How to stand out in your next product marketing interview

Product marketing has achieved quite a bit of prominence over the last ten years, especially with technology companies. As a Product Marketing Manager (PMM), you take strong ownership with product story telling and communicate the value proposition to your customers. 

The PMM role in a technology company is a unique sweet spot for someone who is passionate about tech, product story telling and constant cross-collaboration with people. As a PMM you get to define product marketing strategy, name products, craft strategic adoption campaigns with other marketing teams and most importantly you get to show the world how your product solves problems for your customers. 

If you are an individual who likes being challenged everyday in a good mix of business and technical setting, you’ll love it. If you are curious and want to learn more about PMM as a job function in technology companies or if you are new to the product marketing universe, read my previously published article on product marketing.

In this article I’ll help you identify the key interview aspects, interview do’s and don'ts to have a rewarding interview experience.

Interviews are usually considered to be a nerve-wracking journey. Search engines hold answers to a lot of tips and tricks while prepping for interviews. It’s exactly what I tried doing when I started preparing for my first technical marketing job interview in the US (2013). No guides, no mentor and no formal curriculum to show or hint what to expect for a B2B Product Marketing Manager (PMM) position. Let me tell you, PMM wasn’t even a role much talked about or advertised on job boards or at campus recruiting events back in 2013. 

Most technology companies have different formats for PMM interviews. The format depends on the core skills each team/company is looking for. For example, they can be looking to hire a technology expert or an enthusiast with a marketing inclination or marketing magician with a grasp of latest tech or a generalist who is able to execute at the speed of light. 

The tiles shown below highlight the key aspects you need to be aware of as you go through the interview loop:

Discover opportunities:

Study the job market, understand what your strengths and weaknesses are. Thoroughly study your current position and how much a shift will you need to make to get to your new role- it may be by change in specialization or expanding your responsibilities or learning a new domain. 

It’s all possible with time, so write down your next job must haves. Study job boards, network online and offline, talk to peers, professors, colleagues. Don’t hesitate to whiteboard your personality traits that suit a specific role/ culture. Identify your passion and how you’ll need to switch or pivot to get to your happy place. I highly recommend trying out a personal SWOT analysis test.

Reach out for help:

It is okay to reach out and ask for help. My advice here is to be mindful of the questions you ask. Here are some questions that are less likely to get one’s attention- “I’m bored of my current job, I need to find my next gig” or “Just find me any gig” or “Marketing seems easy, can you help find a role in your organization” or even worse “ I need to find a job that doesn’t require me to sit in front of the computer 9 am to 5 pm”. Gasp.

Ask questions with proper reasoning. Know whom to ask, how to make a request and what you are seeking help with. Explicitly let the person know your intent for reaching out. Be it informal interviews, coffee chats or if you are just looking for words of motivation. Bring your enthusiasm and passion to the table and people will definitely help without hesitating.

Ask questions, be alert and organize your thoughts and requests every time you strike a conversation.

Content creation:

If you are interviewing for a marketing role in general, written samples are requested on most occasions prior to giving your telephone or onsite interviews. In most cases, written samples can be your whitepapers, blogs about topics or ideas you are passionate about, product reviews or even video blogging. Note that a lot of the startups ask that you present writing samples and they even ask that you take home a marketing assignment prior to coming for onsite interviews. Having written samples readily available simplifies your PMM job search else you may have to write one while interviewing which takes up quite some time and energy.

• Do not point them to a brochure that a creative designer and five other marketers created in your previous company and your contribution was literally two sentences about a product, this is not what interviewers are looking for.
• Do not cut and paste work from your peers or colleagues or company materials, be genuine in sharing your thoughts and ideas.
• After interviewing multiple candidates for years, my advice to interviewees is to avoid claiming that your marketing work is under NDA and cannot be shared externally. As a marketer you are usually heavily involved in creating outbound facing content, keep written samples ready to share with recruiters and the interview panel.

Resume sanitation:

No hiring manager needs to know that you went abroad for ten days and stayed with strangers in Bali or the 2% contribution you made to a friend’s project that won the first place in a data science competition at school or the fact that you are applying for a job at company A but the resume mentions company B in the summary section.

Carefully review your digital footprint before sending it to multiple companies. Your resume is your prime space to share the work that matters the most to you and make it as relevant as possible with what the company is looking for and the role you are applying for. Keep the resume up-to-date with your interesting tech projects, your contribution to individual and team projects, important web links, your specialization, relevant certifications and key skills and technical degrees obtained. Nobody wants an incomplete or mismatch in profiles when they look you up on LinkedIn for instance. Keep it clear and consistent.

