Top 5 Books to Crack the Product Management Interview (2022)
Top 5 Books to Crack the Product Management Interview – Sound Interesting?
hello, are we in 2022 instead of reaching 2023? there is so much content online, so why are we talking about books here?
You are reading: Product manager interview books
I mean, product management interviews are probably among the most difficult and vague interviews to crack.
It doesn’t matter how experienced a person is in the product management domain.
preparing for a product management interview gives everyone goosebumps.
One of the main reasons product management interviews are difficult is that there are no absolute answers.
Unlike an engineering manager who has questions about managing people or technical skills, the product management interview can be about anything under the sun.
Another key reason for the vagueness is that no two product manager jobs are exactly alike.
This article contains details on the challenges and activities a product manager must perform.
You can jump straight to the top 5 list by clicking here
what does a product manager mainly do?
Product Managers act as a liaison between various functions in an organization.
- when discussing finance, a product manager must understand basic financial terminology and concepts
- while dealing with engineering, a product manager must understand the complexities involved in programming
- When it comes to leadership, a product manager must be adept at creating and delivering presentations
However, not all product managers need to do all of these things, and not all organizations need all of the attributes.
Therefore, it becomes important to interview a candidate for things that are an integral part of working at your organization.
In addition, this presents a great challenge for the candidates, since they have to work in many areas for their interview. they are never sure how to prepare for the same thing.
I do a lot of product management interviews
- for my organization,
- for some product universities and
- some candidates from iim bangalore.
what are candidates looking for?
First of all, most of the time I’ve found that candidates prepare with scattered resources. they don’t have a structure for their responses.
Also, I get a lot of inquiries on linkedin and my personal email id asking for pm resources to prepare for interviews.
so I thought I’d create this post and direct all questions here so I can cover the resources in detail.
Most importantly I would cover the top 5 books to crack product management interview prep.
I will be posting links for these books. As of now, the post is primarily for India, but the same resources apply to afternoon interviews around the world.
I’ve also tried posting the amazon us link in case anyone is interested in buying the books from us.
what makes product management interviews different?
Unlike other jobs, the product manager does not have a predefined list of responsibilities.
let’s take an example: a software developer has one primary responsibility: to create a solution to the specified specifications.
Furthermore, moving up a level in the hierarchy, the key responsibility of an engineering manager is to make sure their team delivers what has been asked of them on time.
however, a product manager has many roles: improving the customer experience for users, increasing product usage, making sure the right solution is built, prioritizing, adding and removing features and the list will never end.
Along with the outcomes defined above, a product manager’s responsibility doesn’t come with power. Every stage of product development needs compelling capabilities from a product manager. you have to convince multiple stakeholders at every stage:
convince their leaders
Although a product manager calls themselves the CEO of their own product, a large portion of their time is spent convincing their leaders of the right features and strategy that will move the product forward. this is not a simple task and most of the time it requires multiple efforts and iterations to progress. this stage also involves a lot of data mining and processing. the more subjective the proposal, the longer it takes. on the contrary, if the proposal is objective and supported by a correct set of data, it becomes easier to move forward.
convince your engineers
Not all the time engineering teams work on functions provided by product managers.
Throughout my career, I’ve seen engineering teams saddled with something called “tech debt,” which essentially means features/code changes/architecture changes and whatever else is needed to support the underlying platform.
In short, by prioritizing, the engineering team can work backwards to recover technology debts on the features provided by the product team. a product manager should be able to convince the engineering team to purchase features over and above technology debt. having a data-driven approach to storytelling helps here.
convince other dependent teams
There is always the possibility that improvements to your product may be caused by an irrelevant change elsewhere.
To clarify this point, I will give an example –
Suppose you are the product manager for all customer communications, primarily emails. One of the key metrics that it manages is the bounce rate of the emails that are sent through its platform. your goal is to minimize it.
By searching for the root cause of the problem, you identified a major error in the logging module. the registration module does not verify the domain and most of the bounces your platform sees are due to misspelled domains (gmial instead of gmail, yahoo instead of yahoo, etc.)
so how would you convince the logging team to accept validation changes to improve their metrics?
This is one of the most complicated and difficult parts of a product manager’s job.
product management interview: clutter-free mindset
To ensure that a candidate can do all of this without one being affected by the other, the candidate must have a & structured mindset.
thus, product management interviews are more about testing structure and breadth of thought. there is no gold standard for testing them, and therefore the afternoon interview is much more based on perception than fact.
There is a lot of content available that talks about afternoon interviews and how to crack them.
I have tried to collect top 5 books that are available on amazon india which will help you prepare for interviews. they are all unique and have something different to share. I highly recommend reading all 5 if you have enough time and money to buy them.
Without further delay, let’s move on to the list:
top 5 books to crack product management interviews
1. cracking the afternoon interview: how to get a product manager job in tech by gayle laakmann mcdowell
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
See Also: 5 Best Construction Cost Estimating Books in 2021 – CivilDigital –
You can call this book a bible for all product management interviews. this is probably the oldest book available on the market that talks about product management interviews.
This is an excellent book to get you thinking about the structure of various types of problems raised in product management interviews.
what’s so good about this book?
