The Dreaded Take-Home Assignment

Written By Wendy-Lynn

In an effort to test how candidates think, rather than listen to memorized answers or case questions that don't give candidates adequate time to time to think, many product leaders are moving to adopt the take-home assignment.

Like everything in our current job interview process, there are some pros and cons to this interview format. Since I am writing this article for candidates and not interviewers, we will focus on the why and how to answer them and not worry about judging them as good or bad.

And to answer the most common question/fear: The company is not trying to get your ideas and use them. They typically already know more about the prompt than you ever could know and they have asked enough other candidates that you are highly unlikely to tell them something they haven’t already heard.

Yes, it is frustrating to do this extra work, but let’s be honest, it is no more work than the typical interview preparations we are already doing.

Why

There are countless false positives in our interview process. And smaller companies don't always get the most experienced candidates, so they may choose to offer a take-home assignment as a means of getting a signal on your PM skills as well as your ability to communicate when given time. The take-home assignment gives a different view on the same set of skills they tested in behavioral interviews or case interviews.

I know when I was a hiring manager, I decided to add a take-home assignment for three reasons:

  • Internal Issues: Cross-Functional Partner

  • Talent Market: Candidate Pool wasn’t matching needs

  • Consistency: Baselining Candidates

Let’s dive into the details.

  • Internal Issues: The biggest reason I added the take-home assignment was to counter issues we were having internally. The engineering partner was demanding but couldn't articulate what they wanted. The take-home assignment gave us a more consistent measure. And it was shared across the panel so we could better compare and contrast feedback and reactions as we were all seeing the same thing.

  • Talent Market: When you are a midsize or smaller company, the competition for talent is fierce. You aren't able to use signals from those at top-tier companies that have rigorous interview processes. This leads to two things: needing more signals and willingness to take a gamble on someone who shows unique potential to learn. The take-home gives a signal of both desire and communication skills (yes, I know they can get it proofed by others, but in real life we do that anyways). But the take-home also gives someone without a strong resume a chance to prove themselves.

  • Consistency: If you have a take-home assignment, you can baseline new candidates to previous candidates who were successful in a uniform and consistent manner over time. If you have someone who is doing great but had an average take-home answer, that can help your team be more realistic about what they are looking for in the case.

How

I have seen a number of articles and videos (see below) that claim they have the secret to answering take-home assignments. Anyone that tells you they have a one-size fits all answer to take-homes is miss leading you. There are several factors at play:

  • Type of Assignment

  • Company Culture

  • Role Specific Needs

  • Cross-Functional (xfn) Partner Input

Before I focus on the types of assignments, let's get the company and role-specific issues out of the way.

Company dynamics are nearly impossible to know. The team might have had a terrible employee just before this role opened, and they are over-correcting for that. The team dynamics might be off balance and they need someone who is more data than the design-heavy background, or the reverse. For those elements that have more at play than we realize, clear communication of your thoughts and focusing on the question, and not proving how much work you did for the sake of work will save you. Otherwise, it is tough to know.

Assignment Types

Now for the different types of take-home assignments, I have seen:

  1. Data: You are given data and asked to answer questions about the analysis of the product opportunity

  2. Design Analysis: Critic the design of the current company or a competitor

  3. Strategic Planning: You are given a scenario and need to set out your plan

  4. Favorite Product (most proud): Might be most common. They ask you to present what you accomplished and how.

  5. Working Backwards Assignment: Another version of strategic planning coming from ex-Amazonians.

  6. Product you took from strategy to launch: Mostly 0-1 but not always

  7. Prioritization: A situation is given and you might be asked to set out the roadmap and how you would prioritize it.

As you can see, it would be impossible to address all of these question types with the exact same specific framework. You can leverage a general framework: 1. Problem Identification 2. Solution Proposal, and 3. Analysis, but most candidates find that too general to help them get their footing.

There are some common themes:

  • Leave time to ask the recruiter questions before you dive in (don't get the assignment on a Friday and then waste the weekend)

  • Remember the User: Any PM case will require you to display customer focus

  • Most (not all) can follow a similar framework as your design case or execution case:

    • Get clear on the problem

    • Setup the situation (product, company, ecosystem, economics)

    • Narrow down users

    • Prioritize Pain Points

    • Suggest Solution(s)

    • Metrics for Success

  • Product You Led

    • Company, Product, Users, Problem Solved, Results, Learnings, XFN challenges

There is no perfect answer. But covering product sense and execution factors will typically work.

Resources From the Others

Here is a list of articles (of varying level of quality) with different POVs on how to present take-homes.

Wendy-Lynn https://intrico.io
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