PM Interview Cheat Sheet

What is a PM interview cheat sheet? Is it actually a piece of paper that you sneak into an interview to assist you? 

Not exactly. 

A PM interview cheat sheet is a list of things that you must remember to ace your interview. It’s something you can review in the moments leading up to your interview to refresh your mind and boost your confidence.

There’s no right or wrong way to create a product manager interview cheat sheet. It can include whatever you want, as long as it calms your nerves and prepares you for success. 

Example Product Manager Interview Cheat Sheet

A good jumping-off point is to take notes regarding the framework for each of the PM interview question categories. This is the meat and potatoes of any product manager interview. Knowing how to answer every type of question greatly increases your odds of receiving a job offer.

Product improvement questions

Example question: How would you improve Google Maps?

1. Describe the product: Explain your understanding of the product.

2. Clarify the scope: Ask clarification questions to narrow down the scope and ensure that you understand what the interviewer is looking for.

3. Choose the goal: Describe the goal or objective the product and company should focus on.

Select and list user groups: Select and describe the user groups including their characteristics and typical journey. Choose one group from the list and explain why they’re your area of focus. 

List user needs: A list of pain points the user faces when using the product. Choose pain points based on priority, such as frequency of pain or severity of pain. 

List product ideas: A list of your product/feature ideas evaluated based on criteria such as cost, potential impact, and timeline. Select your product/feature. 

Describe the selected solution: Provide a list of features you’d like to build prioritized by relevant criteria.

Product design questions

Example question: How would you design a bicycle renting app for tourists?

Clarify the scope: Ask clarification questions to narrow down the scope and ensure that you understand what the interviewer is looking for.

Select and list user groups: Select and describe the user groups including their characteristics and typical journey. Choose one group from the list and explain why they’re your area of focus. 

List user needs: A list of pain points the user faces when using the product. Choose pain points based on priority, such as frequency of pain or severity of pain. 

List product ideas: A list of your product/feature ideas evaluated based on criteria such as cost, potential impact, and timeline. Select your product/feature. 

Describe the selected solution: Provide a list of features you’d like to build prioritized by relevant criteria.

Favorite product questions

Example question: What is your favorite software and why?

Name and description of the product: Provide the name of the product and describe what it does.

Why it is a favorite product: What do you like about it? Describe from a user’s perspective why this is your favorite product and why the alternative solutions are not good solutions.

How to make the product better: Describe the unmet need that you have identified.

Metrics questions

Example question: What metrics would you look at as a product manager for Instagram ads?

Describe the product or feature: Explain your understanding of the product.

Choose the goal: Describe the goal or objective the product and company should focus on.

Walkthrough the journey: Go over the user journey from the beginning to the end of the interaction. 

Identify the key metrics: List the key metrics that drive the wanted behaviors in the right direction and evaluate their performance. 

Problem-solving questions

Example question: You are the PM for a streaming video service. You come into the office and see that one key metric has dropped by 80%. What will you do?

Understand the problem: Ask clarification questions that help you understand the definition of every word in the question.

Present the hypothesis: Describe the cause of the problem based on the answers to the questions you asked.

Suggest action items: Explain what you’d do next as a product manager to address the problem.

Estimation questions

Example question: If you are opening a new Walmart branch, how would you decide how many cash registers are needed for the store?

Clarify the scope: Ask clarification questions to narrow down the scope and ensure that you understand what the interviewer is looking for.

Create the main question: Write down the main equation.

Break down the unknowns into simpler equations: Write down a list of new equations to determine the answers to the unknowns you have gathered above.

Enter assumptions: Enter your assumptions and numbers.

Calculate the answer: Replace the unknowns with your assumptions and calculated numbers.

Do a sanity check: When possible, describe a quick sanity check for it.

Product launch questions

Example question: Lyft wants to enter the Indian market. What should be the strategy?

Clarify the scope: Ask clarification questions to narrow down the scope and ensure that you understand what the interviewer is looking for.

Choose the goal: Describe the main goal of the product launch.

Describe the launch strategy: Go over your product launch strategy. Are there any metrics or milestones you’d like to hit?

Describe the launch plan: Highlight the list of launch activities. For example, what are the pre-launch activities?

