1) ask some questions about your previous work;

This should be a basic question in the interview. No matter which company you apply for, this question will be asked, and it is often the first one. One is to know about your previous work, and the other is to pave the way for the next question. Of course, the previous work experience is written in the resume, so the interviewer mostly asks some questions he cares about for certain items in the resume, such as the role you play in a product, your specific responsibilities, what is the starting point for designing some function points, and so on. Every interviewer will have his own characteristics and focus, so the questions he cares about will be different.

In this session, you may also be asked what tools you have used, what documents you have written and what the workflow is like. To say that the most professional software used in product work should be Axure, but after working for a long time, everyone understands that tools are not important, not to mention that these tools are easy to learn. Even if you can't draw it directly on paper with Axure, if your Axure is used well, but the product itself is not good, it's no use. The key lies in the ability to express. Of course, I personally adhere to the principle of high-fidelity prototype, because after all, it will save a lot of trouble in your work and save communication costs.

2) talk about your opinion about a product;

I mentioned in my previous blog post that people who do product work are more inclined to have soft ability than those who do technical work, and this soft ability is reflected in personal product ideas, or even the thinking or concept of making products. So during the interview, many interviewers will ask you what you think of a product. "A product" may be a product made by the company you are applying for, or a product you have made. Because it is difficult for a person to make his own judgment in a short time (especially for product personnel with insufficient work experience), some companies will also ask you to say what you think of your most commonly used products, to test your product feeling and to see your personal observation ability. What's more, you will take out your computer and open a website, so that you can talk about your own views on a certain page or function. In this link, we will examine the ability of product personnel to analyze products or competing products.

The logical thinking of product people is very important. Some interviewers will ask a question first, followed by a series of "why" and "why", which is a step-by-step way of asking questions. It not only tests the logical thinking of job seekers, but also tests the product ability of job seekers. However, for job seekers, such interview methods may be more stressful. In addition, when talking about the future development of products, divergent thinking of product people is very important, such as search engine products. When talking about its future, you may have to think about the user needs of search engines, and how to make users get results in search engines more conveniently. This examines the thinking of a product person.

3) Ask the rules in some products in detail;

As mentioned earlier, some companies will ask you what is the most familiar product you have ever used. In addition to your opinions on the future development trend of this product, you may also be asked to talk about the rules of a certain function, such as the ranking rules when Sina Weibo searches for people. When using a product, besides being a user, product personnel have another meaning, that is, to discover the inner meaning of other people's products based on their own professionalism, and to understand them in a deeper level besides the outermost view. One of the abilities of product managers is learning ability, so many companies will test your observation ability and learning ability on this issue.

4) Some problems in the product itself;

besides the product design ability, there is also the product idea. Different products of the same product will have different product forms, especially for some companies with unique product characteristics. If you recruit a company with strong product ability, but the idea of making products is not consistent with the company, then there will be problems in everyone's cooperation in the future work, which will reduce each other's work efficiency. This kind of problem may not seem serious, but it is not easy to solve in practice. Of course, it doesn't mean that it can't be solved. It just means that if you find someone who meets the temperament of the company's products, there will be no unnecessary problems.

In this respect, many companies will ask you what you think is the most important quality of making products, how do you view the needs of users, and so on. In fact, there is no standard answer to such a question, and everyone has his own opinion, and it is such a question that will highlight a new product manager's own ideological system. Products are the embodiment of the company's strategy. If the views of product leaders are not consistent with the company's strategic development, it will be related to the critical death of the product in the future. Therefore, for the product manager who grasps the product direction, the interview company will focus on this issue. Maybe everyone will make different product forms, but their ideas must be consistent.

5) how to communicate with colleagues;

one of the most important tasks of a product manager is to communicate with people, because in the process of a product from creativity to birth, the product manager should follow up and supervise in real time to ensure the development plan and product quality, which requires communication with people in various departments. Many people say that it is hard to make a product, and the pain lies in the fact that the successful launch of a product requires cooperation in many aspects, and the product manager needs to coordinate the resource allocation of various departments. Therefore, during the interview, the interviewer will ask you some questions to examine your communication skills, such as what to do when you have an argument with your colleagues on a product issue, how to convince your technical colleagues when your colleagues in the technical department want to cut off your functional modules or think that a function you designed is not important. Regarding communication, I personally feel that on the one hand, it has something to do with one's personality, on the other hand, it also depends on communication skills, and these skills have to be honed through long-term work. Product managers should strive to establish their own trust in the process of communicating with other departments. Of course, it needs a long-term accumulation process, especially when you go to a new company.

sometimes a product manager fails to meet a company, not because of the product capability. Interviewers are usually experienced product people, who have formed their own set of standards for judging things in their work, so everyone's assessment standards for product managers will be different. No one is perfect, many times it depends on whether your shortcomings are what he cares about and whether your strengths are what he particularly appreciates. Moreover, there is no distinction between right and wrong in many products, and the failure may also be due to the different values of interviewers and job seekers. I have a feeling recently that people who are product managers seem to be a little arrogant, especially after you make a successful product, and this arrogance often makes you overconfident and ungrounded.

finally, because I haven't been making my own products for a long time, the job level of the products interviewed is not very high, and the problems I come into contact with are not too deep, so the above questions may be more suitable for junior product personnel. If you are a more advanced product person, you may encounter many problems in product management and product strategy. I know that in the industry, many companies like to find product people with relevant experience. It is indeed an advantage to have experience, because the functions that products in the same development direction need to do are very similar. If you have experience, it will be more handy to start products, which will not only improve work efficiency but also reduce the probability of making mistakes. But just like technical languages, it will be easier to learn PHP after you learn a C language. Although the products are different, the ways and means are reasonable, and there are indeed some cross-disciplinary product managers who do very well. Having said that, we still have to admit that product managers in some industries really need to have the knowledge background of this industry, such as finance and health industry, but when a product manager has a very good product ideology and learning ability, they can also do well in cross-disciplinary products, and the most important thing is to look at personal learning ability.