While I understand the urge to test prioritization skills in an interview, particularly more junior candidates, I absolutely hate this category of questions when it is asked in the form of a behavioral question.

They don’t help interviewers properly assess candidates. No one can truly give you all the real reasons they made a prioritization decision because the underlying political reasons that impacted the true decision are too complex to explain and reflect more about the company/organization they were in than the PM being interviewed. Thus, these questions scare the living daylights out of candidates.

So, how does one prioritize during a product management interview?

One has to play the game and stay away from the politics. You need to keep the focus of your conversation on what can be measured. Things to consider align with what you use in case interviews plus what you really do:

• Total Addressable Market

• Impact on the Pain

• Revenue Predictions

• Cost Estimates

• Engineering Effort

• Finding Alignment with Partner Team

• Building Foundations First

• Give and Take Given Historical Issues

• Frequency of Problem

• Severity of Problem

• Quick Wins

• Longer Term Focus

Too many times, in real life the story is, a VP had more power than the VP I rolled up into, and even though I wanted to prioritize based on user needs and engineering effort, I had to build what the VP wanted. But, we can’t say that.

Another possible route is trying to think of a positive, not a negative, reason the decision was made, which appeared as a blatant grab for power. Then, frame your answer with that concept.

For example: We prioritized X because it was part of A or B longer-term plan to get Y released by Z date. Now you can fill in the blanks.

In all likelihood, if you corned the VP that was making a power play, you would get the answer you have prepared because they are not going to admit their decision to prioritize their entire organization behind A or B idea was actually a power play. I wouldn’t advise this route for past problems, but I would challenge you to look at future power grabs in terms of a more altruistic decision and see if you can find evidence of that to help make a prioritization discussion in the future when you have an interview. Especially since, if you are being yanked around by powerplays, it is probably time to find a new role. .