Ask HN: Best resources to prep for the Case Study portion of a PM interview?

12 points by arshbot 2 years ago | 9 comments

What are the best resources to prep for the Case Study portion of a PM interview?

- What guides should candidates take a look at

- What websites can they use to practice (does something like pramp exist where candidates can spar against one another?)

- What are some example case studies PMs can expect to see? I'm interviewing for a TPM role, so I'd be curious about the variation one might expect for a Technical Product role vs a Product role.

- Are there any resources for case studies people have submitted and whether they have received an offer or not?

rishav_sharan 2 years ago |

Do companies really ask for case studies in PM interviews? I generally have an hour with my candidates and generally have them cocreate features with me

kingkongjaffa 2 years ago | |

> generally have them cocreate features with me

Sounds like a product design interview not PM.

Without any product discovery all you can learn is if a PM has domain knowledge and taste, neither of which a PM would provide alone in a real product team.

arshbot 2 years ago | | |

From what I’ve seen so far the purpose is to test structured thinking, not really domain knowledge, tho that is a part of it. I’m interviewing for a position leading a payments team - I wouldn’t expect a problem related to social media

Seems like the case study is supposed to evaluate:

1. How does the candidate react to the problem 2. How do they identify “success metrics” 3. How well do they seek guidance from leadership 4. How do they go about poking at the problem 5. How do they go about constructing and validating a potential solution

I’m pretty early in my prep, so take this with a grain of salt.

For context. My background is engineering with a few yeo as TPM, the position is to lead a technical internal product with many technical challenges that may as well be considered product features

arshbot 2 years ago | |

Not sure, this is my first interview with a larger company and there is one (cashapp)

kritiko 2 years ago |

StellarPeers & Product Alliance are pretty good.

arshbot 2 years ago | |

You’re right these are good. Ty!

ps256 2 years ago |

Have you read Cracking the PM Interview?

arshbot 2 years ago | |

Adding to the list!

brianjking 2 years ago |

following! also good luck!