Welcome to a very special episode of the podcast. Ever since I started this podcast, one of people's favorite segments continues to be the lighting round, and in particular, a question I ask guests around their favorite interview question that they like to ask candidates and what they look for in a good answer. What we've done is we've picked my favorite interview questions that guests have shared.
Out of over a hundred guests on the podcast, we've got 17 of my favorite interview questions all combined in this one episode. You can use this episode anytime you are preparing to interview candidates, if you want to improve your existing interview questions, or if you're about to get interviewed and you want to prepare for the kinds of questions that you might get in the interview process.
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First up, we've got Eka Demeliano. Eka was head of product at Retool. She was also a PM at Stripe. Currently, she's actually starting her own company. And so here's Eka sharing her favorite interview question. To what do you attribute your success and you can't say luck? Because I think humble people will always say luck in some way. I always wanted to like, how self-aware are you basically? And I think and how curious are you? And I think people have really sort of gone back and reflected on why are they where they are today really, really says a lot about how they think about the world.
Next up, we've got Jeff Charles, head of product at RAMP. And also just happens to be one of the most popular episodes of the podcast. I asked, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? And I asked that because working at RAMP is hard. I want to understand like what hard meets for them. I want to understand why it was hard. I want to understand how they overcame that difficulty, how they worked with other people to overcome that difficulty and how much agency they had in overcoming that. So it's a really, it's a really good sign around what is difficulty to them and how much work they put into overcoming that.
Next up, we've got Shashir Marotra CEO and co-founder of CODA. And then enough, we posted this exact clip to TikTok and Instagram Reels and it blew up. It's one of the most popular clips we've ever put on our channels. By the way, did you know I have a TikTok and an Instagram channel? Just look up Lenny's podcast on TikTok or Instagram. Anyway, with that, here's Shashir Marotra sharing his favorite interview question. It's a very simple question and it's a coded, I can question test. And the question is, a group of scientists have invented a teleportation device. They've hired you, Lenny, to be their sort of business counterpart, bring this to market, product counter, what is the question actually worth a while for any of you? Let's say, you could be a product manager for this thing, bring it to market, what do you do? That's the whole question. Usually people will start asking a bunch of questions and say, well, tell me more about this device. Like, what does it do? How does it work? Is it big? Is it small? Is it fast? Does it disintegrate things or not? Does it need a receiver and a sender? Does it save? Like, all these different questions come out. And at some point, I'll just let those questions come
out. And at some point, I'll say, okay, nice job, Diner, do all the questions. Turns out, the scientists, they kind of hate talking to people. And they're kind of annoyed by all your questions. And so they decided that they will answer only two of your questions. And after that, they expect a plan. What two questions do you ask? And interestingly, all of a sudden, like the sharp product managers engineer, so like basically every role, they very quickly find what are the two one or two eigen questions on this topic. And I don't write answer, but I'll tell you, like one of my favorite ones, is their product manager said, okay, if I had to ask two questions, the two questions that I'd ask, one is, is it safe enough for humans or not? And I was a, like a very like, crisp way to get to like just safety, how reliable is it? They didn't ask how reliable it is. I'm going to be in the middle of this. Like, just tell them, is it safe enough for humans or not? And the second one is, is it more expensive cat-pack tro.
然后在某个时候,我会说,好,干得好,别纳,回答所有问题。事实证明,科学家们有点讨厌和人打交道。他们对你所有的问题有点恼火。因此,他们决定只回答您的两个问题。之后,他们期望一个计划。你会问什么两个问题呢?有趣的是,突然间,就像敏锐的产品经理工程师一样,基本上每个角色都能很快找到这个主题上的一个或两个重要问题。我不会写答案,但我会告诉你,我最喜欢的问题之一是,他们的产品经理说,好,如果我必须问两个问题,我要问的两个问题是,首先是这对人类是否安全?这是一个非常简练的方式,只是关于安全性,它有多可靠?他们没有问它有多可靠。我会去问这个。就告诉他们,这对人类是否足够安全?第二个问题是,它比cat-pack tro te更昂贵吗?
