The clarifying question of a product case question is the start of your interview. What you ask and How you ask it set the tone for the rest of your 30 to 45 min interview.

Beware the Memorized List

Most people know they need to ask clarifying questions, but they often freeze on what to ask. So they start with a memorized list of questions: What’s the location? What’s the budget? What’s my goal? Who are the users? (Those last two questions are the whole point of a case interview. You can only really ask that if you are given an internal product to ideate on. See below for more details on that edge case.)

The Five Rules

Rule 1: Diagram the Sentence First

Rule 2: Strategic, not Fishing Questions

Rule 3: Don’t assume the prompt is for the current company

Rule 4: Don’t ask about location first!

Rule 5: Don’t fish around about what startup means

Now let’s get into the details of each rule.

Rule 1: Diagram the Sentence First

A typical prompt will have between 1 to 3 most important words. The first question you want to ask when clarifying before jumping into your answer is the clarifying question around the keywords in the prompt.

Rule 2: Strategic, not Fishing Questions

Asking: What is the goal? Which users should we focus on? Those are FISHING questions. The candidate is fishing around to have the interviewer provide guidance. The point of these ambiguous questions is for the candidate to show their thoughts on these very issues. So asking this kind of question comes across as clueless and tone-deaf.

Rule 3: Don’t assume the prompt is for the current company

If not clear as part of the prompt, ask if you should assume it is for X company or a startup/other company. If it is not part of the prompt, DO NOT assume it is just as if you were a PM for the company you are interviewing with. In most cases, they want you to assume you are NOT building this for the company you are interviewing with. But, sometimes, they do. So ALWAYS ask if you are not clear.

Rule 4: Don’t ask about location first!

Many candidates start off asking, what country should I assume we are in? Or what location should I assume? Many times, location is irrelevant. Sometimes, it is important, for example, when you are talking about healthcare or education. But ask in a way that shows you understand why it matters. But even when it is essential, don’t make that your first question, as many interviewers are sick of the overuse of that question and find it exhausting. Ask the more thoughtful questions first.

Rule 5: Don’t fish around about what startup means

So many people ask, is this a start-up? Then they assume it means a limited budget or something else. But to the interviewer, a start-up might mean you can think as big as you want or something more. So rather than fish around about budget constraints or other underlying assumptions, ask what you want to ask in the first place. Often times this question isn’t even really necessary, so proceed with caution. Does it really help you at all?

How This Relates to a Real PM Job

No self-respecting PM would go into a new effort without asking questions to get a sense of the user, what had been done before, the goals, etc. While you can’t ask for the goals or specific users, that is up to you to suss out as part of the case; the act of taking a moment to ask clarifying questions shows the interviewer you are a thoughtful and considerate candidate for the role.