How to Ace the Presentation Round of PM Interviews (with examples)

It's the biggest trend in PM job hunting - the dreaded presentation round. Not only are they giving you homework, but you have to share the results with execs.

The biggest change in interviews over the last 12 years, Lewis Lin and I concluded, has been the rise of presentation rounds.

Based on my research into the market, the increase has been hockey-stick-like.

Over the last 4 decades, broadly, the PM interview market has seen 4 main themes:

• 90s: Mostly behavioral

• 2000s: The rise of technical and estimation questions

• 2010s: The rise of cases

• 2020s: The era of presentations

In this new era, PMs need to be equipped to ace this round.

I’ve been workshopping these techniques with several job seekers and am ready to share the results.

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Today’s Post

I’ve put together the web’s deepest and most tactical guide to the presentation round:

1. My Perspective on the Other Side

2. The shapes and sizes of the presentation round

3. 🔒 Anecdotes from 5 people who succeeded how they prepared

4. 🔒 Real examples of winning presentation round submissions

5. 🔒 Step-by-step: how to prepare the materials (using AI)

6. 🔒 How to nail the presentation itself

7. 🔒 How things vary by level

8. 🔒 Presentation prompts

9. 🔒 Common mistakes

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1. My Perspective on the Other Side

Before we go any further, I must admit something - I’ve used these presentation rounds:

• When hiring anyone at Rap to Beats

• When hiring Managers and above at thredUP

• When hiring Group PMs and above at Apollo.io

(I’ve also build presentations to get offers at several prominent companies.)

So I’ve seen what the interview committee is talking about after presentations.

Here a few of the surprising takeaways I learned from being in those discussions:

Surprising Takeaway 1 - Effort Varies Dramatically, And Matters

It’s amazing the variation people put into these presentations.

And without fail, committees always liked presentations where more work was put in.

You’d think someone might say:

While they are working a full-time job right now while the other candidate is currently full-time job searching.

But I actually didn’t hear this once - except for when it was myself saying it.

And I’ve seen the same thing advising candidates who are successful: it always pays to do more work.

You can’t expect AI to take you all the way home.

Significant editing is required.

Surprising Takeaway 2 - The Quality Bar is the Main Test

When I was a candidate doing these presentations, I was fixated on the results, “I want to share the best possible materials at every step!” I would think.

So I would create overly long decks with tons of proof of work.

Having seen the other side, I now see the light.

In reality, what they’re testing for is: what is your quality bar?

The things that you include should really be high quality, instead of covering everything under the sun.

In fact, when you cover everything under the sun, you seem like you’re not good at collaborating with the functions that should lead those areas.

Surprising Takeaway 3 - The Moderation Matters More than the Materials

When I look back at what actually separated the people who got offers from those who didn’t, the most important factor wasn’t actually the presentation they came in with.

It’s how they conducted the conversation and handled the follow-up questions.

It’s the seniority at which they presented themselves.

I remember a candidate at thredUP we were considering for a manager role. After the presentation, we were considering him for a senior manager role.

The way you present yourself can not only prevent you from down-leveling but even cause an up-level. (We’ll break down how in section 6).

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2. The Shapes and Sizes of the Presentation Round

There are 5 major types of presentation rounds you are likely to encounter:

Type 1 - Panel Interview Final Round (45%)

This type of interview is extremely common for VP of Product and CPO roles. Even if your IC PM role didn’t have it, senior rounds probably do.

I’ve been on both sides of the aisle for many of each of these. The most common prompts are of three potential varieties:

• What would be your 30/60/90 day plan?

• What would you be your strategy?

• Review a major win from your past.

It’s a very established round these days in tech. Companies from Cisco to Razorpay use it.

You can expect anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to present. The most common amount of time is 1 hour.

Type 2 - Just Homework (10%)

The next type of “presentation” round is just homework. Many times this is very similar to the presentation in structure.

They’ll often present a prompt and a little more information to you, and it’s up to you to impress with your writing.

DuckDuckGo, the Google search competitor, pays for this, and has this graded thoroughly in writing by peers. They’ll even share back the feedback with you after if you ask.

Many of the same principles we’re going to cover on presentations apply.

Type 3 - Presentation to the Hiring Manager (15%)

This is a presentation that may have a similar prompt to final round interview to a panel, but it only goes to one person.

At Apollo, this is where my presentation went: the hiring manager. Other companies like Fundrise, Zillow, Paytm, and Asana are known to use it as well.

It’s more of a managerial conversation than a panel presentation. But, otherwise, many of the same principles apply.

Type 4 - Presentation to the Product Trio (20%)

This presentation is growing in ubiquity. Usertesting, for instance, will have you work on a prioritization process with an engineering manager and designer.

The goal is to see how you’ll work in a trio. They’re looking for a strong sense of collaboration amongst the PMs.

Other companies like Docusign, Amazon, Flipkart, and Reddit have been reported to occasionally (though not for all roles) use a process like this as well.

A common prompt, here, will be to walk through a past project.

Type 5 - Executive Presentation Round (10%)

I’ve broken out this category separately because this is a presentation round only for senior, Director+ executives. These presentations don’t happen at lower levels.

So when I covered Google, or Apple, in the past, I didn’t include the presentation. Because 9/10 PMs wouldn’t face a presentation.

But executives at these companies certainly do. They’re often to other executives. Some of them may not explicitly say ‘bring a presentation.’

But the most competitive execs do.

Variants

You’ll see various twists on each of these:

• Indeed conducts a timed case study exercise (e.g. 1 hour prep, 1 hour presentation) with the candidate then presenting their solution to an interview panel

• Atlassian emphasizes panel interviews; candidates may participate in a group exercise or present a case to interviewers

• Apple and Google are known to have Director-Level+ candidates speak to a panel but not explicitly ask for a presentation

They grow by seniority

All of these rounds are rare for more junior roles.

But the more senior you get, the more the quality of your presentations, and executive facilitation, matters.

It’s something like 10% of PM roles requiring presentations, but something like 70% of CPO roles—as of April 2025.

Companies who need the skill more, use it more

Why do companies use the presentation round?

It’s a great gauge of your ability to lead important meetings.

So in companies and cultures where that’s important, you see a greater prevalence of them.

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3. Anecdotes from 5 people who succeeded how they prepared

I have been working with a lot of successful job seekers lately, and here’s the dirty secrets they shared with me of what’s actually working in their preparation.