pics? Is it more expensive to buy them or to run them? And then he took those two questions and he said, like, death of those two questions, I can perform these quadrants. You could say, oh, it's safe enough for humans and it's cheaper to, they're very cheap to buy, but expensive to run. Then you probably run them like human vaccine machines. Like you put them everywhere you can and you say, hey, look, it's expensive to use, but like you all have the ability to teleport anywhere you want. And this is how we're going to run it. If the other hand, they're very expensive to buy, but cheap to run, you probably have to place them very strategically, in which case, what you probably do is replace airports. Because like airports are pretty strategically placed in places where people are trying to try to get around places. If it's not safe enough for humans, then you've got to hold different class of use cases where you go value what goods are transported in very costly ways. And you know, people come up with like, you know, do you do the most expensive things? Do you do the like, you know, is is teleporting, you know, people's replacement hearts? Is that like a, like a really demanding thing?
So, but these two questions kind of kind of get to the heart of it. The question's totally made up like, no teleportation device exists. You know, at least not yet. And I find that people's ability to learn the method is significantly higher if it's low stakes. That question, by the way, if you ask a kid that question, the, you know, you tell a teleportation device, you know, you get asked two questions. Almost every kid will like quickly get to two pretty good Ein questions. Like kids are incredibly good at simplifying these things down. It's actually a skill we like remove from ourselves. Like I'll see all your candidates tell me things like, I guess I would ask them what size it is. And like, why would you ask them what size? What, what, what decision is that going to allow you to make to know what size it is? And you know, sometimes they can explain it, but sometimes not. And don't get higher. Yeah.
But actually the thing I'd say about it is there are Ein questions kind of everywhere. I mean, is that you can, you can take any product out there. I'll do it with my kids a lot. And they'll say, you know, I was just writing with, with my younger daughter. And she said, you know, how come there's three gas stations like in the same corner? Why, why, why do people do that? Sick. Yeah. That's a really, that's a really insightful observation. What's the question? How do you place a gas station? You can almost take anything and say, what is the question that really drives, drives this answer?
This next interview question comes from Yuki Yamashita, chief product officer at Figma, also a former head of design at Uber. And describe to me a time when you're part of like controversial product assistant, right? And you know, what they do and all those things. And I think it's, it's really revealing because, you know, if they can kind of like set up this conflict and understand like why this problem is really important and represent both sides and a, and such that you can understand why and I conflict with it. It's just in the first place and they can do it. And there's kind of like even keeled way where you, you realize that they can take on these different perspectives. Like you start to learn a lot about that person, I think. Or sometimes I just ask them for basic things like, okay, talk about kind of like a big problem that you worked on. And the thought experiment for me is always like coming out of that, do I feel compelled to work on that problem? Right? No matter how boring it sounds on the surface, like I think a really great product manager kind of like cast something as like, this is why it's so existential close and there's slides so interesting and like really rally that trip. So that's kind of one big thing of like storytelling communication because at the end of the day, like so much of our job is around that.
Next you'll hear from Katie Dil head of design at Stripe, Kari Sarnan CEO of linear and Camille Hearst product leader at Spotify, former product leader at Patreon who all share the same favorite interview question. Tell me what work you're most proud of. And the reason I ask that is because, well, it helps me understand their taste and their judgment, what motivates them, what work they view as good and is a good outcome. It also helps me understand a little bit about what they like to do and where they're kind of like gravity pulls them. I think usually I like to ask like, what is the kind of most proud of and why on their professional life or otherwise, like what they're most proud of and why. But I think it's kind of like, gives you a little bit indication like what the person values and like how they think about things. And I also like, I think it's always nice that people can share something like they think they do it really well and we can spend time on it versus just like asking something like more like negative things. I like to ask people to tell me about something they're really proud of that they accomplished and take me through the process and talk to them about why they're proud of it. I define you can learn so much about a person's motivations, about their work ethic, about what they care about, like what good looks like to them. And I think those are all really important things to understand about a person if you're going to work closely with them.
