question isn’t such a bad idea. However, if you make the framework a “must-use,” you’re simply limiting yourself. 

Missing to Realize the Company or Product Objective/Priority

Do you know what the objective or priority of the company is? If it wasn’t stated, ask clarificatory questions. The more you understand what the primary objective is, the more likely you will come up with the right strategy.

Exploring Strategic Choices with Small Impact

You never want to be mediocre during your PM interview. You practice so you can give responses that can bring the company to the next level. Make sure your answers are not run-of-the-mill.

Missing to Evaluate Strategic Choices from Various Key Criteria

The criteria impact the fate of the company so it’s important that you evaluate your strategic choices from different perspectives like marketing, user experience, and the like.

Since you already know what mistakes to avoid, you’ll hopefully be more aware when you’re making them. Learn to avoid these bad practices through preparation and practice. 

You can read more about these common mistakes by reviewing Lesson 4 of the product strategy section of the PM interview prep course.

Most Popular Product Strategy Interview Questions at PM Exercises

At Product Management Exercises, we have an established community of product managers and aspiring product managers who are constantly adding to our database of product manager interview questions.

Under the product strategy category, we have about 300+ questions and their sample answers that can be helpful if you’re preparing for a PM interview. We’ve listed down the most popular questions below:

What should Airbnb’s strategy be during the COVID-19 pandemic?

During the height of the pandemic, Airbnb was one of the businesses that were hit hard because of travel restrictions as well as strict health protocols. As a product manager, there are a lot of solutions that you can recommend like focusing on long-term rental and highlighting local experiences.

Set evaluation criteria you can use to assess each recommendation. Then you can filter your top priorities. 

You can check how our PM Community answered this question here. Note: For some questions, you need to upgrade your account to view the complete answers.

You are the PM for Facebook Live. What are your priorities?

You can start by breaking down individual parts through questions. Ask yourself what the purpose of FB live is, what the business goals are, and how do they align with the company’s mission.

As you are coming up with your solution, don’t forget to focus on the users as well. Who are they and what are their needs?

You can check how our PM Community answered this question here. Note: For some questions, you need to upgrade your account to view the complete answers.

How would you design surge pricing for Uber or Lyft?

To answer this question accurately, a product manager has to understand how the pricing surge happens on one of the platforms. Aside from that, data has to be gathered to accurately determine the demand and supply curves. 

You can check how our PM Community answered this question here. Note: For some questions, you need to upgrade your account to view the complete answers.

How would you acquire more users for Uber?

A PM Exercises community member gave great ideas to increase the number of users on Uber. One suggestion was to provide handheld machines at all bars that users can use for free. This hand-held machine helps prevent DUIs by measuring blood alcohol content (BAC).

Once the machine detects that the BAC of a user is greater than 0.08%, Uber should volunteer to provide a car for the user to get home. 

You can check how our PM Community answered this question here. Note: For some questions, you need to upgrade your account to view the complete answers.

You are the PM for a B2C product that has an advertisement-based monetization model with significant and steady daily revenues. One day, there are no ads served and the revenues plummet to zero. What would be your strategy, as a Product Manager, to deal with this crisis?

It’s cases like this that will really make you feel the pressure. In this hypothetical situation, you have to think and act quickly as a product manager. Zero revenue is something very serious. Do a root cause analysis to determine the specific actions that need to be taken.

Although your action plan could be short-term for this scenario, don’t forget about long-term strategies to future-proof the product.

You can check how our PM Community answered this question here. Note: For some questions, you need to upgrade your account to view the complete answers.

How do you prepare for product strategy interview questions?

In our product management interview prep course, we have enlisted the help of Halim, one of the many successful users of PM Exercises and a coach in our PME Community. He shares insights into his experience of preparing for his upcoming interviews, and we have summarized the main points below:

• Get a good grasp of what’s happening in the tech industry by reading news and articles from various tech websites. He mentioned Andreessen Horowitz and TechCrunch.
• Self-reflection and introspection are great ways to review your past experiences.
• Do mock interviews every day with a partner.
• Don’t rely too much on framework and strategies. In most cases, you know them so well that you can’t improvise. You have to go beyond.
• Review the Product Management Exercises PM interview prep course.
• Check the PM Exercises Questions database. Answers that are structured in the forums are great examples to follow.

The full video also continues with a mock interview where Halim gives a solution to the product strategy question: “As a PM of Youtube, how would you position Youtube against Instagram and Snapchat?” You may see the full video below:

Summary

The best way to prepare for product strategy interview questions is by doing your homework so you’re more confident when walking into that interview. 

Make use of resources that are available to you like the Practice feature on PM Exercises where you can find a partner to do mock interviews with. You may also check out our product manager interview prep course to master the skills you need to ace your product manager interview. And, finally, always check the product strategy questions on our database to review the answers of some of the PMs in our community.