How to Really Succeed in the Product Management Interview Process in 2024
The PM Interview is always changing. Here's "on-the-ground" dirt from a PM Interview Coach on what the latest trends are in the hiring processes at the world's top tech companies, from FAANG to OpenAI
Let’s face it: the meta (“most effective tactics available”) for how to succeed in PM interviews is always changing:
That free advice on YouTube from 3 years ago? ⇢ It doesn’t apply anymore.
The seminal books from 10 years ago? ⇢ Completely out of date.
Yet there’s literally zero resource that looks at how the interview and job search process is changing over time.
For some reason the industry is stuck in a form of transmitting information that does not match the rate of change of the assessment.
That’s why you’re subscribed to this newsletter.
The State of PM Hiring
The product management profession has seen an incredibly rapid ascent. I checked in with Jason Saltzman over at Live Data to query the data:
You can see three major phases have governed the history of the profession:
Phase 1 - 2000-2010: Slow and Steady Growth
The 2000s were about companies realizing they needed dedicated roles to bridge business and technology. It wasn't explosive growth, but it laid the foundation for what was to come.
—Jason Saltzman
In this era, product management continued to grow despite challenges. There was the dot-com era implosion that hurt all of tech, but product management was still relatively early in its infancy.
Key characteristics of this phase:
Annual growth rate of PM roles: 0.96% per year
Focus on web-based products and early mobile applications
Emergence of Agile methodologies in product development
In the 2000s, every company out there - technology company or not - needed to enable technology in part of their product. This powered the ascent of people figuring out how to build that technology (PMs).
Phase 2 - 2011-2021: Tech’s Golden Decade
The 2010s were when product management came into its own. It wasn't just about building features anymore; it was about driving business strategy through product decisions.
—Aakash Gupta
This period saw an unprecedented boom in the tech industry, with product management at its core.
Key characteristics:
Annual growth rate of PM roles: 2.99% per year
Explosion of mobile-first products and platforms
Emergence of product-led growth as a key strategy
By 2021, the number of PM roles in the US had grown by over 34% compared to 2010.
Phase 3 - 2021+: The Tech Recession
The tech recession has hit PM roles hard - harder than Engineering, for instance.
—Jason Saltzman
The most recent phase has been characterized by significant challenges and shifts in the tech industry, impacting PM hiring.
Key characteristics:
Waves of lay-offs across the industry
Annual decline rate of PM roles: 0.15% per year
Increased focus on efficiency and profitability over growth at all costs
After a peak of 458K PMs in 2021, the number of PMs has landed at 456K in 2024.
The Big Question
So it’s really phase 3 where we want to get more granular information on what’s happening:
What has been happening with PM jobs more granularly recently?
How are the interview processes looking like?
What are the most effective tactics available?
We want to know how things look in 2024 compared to 2023 and 2022.
Introducing Nancy Li
To break all this down, I teamed up with Nancy Li — you’ve probably seen her on YouTube or LinkedIn — who runs the Product Management Accelerator, and has more inside information than almost anyone on this topic.
Today’s Post
Words: 4,080 | Est. Reading Time: 17 mins
We’ll cover the evolution of the meta in every phase of the job search. We’ve put together some cool data on each:
How the PM Job Market Has Evolved
How PM Interview Processes Have Evolved
(Including How Specific Questions Have Evolved)
How Getting the Interview in the First Place has Evolved
How the Types of People Getting PM Jobs has Evolved Recently
How Negotiations and Making Sure You Get the Right Level has Evolved
Today’s Post in a Video
How This Integrates with the Rest of the Product Growth Canon
In the Product Growth newsletter, we’ve covered a lot of the job search together:
We’ve broken down the meta to 700K jobs, Meta, Google Apple and Microsoft
We’ve broken down all the popular interviews
We’ve broken down resumes, cover letters
We’ve broken down the small market strategy and cold emails
Those are all focused on what works. We need a historical perspective and update on how things have changed - and a synthesis of all of them to understand the dominant meta today.
That’s what today’s piece is…
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