接下来,您将听到来自Stripe设计主管Katie Dil、线性公司CEO Kari Sarnan以及Spotify产品负责人Camille Hearst的发言,前者曾是Patreon的产品负责人,他们都分享了同一个最喜欢的面试问题:告诉我你最自豪的工作是什么。我之所以会问这个问题,是因为它帮助我了解他们的品味和判断力,以及他们的动力是什么,他们认为哪些工作是优秀的、是一个好的结果。这也帮助我了解一些关于他们喜欢做什么以及他们的重心是什么的情况。我通常喜欢问,职业生涯中或者其他方面,他们最自豪的是什么以及为什么。我觉得这有点指示性,可以让我了解一个人看重什么,以及他们如何思考事物。我也觉得,让人们分享他们认为自己做得很好的事情总是很好的,这样我们可以花时间去探讨,而不只是去问一些消极的问题。我喜欢请人分享他们真正为之自豪的成就,并带领我经历整个过程,谈论为什么他们为此感到自豪。我认为,您可以从中了解很多关于一个人动机、工作态度、以及他们关心的事情,以及对于他们来说什么是好的。我认为这些都是非常重要的,如果您将要与一个人密切合作的话,了解这些关于一个人的事情是很重要的。
Next is Jay Z, head of product at Webflow, former Airbnb colleague, sharing her favorite interview question. I do like to do behavioral questions is really understanding like when they've been in challenging situations, when they've been in ambiguous situations, like how do they navigate ambiguity is a big one for me. Because at the end of the day, like the PM job is really ambiguous. Like, it's really hard to describe on a piece of paper all the things that you're going to counter. And so, the answers are people who put structure and a way forward through the ambiguity. Like that's what you look for. Like you want your PM to not just be like, oh no, we're swimming in ambiguity, but like actually put a path forward. I think also looking for people who are like seeking help, seeking those inputs is supposed to be like, this is the way this is very clear. Because again, the chances of whatever path you chart out for any product or anything that you're doing is like the right path from the first time that you do it, so rare. And so I want to see someone be able to like get those inputs, be able to like say, like this is the path, this is how I like learn why, you know, I put this path together and then going back to a lot of the stuff I think we touched upon in this podcast is like, what are the little milestones that make you say, hey, is this working? Is this not working? And then make you either make a different decision seeing people do that really well is a big thing I look for.
Next up is Noah Weiss, Chief Product Officer at Slack. What unfair secrets have you learned to improve the velocity and energy level of a product team? And by say unfair, or you see for it, I usually mean like, not something that you probably read on like the media and put the link, what do you learn, how do you learn it, and how does it work and how do you apply it? You also get amazing, interesting, like bits of inspiration from asking that. This next question comes from the very sultry voice of Ben Williams, former VP of product at Snyk, and now an advisor to product lead growth startups. Fast forward three years, what's different about you then? A lot of people will default to telling you where they aspire to be in terms of role or title. But what I'm really looking for is signals of humility, of self-awareness around areas of personal and professional growth. So people who can be open about where they think they need to work on to grow themselves as people. I love that. Also just generally throughout interviews I'm looking for curiosity. So day to day, good PMs will be asking why as much as my six-year-old son does, which is a lot. So I'll try and discern that through the course of the conversation.
So not really a question, but something I'm looking for. And then maybe I want to flip it because building on something that Adam Fishman was saying is the theme of evaluating the people dimension of folks you're potentially going to work with when you're interviewing with a company. And this was a question I got asked myself recently by a candidate, which I just thought was brilliant. And that was tell me about the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives that you've recently personally been involved with. And that it just felt like a really great way for them to be able to test alignment of their personal values with those of someone they'd be working with really closely. So I love that.
Next up is Melton Coron Berkowitz, head of growth and a very early employee at Deal. What would your siblings say about you? It's very telling. If they have siblings, if they don't, I will say what will your parents say about you. But it's very telling what do you think other people think of you. What do you look for in their answer that gives you a sign that they're a good candidate or not? I look for sincerity and self-awareness. Your siblings are never, I mean, I love my sister, but she'll probably should talk me a lot. And being aware of that is very important. If someone's like, my siblings will say I'm very organized and that I'm the one that brings our family together, that's probably a bullshit answer. But if they're like, oh yeah, they'll say these weird things about me that shows a little bit of self-awareness and humbleness that I want to see in a person.