Product strategy questions

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

Clarify the question: Ask clarification questions to help you narrow down the scope of the question.

Describe the company or product: Describe your understanding of the company or product.

List strategic choices: Go over the strategic options that are in front of the company.

Evaluate the solutions: Evaluate your strategic options based on meaningful criteria such as UX, revenue potential, marketing value, execution, and effort.

Make a recommendation: Make a recommendation based on the results of your evaluation.

Technical questions

Example question: What happens when you enter a URL in your browser?

Clarify the question: Ask clarification questions to help you narrow down the scope of the question.

Describe the product: Describe your understanding of the product from both a UI and technical perspective.

Describe product attributes: Describe the key attributes of the product that are relevant to the technical question.

Select the goal: Describe what’s important in the design of the product from a user experience perspective.

Prioritize attributes: Identify the high-priority attributes based on the product goal you have selected.

Design the product: Provide an overview of the design of the product based on the goal you selected and the attributes that you have prioritized.

Discuss trade-offs: Highlight the trade-offs that you have to keep in mind during the product design. 

Pricing questions

Example question: How would you design dynamic pricing for Lyft?

Clarify the question: Ask clarification questions to help you narrow down the scope of the question.

Describe the company and/or industry: Discuss your understanding of the product and the market that it is in.

Choose the goal: Determine the goal you would like to achieve by your pricing model. 

Choose the strategy: Choose one particular pricing strategy and explain your reasoning behind that strategy.

Suggest a price: Make a recommendation on the price.

A/B testing questions

Example question: Your team has implemented a change in the “Share” feature and released it for A/B testing. You realized that there is 20% of usage of the feature. Would you still decide to release it?

Describe the product: Provide some details about the product to show your understanding of it. 

Choose the goal: Describe what you think should be the focus of your tests. Use this goal as a guide during brainstorming.

Write ideas down: For each idea, go over the hypothesis, the experiment to validate the hypothesis, criteria of success, and trade-offs.

Prioritize A/B tests: Describe which AB tests you’ll be prioritizing. Explain why.

Roadmap questions

Example question: You are the new PM for a new crypto exchange. How would you set a product roadmap and define the core metrics for the first 18 months?

Describe the current state of the product: Provide an overview of your understanding of where the company and product are today.

Describe the product vision: Write the destination that you have in mind for your product.

Choose a near-term goal: Describe the short-term goal that you have selected to get you closer to bringing your product vision to reality.

Select the metrics of success: Talk about the metrics that can help you measure your success in achieving the near-term goal that you identified earlier.

Identify prioritized feature set: Identify the pain points associated with your target user groups and determine the features you’d like to build to solve those pain points.

Present a roadmap: Describe your product roadmap. For example, what would you like to build?

Behavioral questions

Example question: Can you tell me about a time when you influenced engineering to build a particular feature?

Explain the situation: Provide a clear picture of the situation you were in and emphasize its complexities with the right level of detail.

Expound on the task: Explain your role and task in the situation.

Describe the action: Describe what you did and the steps you took to solve the problem that you were facing. Provide as much detail as possible.

Describe the result: Talk about the results of your action and the positive outcome because of the steps you took in solving the problem.

PM interview cheat sheet tips

As noted above, there’s no exact science to creating a PM interview cheat sheet. You need to do what’s best for you based on your interview experience, preparation, and the company you’re interviewing with. 

Regardless of your approach, here are three tips to guide you:

1. Keep it clear and concise

A cheat sheet isn’t meant to replace the many hours that you put into preparing for your interview. Instead, it’s intended to supplement it by providing a “refresher” before your interview starts. 

It should only take a handful of minutes to review an interview cheat sheet. If it takes any longer than that, you probably have too much information or information that’s not organized. Here are some questions you can answer to help determine if your cheat sheet is clear or concise or if it needs help in this area.

• How long does it take to thoroughly review your cheat sheet?
• Do you find yourself becoming confused when reviewing your cheat sheet? Do you often wish the information was presented in a more easy-to-follow manner?
• Does it include unnecessary information that provides no value?
• Is there information that you could replace to bring more clarity to your cheat sheet?
• Have you come to find — through interview experience — that your cheat sheet isn’t nearly as helpful as you had hoped it would be?

