Pitching Yourself to Your Interviewer
TL;DR - Read your interviewer. Modify your pitch to get ahead of common misconceptions about your experience. 80% of what a product manager does is communicate (some would argue tell stories) so put those skills to work to advocate for yourself during your interview.
No matter how many people I coach, I am still susceptible to the same pitfalls as my clients. I tell my stories about myself with the interviewer in mind. BUT often, I don’t fully understand what the listener really wants. Sometimes this is because the recruiter provides me with the wrong information. Other times, I incorrectly over-index on what I think they need to hear, and I am grossly wrong.
This week, I had an interview for a company I have been interested in a long time. Despite having 13+ years of consumer-facing product experience, many of my more recent roles have been more diverse without a direct connection to the user, and my interviewers fixate on this fact. I am well aware of this tendency. Because it keeps happening, the fault is mine. I should know to get ahead of it. But I seem to forget about it time and again. As a generalist, I am constantly pivoting what I do so it can be easy to fall into this trap.
How I Will (try to) Fix It
Instead of just saying I have 20 years of product experience, I need to start testing out I have 20 years of product experience, 13+ consumer-facing, 12+ years working directly with customer-facing product designers and user researchers, 5+ in search, recommendation, and discovery, 4+ on marketplace products, and 2 years pivoting an entire mid-size company to a more data-driven product mindset.
My Vent
Many startup founders are looking for Big Tech 0-1 experience. But in a Big Tech company, few really do 0-1 in the way startup founders dream. Because their 0-1 products have a few advantages that startups will never have, in short the benefits of scale:
instant eyeballs
brand recognition
legal and marketing partners who do the heavy lifting
ability to leverage or copy existing systems
endless list of requirements they don’t have to build from scratch
Your Challenge
I will start testing out my modified sales pitch and let you know how it goes. Your challenge is to examine your last interview. What went well? What went poorly? What are you going to change or test out next time?