Next is Paige Costello, co-head of Product Management, and also head of AI at Asana. I like to ask, tell me about a time something went wrong. What was it? What did you do about it? Yeah, yeah. And effectively the question gets that when the product failed, when something about the team didn't work, just things that go wrong because that's what happens when you're doing this work. And evaluating people's mindset and the way they talk about it and the way they relate to evaluating the situation, I think it's a great question. It really tells you a lot about how people think and how they perceive themselves when things are not working well. We are in the final stretch now.
There's only five more interview questions to go. Next up is Nikhil Singal, VP of Product at Facebook, also one of the most popular episodes of the podcast. It's something that everyone takes for granted that you think is essentially hogwash or inaccurate. Sometimes I'll ask a manager, look, you've managed hundreds of people in your career, what's conventional wisdom that you bet against, that you have found it actually inaccurate. And you can do that for what do people think about AI that's inaccurate, that everyone believes. You could do that for domains, you can do all kinds of things.
I'm always looking for people to break this sort of interview mindset. So everyone always prepares for interviews and then the entire conversation is predicting what you think you want me to say. And as a result, you can have high-quality people that you dismiss because they weren't genuine. There's no way to answer that question without being genuinely opinionated because it starts with what is the thing that you think I want to say here and then tell me why it's inaccurate. So when I break that wall, I'm testing as this person authentic because sometimes I'm dismissing them because they told me nothing new. But I don't want the interview process to penalize them and this was my save question. This next question comes from Ayo Omajalo, Chief Product Officer at Carbon Health, former product lead at Square and also a former founder.
Tell me something you did that worked out but not for the reason that you thought it would work. Or tell me something you did that was a good decision that didn't work. A lot of my process is just teasing out introspection. It's just like, are you a person who is reflective about the decisions you've made and why they worked the way they did not and incorporating them to your model so you make difference as soon as next time. Next up is Scott Belsi, Chief Strategy Officer at Adobe, former Chief Product Officer of Adobe, also former founder of Behance.
I like asking about something people have learned about themselves that reveal the limitation in how they work. It's a way to test introspection and when this person hits their limits or struggles, can they be open and introspective or are they going to blame and point fingers? So I do ask that. I also like the question, do you consider yourself lucky? I think it's a fascinating question because it also, some people who are super insecure about where they are and how they got there might decline. Admitting luck, those who are comfortable should admit that they were lucky. I think the truth is we're all very lucky and certainly privileged and I just think that that's always an interesting conversation.
Our penultimate interview question comes from Lauren Isford, Head of Growth at Notion, Former Head of Growth at Daredevil. Tell me about a time that you delivered something that was impactful. I'm looking for someone to help me understand how they define impact and what it means to them. I think a good answer for growth practitioner is intrinsic motivation about having an impact on the business.
我们倒数第二个面试问题来源于Notion的Head of Growth以及前Daredevil的Head of Growth Lauren Isford。请告诉我一个你做出有影响力的成就的经历。我想了解你是如何定义影响力以及它对你意味着什么。我认为,一个成熟的增长实践者会有内在动力,关心对业务的影响。
Our final interview question is actually advice for doing reference calls, which comes after finding someone great through your interview process. And this comes from Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer at Intercom with his killer Irish accent. I had to do referral calls so I could interview someone, you want to give them the job and they've got referees and of course the referees they have are like the best people that they ever worked on and their favorite managers.
So this question is, what feedback will I be giving this person in their first performance review? It's an amazing question because the person can't dodge it. There's an answer and it's incredibly enlightening.
And it's a wrap. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found this valuable. Give a comment either on the newsletter post or in the YouTube comments or even on Twitter. Let me know what you think. If there's a great response, we'll continue to do this. If not, we'll never do this again. All right. Thank you. Enjoy.