Be attentive and dedicate time to customize your profile and focus on highlighting relevant experiences.

Phone star:

Resume is everything, even for a phone screen especially when you are not in front of the interviewer. So read the above section before diving into the following sections. 

• Start the phone conversation with your high level experience that is relevant to the applied position (keep this to less than 2 minutes introduction). Do not state any false information over the phone or on your resume. Be specific- why do you care about making a difference in this role? Bring enthusiasm and candidness to the conversation.
• Do not distract the interviewer by asking back to back questions right away instead of allowing the interviewer to ask a few questions. Interviewers are sharp enough to take a note of this in your interview feedback.
• Do not claim to be an expert when you are a beginner in let’s say data science. Trust me, as an interviewer myself, if someone claims to be an expert- I go down the path of testing fundamentals to complex terminologies and scenarios and often times the candidate is baffled and fails to show true expertise. It is important to be genuine and intellectually curious overall.
• Ask the interviewer on what can you expect in the next round or next steps -do they want you to write an assignment or appear onsite for a full day interview.
• Mistakes happen, this may be due to nervousness or slip of tongue and that’s okay. Apologize and request if you can revisit and reattempt answering a specific question. 

Onsite stunner:

Interviewers come with various tactics to check culture fit and expertise for the role you are interviewing for. A PMM role is a highly cross-functional so don’t be surprised if you see your interview panel consisting of product managers, sales managers, developer relations, product engineers or campaign/ outbound marketing managers. This also means your interview questions aren’t always about market segmentation, Go-to-Market plan or behavioral questions. Expect some probing around product awareness at a high level if not deep dive, product metrics, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), situation based leadership and strategic thinking questions and of course case studies. 

The most important things you need to focus on-

• Knowing what you will take to the market (product and customers) is absolutely important. So, do your homework. My first advice is to read the job description carefully.
• Relax, know this is not the end of the world- be calm and composed. Have a firm handshake, introduce yourself and be genuinely interested in the person and product(s) during the interview. Be confident.
• Dress up in interview-appropriate attire (check with the recruiter, they usually provide interview checklist and guidelines). Find a couple of outfits which will be your “go-to” interview outfits. It’s okay to repeat them rather than scrambling last minute to find what goes well with a beige color pant or a navy blue skirt for every onsite interview.
• Research and ask questions about recent announcements on products, challenges encountered with marketing the products or even the company culture. A lot of folks I’ve interviewed especially new college grads hesitate to ask questions and just abruptly smile and tell “no questions”.
• Show your excitement, be assertive, confident and most importantly curiosity. Do the fundamental work on the company, their principles, the products and how your skills are well equipped to be successful and deliver above and beyond in this role.
• Be personable and open to constructive criticism and genuinely apologize if you are incorrect and the interviewer will be happy to help along the way rather than being arrogant and snubbing away.
• Lunch interviews: My advice would be to grab a drink that hydrates you and preferably salad or light and chewy energy bars. Do not try to experiment with food in the middle of a 5–7 hour onsite interview. Save your appetite for later- stay away from that juicy burger and fries or baby back ribs or even the fragrant garlic herb chicken soup.

Follow up:

Whether you get radio silence or an enthusiastic email about the interview going well from the recruiter- acknowledge it, thank them for the opportunity and let them know what you enjoyed about the discussion- it could be the strategy or vision of the CEO, the start up atmosphere that brings the best out of you etc. Act son, thank you emails are usually sent in the first 24 hours.

Here is a simple follow-up email template that you can customize as you see fit:

Hi Jane,

Thanks for the wonderful onsite interview experience and the opportunity to meet the extended team. I really enjoyed the discussion and I look forward to hearing from you regarding the next steps.

Kind Regards,

Luna

Take feedback:

Feedback is great, take everything you get, if you get it. Do not stalk and reach out to interviewers on social media channels to provide interview updates. Interview decisions are company dependent and vary anywhere from 24 hours to ~4 weeks. Write down feedback to make yourself better prepared for future interactions or interviews. Some recruiters are open to providing a high level feedback and there are many who do not offer feedback in general. Instead, a good practice is to utilize the phone and onsite interview rounds to ask each interviewer if they had additional questions or concerns that you can address right away.

I hope this article helps you in your PMM interviews with tech companies. Good luck with the interviews…