This book should be the first you use. instills structural thinking and makes product management interviews much more structured and approach-based.
There are chapters on multiple question types and each chapter comes with a detailed strategy for handling different question types.
In addition, the book contains many examples from both the digital and non-digital worlds.
how to use it?
My recommendation when using this book is to read each chapter in detail rather than just review the examples and try to understand the concepts first. If possible, try to create your own frameworks from the content in this book and use them liberally as you practice interviewing.
Buy sticky markers and place them on key headings. I know this sounds weird, but trust me, this is really helpful if you just want to skim through the book quickly before an interview.
what’s not good about it?
This is an old book (first published in 2013), so every product manager at some point has read or come across it. this is true for interviewers as well. so keep in mind that if you’re directly copying the frames and using them as is, there’s a high chance you’ll get caught and sound like a book, since the interviewer would have read this book too.
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
2. Decode and Conquer: Product Management Interview Answers by Lewis C Linn
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
If the previous book was the bible for product management interview questions, this book is definitely the constitution of afternoon interview resources.
Famous for the circle method, the book takes the structure of the afternoon interview in a very different way. User-friendly examples and user-friendly frameworks are key highlights of this book.
what’s so good about this book?
This book is newer compared to deciphering the pm interview and thus it was based on what the pm already learned in the previous book.
It is based on concepts like the circle method (I will try to cover these specific topics in my next blog posts) and other workflow-based approaches that are easy to remember and apply.
The book also comes with new age examples including linkedin improvements which will definitely be of more interest to the readers.
how to use it?
Just like the previous book, this book too is supposed to be read in its entirety instead of just skimming through it.
The circle method is a very powerful framework that can be used in most product improvement interviews. however, don’t try to simply hoard the examples in this book.
I would recommend translating the circles method to something according to your needs so that it doesn’t sound like a book in your interviews.
what’s not good about it?
Like the previous book, this book is also very popular with the product management community. therefore, if you blindly follow the recommendations and frameworks, there is a high chance that you will be labeled as bookish and not have its own structure.
Sometimes, you will find that the author arrives at solutions in a flash without giving reasons or justifications for them. make sure you don’t follow the same strategy in interviews.
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
3. the product manager interview: lewis c linn’s 164 real questions and answers with teng lu
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
This is an expensive book, but if used correctly, it can be used to dominate afternoon interviews. furthermore, the value of this book is multiplied if readers create their own frameworks instead of remembering the solution.
remember that this is an extension of the book mentioned above and not many new concepts are told.
If you want to understand the answers better, I highly recommend you buy Decode and Conquer: Product Management Interview Answers first and then go for this one.
what’s so good about this book?
This book contains short examples to quickly give you an understanding of the possible solution to the problem. however, this book does not contain a very detailed explanation of the answers. so this one can be a quick read if you know the concepts defined in the other book.
how to use it?
Take a problem from the book and try to apply the concepts taught in Decode and Conquer to it.
It is obvious that the solution proposed in the book will not be the same as the one you came up with. however, the book will give you plenty of problems to solve and good direction for similar problems in the interview.
also, do your homework, divide these questions into several categories. try to create your own frameworks/strategies to solve such problems.
what’s not good about it?
The first thing that immediately makes a person stop buying it is the price. this is an expensive product not because of the value but because it is imported from us. however, it is cheaper to buy directly from lewis lin’s website.
Also, this is not a book to learn concepts or structure. has a chapter to review, but this is a practice book that ties in well with the concepts taught in Decode and Conquer.
If you are buying the paperback version of this book in India, you can expect a delivery time of 2-3 weeks as it ships from the USA. uu.
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
4. Amazon Product Manager Interview: A Step-by-Step Approach To Mastering The Amazon Product Manager Interview (Kindle) By Course
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
Although the title of this book is The Amazon Product Manager Interview, it can very easily be used to prepare for other organizations as well. The book is divided into sections and some of them are specific to Amazon. The book is a speed read even on the android kindle app and it shouldn’t take long to flip through the pages.
what’s so good about this book?
The book also covers behavioral questions in detail and provides some good frameworks to work through them.
Another good thing about this book is that it’s not as well known in the pm fraternity, so you can use the examples cited here, especially frameworks and behavioral questions, when interviewing for other organizations.
how to use it?
Instead of reading the articles in detail, skim through them quickly so you don’t spend a lot of time on generic concepts that you would have already learned from other books.
This book contains good information (including infographics, links, and images) about the amazon business, so please read them especially if you are preparing for amazon.
also some of these businesses or products can also be referenced for product improvement questions in other interviews (build your knowledge on these rare products because interviewers may not know them in detail).
what’s not good about it?
This book can be generic at times. There are many sections that are redundant and focusing on Amazon only makes it difficult to understand, especially when talking about Amazon’s cultural fit. however, this can also be taken as a perk for candidates specifically listed on the amazon interview.
