At Tech in Asia’s Founders’ Meetup last October, Yi-Wei Ang, Head of Growth at TradeGecko joined us for a session where he shared some important tips on how to build your product team (video below). His talk focused on the role of Product Managers and the key traits to look out for when hiring them.
Product Managers form the backbone of any great product in a company, whether it be a fledgling startup or a large corporation. They are responsible for defining the product vision and strategy, and articulating its business value to all relevant stakeholders.
With Product Managers playing such an integral role in a company, it’s more important than ever that you find the right talent. Here are some of Yi-Wei’s interview tips on how you can identify the perfect candidate for the job.
Solve a product design problem
Sample Question: How would you design an app for a theme park?
A good Product Manager understands and anticipates the needs of the user. A simple design test will help to illustrate this as candidates are forced to ask the right questions to derive the solution you’re looking for. This is a great test of precision questioning as they need to have the ability to dig deep into every problem, understand what’s going on and move things forward.
At this point, Yi-Wei also suggests throwing in some follow-up questions. It helps you understand the reasoning behind their thinking and how they respond to feedback. These are all important attributes of a successful Product Manager.
Whiteboard a business plan
Sample Question: What is a viable business model for a good delivery app in Singapore?
According to Yi-Wei, a good candidate needs to know how a product aligns with a company’s business model. Getting them to whiteboard a business plan not only tests their qualitative skills, but also allows you to evaluate their quantitative proficiency. Examples include market sizing and monetization questions.
Further, data is often at the heart of a Product Manager’s decision-making process, so someone who is comfortable with numbers and data-driven is ideal. If you present a candidate with a spreadsheet of data, they should also be able to draw useful, top-level insights from it.
Dive deep into a candidate’s past experiences
Sample Question: Tell me about a product or feature that you’ve shipped.
A candidate’s past experiences will be very revealing of their decision-making process and the kind of impact they drove in their previous roles.
Due to the multi-faceted nature of the job, Product Managers often work with many different groups of people in the company. They also need to have excellent communication skills – be it within the team, with stakeholders or even with customers themselves. Conflict management, in particular, is a vital skill for a Product Manager to have in order to ensure things continue running smoothly.
Ask about their favourite product
Sample Question: What is your favourite product? How would you improve it?
The is probably one of the most commonly asked questions in Product Manager interviews. While seemingly harmless, this question digs deep into the candidate’s thought process behind product improvement. Being able to identify incremental improvements in an already successful product is a real test of the candidate’s appreciation behind the product technology. A good Product Manager displays an understanding of a user’s needs and the ability to formulate a practical solution to make the product even better.
Eager to hear more insights from Yi-Wei?
Hiring a good Product Manager is just the first step to building your product dream team. These interview tips by Yi-Wei are a sneak peek to his upcoming keynote session at Tech in Asia Singapore 2017’s Developer and Product stage.
Yi-Wei will be delving deep into how TradeGecko’s product team makes their hiring decisions, how to lead and motivate your team, and how to create processes to guide your team towards the company’s goal.
From just US$297 for startups, you can catch Yi-Wei’s session and hear from other top leaders in tech this May 17 and 18. From now till March 10, 2359 (GMT +8), you get to shave 20 percent off your conference pass when you purchase with this code ‘tiasg20’.
For more great insights and latest opportunities in the tech scene, be sure to get your tickets now!
(Video) Tech in Asia’s founders meetup: How to build your product team
This post TradeGecko’s Head of Growth’s interview tips to hiring a good product manager appeared first on Tech in Asia.
from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/tradegeckos-head-growths-interview-tips-hiring-good-product-manager
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