Along with answering these questions, ask a trusted contact to review your cheat sheet and make suggestions. For instance, if you have a PM interview coach, share your document and ask them to “mark it up” for you. They may have some changes that can transform your cheat sheet into a much more powerful and helpful tool. It never hurts to get a second (and maybe even third) set of eyes on your cheat sheet. Even a small tip could go a long way in better positioning you for interview success.

2. Your cheat sheet should align with your interview prep

Let’s start by talking briefly about a PM interview prep course. Our course has 100+ online lessons and 100+ video hours. In other words, there’s a lot to take in. And that’s why you should start preparing as far in advance of your interview as possible.

When it’s time to create a cheat sheet, it should align with your interview prep. Don’t deviate from what you’ve learned and the path that you’ve laid out. Doing so can cause confusion as you move into the active phase of the interview process. 

For example, your interview prep will teach you how to approach product improvement questions. Keep the same framework when creating content for your cheat sheet. When everything flows together, there’s less chance of confusion when you’re put on the spot. 

3. Gear it toward the company you’re interviewing with

Many times, you’ll move through a PM interview prep course without knowing exactly which company you’re interviewing with. But when it comes time to create a cheat sheet, you’ll know more. This includes the company, who you’re interviewing with, and what to expect at each stage of the process. 

Design your cheat sheet to match the company you’re interviewing with. For instance, if you’re interviewing at Google, your frameworks should be based on real questions asked in Google PM interviews. Take a targeted approach, not a generic approach.

Along the same lines, consider the type of position you’re applying for. A cheat sheet for a general product manager won’t be the same as a technical product manager. You can even take this one step further by breaking down your cheat sheet by industry. Are you interviewing for a company in the fintech space? How about crypto? What about medical technology?

You get the point. Your cheat sheet should match the company, position type, and industry. When it checks all these boxes, you’ll find yourself better prepared than you ever thought possible.

4. Make it easy to review

This goes along with point #1 above about keeping your PM interview cheat sheet clear and concise. But this is more about how you format the document. It should be easy to review in a pinch. You should be able to quickly find the information you need so that there’s no wasted time. Remember, a cheat sheet isn’t a full-blown PM interview training course. It’s meant to get you up to speed on the finer points that you want to remember.

Let’s take a closer look at the “roadmap” example from above:

Example question: You are the new PM for a new crypto exchange. How would you set a product roadmap and define the core metrics for the first 18 months?

This clearly outlines the question that you’re preparing for. It’s the first thing on your cheat sheet since you need it in order to address the forthcoming details.

Describe the current state of the product: Provide an overview of your understanding of where the company and product are today.

A clear prompt as to what you should do after receiving the question.

Describe the product vision: Write the destination that you have in mind for your product.

Building off of the prompt above, your next step is to describe the product vision. This is a clear command as to what you should do.

Choose a near-term goal: Describe the short-term goal that you have selected to get you closer to bringing your product vision to reality.

Clearly define the goal that you’ve selected. This should relate to the example question outlined at the start of the cheat sheet.

Select the metrics of success: Talk about the metrics that can help you measure your success in achieving the near-term goal that you identified earlier.

A list of metrics you’ll use to measure your success.

Identify prioritized feature set: Identify the pain points associated with your target user groups and determine the features you’d like to build to solve those pain points.

A list of pain points allows you to easily identify the features that require attention.

Present a roadmap: Describe your product roadmap. For example, what would you like to build?

Have an idea of what you want to include in your roadmap, as well as how you can best present it to the interviewer.

And it’s worth noting again: don’t make your cheat sheet too long. You should include just enough content to refresh your brain and give you the direction needed to tackle any question or problem that is thrown at you.

Final thoughts 

As your PM interview inches closer, spend some time creating a cheat sheet. You can use this to “get in the zone” in the minutes leading up to your interview. You can also use it to keep your mind fresh at down times, such as before you retire for the evening.

Do you have any experience creating a product manager interview cheat sheet? If so, send an email to [email protected]. With your permission, we’d love to add it to this blog post.