Another thing that comes to mind when you look at this book is that it’s a kindle-only book. What this means is that you need an amazon kindle to read this book or you need to download the kindle app on your device to read it. the experience in the kindle app may not be the same as in the pocket edition of the book or on an actual kindle device.
you can download kindle for android from the following url to read this book
See Also: Allegiant Movie and Book Differences and Spoilers – The Hollywood Reporter
buy a kindle on amazon india | buy a kindle on amazon usa
buy it on amazon india | buy it on amazon usa
5. Preparing for Product Interviews: A Productive Guide to Getting a Job at PM (Kindle) – By Akash Ramdas and Advaith Sridhar
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
finally a book by an Indian author. The book covers the basics of building a structure for PM interviews.
It shouldn’t be the first book you read, as it doesn’t delve into various topics. but definitely a great option for additional ideas and examples. Given the price, I think you shouldn’t think twice about buying this.
what’s so good about this book?
This is a small and easy to read book with very modern examples compared to the other books I mentioned in the previous post. Furthermore, this is a very simple book that focuses more on examples than theory. this can be challenging at times, but given the standard approach taken to solve the examples, it becomes very easy for users to understand the underlying concepts.
Another aspect of this book that I loved is the chapter on “preparing for product interviews.” this section of the book has interviews from product managers at mr. management and knowledge from them about what they look for in a product manager during hiring. if you can understand the underlying needs, you can easily focus your interview to achieve the same.
how to use it?
In short, don’t try to remember the frameworks used in this book. the authors have very clearly given the reason for taking such an approach. If you can understand the authors’ approach, you can crack any of the product management questions asked in the same area or line.
Please read the technical data in this book, as these are short sections on the basic science behind common technologies (how does the internet work? password protection and hashing? compression, etc.)
what’s not good about it?
The first thing that strikes you when you read this book is that the context of the interviews is primarily Indian. This is not a big deal if you are looking for a PM job within India. rather this becomes a blessing for you. however, the examples covered in the book could also have been more international.
Like the previous book, this is also a kindle-only book. or you need an amazon kindle to read this book. alternatively you can download the kindle app on your device to read this. the experience in the kindle app may not be the same as in the pocket edition of the book or on an actual kindle device.
See Also: Allegiant Movie and Book Differences and Spoilers – The Hollywood Reporter
buy a kindle on amazon india | buy a kindle on amazon usa
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
so this completes my list of the top 5 books to crack the product management interview (2020)
2 Bonus Product Management Interview Books (Besides Top 5 Product Management Interview Books)
In addition to the books mentioned above, I’d like to recommend two more books to aspiring product managers.
Note that these two books do not give advice on how to crack product management interviews. however, the frameworks and structure presented to common problems are something to be aware of and thoroughly understand in order to use them in interviews.
In short, these are primarily case interview prep books. case interviews can go either way and product/market evaluation are some of them.
another advantage of reading these books is that product managers read them less. therefore, the frames presented are not very obvious to the interviewers.
1. case in point 10: interview preparation for the full case by marc p cosentino
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
the wall street journal calls the case the bible of mba! cosentino demystifies the interview of the consulting case.
The most important thing is that this is how this book is presented. I personally like this book as it gives you the interviewer’s opinion on how much he is willing to accept.
Also, this book has helped me a lot in creating my own frameworks on new product development & ask types of questions. For one thing, most books talk about asking interviewers questions. on the other hand, this book covers examples of what kind of questions you should ask them.
Also, this book is also very good for estimation type questions. Though rare these days, estimation questions can still come as a surprise in product management interviews.
Although it’s not on the list of top 5 books to crack the product management interview, this is definitely a book to expand your thoughts.
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
2. Hacking the Case Interview: Your Quick Guide to Mastering Consulting Interviews by Taylor Warfield
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
with 90% 4 & 5 star ratings on amazon and 80% 5 star ratings, this is one of the most sought after books by mba graduates worldwide for case preparation interviews.
however, given the strategies outlined in this book, this can easily be extended to cover product management interviews.
While not in the top 5 books for cracking product management interviews, this book is definitely an extended read if you want to solidify your concepts and expand your horizon.
Also, many organizations request a case round filing these days. this is to test candidates’ detailed thought process and analytical and strategic mindset. this book will definitely help you.
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
a must-read for product managers
Before I close this post, I wanted to recommend a book to all product managers and aspiring product managers.
rather I would like to extend the recommendation to everyone.
everyone, in one way or another, is involved in the process of creating and managing products.
hooked: how to create habit-forming products by nir ayal
buy this book on amazon india | buy this book on amazon usa
This is a book I would recommend all product managers read. provides a scientific approach to why some products rise and why others sink.
may not be absolutely necessary for product management interviews. however, this will add much more value and depth to your thoughts and structure your responses.
final comments on the top 5 books for cracking product management interviews
Although these books can give you a direction, getting to the destination depends on your speed and effort.
Books will be more useful if you practice problems before looking for solutions.
Also, I would recommend not storming the structures, but rather work on the reason for their existence.
if you have a focus, it automatically enters your thinking. when you put one on during an interview, it sounds more natural.
Thank you for reading my article.
I want to know more
If you have any questions about the post or would like personalized guidance, please contact me. Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you soon.
my other posts to help with product management / manager interview
5 steps to improve the product
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