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I've hired 11 PMs (from Associate to Senior level) at my startup, and a lot of this rings true. The one thing I'll add is the most important step in my hiring p

I've hired 11 PMs (from Associate to Senior level) at my startup, and a lot of this rings true. The one thing I'll add is the most important step in my hiring process: After phone screen, I have the recruiter send them a case study that asks them to use my product (a social game, this works better for consumer internet, obviously) and identify the most important features for monetization and to suggest improvements to the game. 1) Because the prompt is somewhat open ended and they generally have at least a week to work on it, how much effort they put into it is a great indicator of how much they want to work at my company, which to me is one of the most important things I'm interviewing for once basic intellectual horsepower is sufficient. Responses typically range from "typed some stuff into the Word doc" to "50 page PDF with screenshots, charts and graphs." 2) That also gives a concrete basis for discussing product ideas. In addition to the obvious questions of "why do you think we implemented this feature" etc, I also often take suggestions they have for the product, and ask why they think we HAVEN'T implemented it, particularly if it's a idea we've considered in the past.

harlanlewis 13y ago
Judging candidates based on their effort for an exercise that focuses on your existing product is a touchy subject. Many candidates (especially good ones) will view this as spec work - if you want their expertise for a limited time, you should pay their consultant fee. Otherwise, the effort they put in often shares more about process than free product ideas. But that's speaking broadly. Anecdotally, I know a PM who put her heart into an exercise like this for a company she really wanted to work for, which chose not to hire her, and a few months later released a product update that matched her ideas. I don't know if they already had the product in the pipe or if it differed significantly in execution, but it did invite an easily-avoidable dispute. Even if not a legal issue, it could have been a PR one. Of course you want to gauge candidates' understanding of and engagement with your real business, so don't throw all those conversations out the window. But when it comes to early vetting exercises, focusing on competitor products or similar products by companies in other categories can still tell you a lot about how the candidate approaches and understands real challenges/opportunities/constraints while skirting some gray areas.
- sardonicbryan 13y ago
  We've probably brought in 20-30 candidates for interviews, none of them brought that up as a concern (though maybe it was for the people who half assed it). Realistically, the chance of them coming up with a brilliant product idea in a few days that the full time teams on the products hasn't considered is pretty small -- in fact I don't think I've ever heard a materially unique idea. Granted the game/product I use for the case is a pretty mature one that has been actively worked on since 2011, so a lot of the solution space has been covered. We often discuss competitor products in the interviews as well -- I consider it a strong positive signal if they can already meaningfully benchmark against competitors. But the reason I don't make that the core case is because we have so much more insight into how our product works and why it is the way it is, so it's easier to validate their instincts/thought processes against reality.
  - schraeds 13y ago
    No thanks.
  - harlanlewis 13y ago
    Upvoted both your comments - agreed with all of it.

harlanlewis 13y ago

Judging candidates based on their effort for an exercise that focuses on your existing product is a touchy subject. Many candidates (especially good ones) will view this as spec work - if you want their expertise for a limited time, you should pay their consultant fee. Otherwise, the effort they put in often shares more about process than free product ideas. But that's speaking broadly. Anecdotally, I know a PM who put her heart into an exercise like this for a company she really wanted to work for, which chose not to hire her, and a few months later released a product update that matched her ideas. I don't know if they already had the product in the pipe or if it differed significantly in execution, but it did invite an easily-avoidable dispute. Even if not a legal issue, it could have been a PR one. Of course you want to gauge candidates' understanding of and engagement with your real business, so don't throw all those conversations out the window. But when it comes to early vetting exercises, focusing on competitor products or similar products by companies in other categories can still tell you a lot about how the candidate approaches and understands real challenges/opportunities/constraints while skirting some gray areas.

sardonicbryan 13y ago
We've probably brought in 20-30 candidates for interviews, none of them brought that up as a concern (though maybe it was for the people who half assed it). Realistically, the chance of them coming up with a brilliant product idea in a few days that the full time teams on the products hasn't considered is pretty small -- in fact I don't think I've ever heard a materially unique idea. Granted the game/product I use for the case is a pretty mature one that has been actively worked on since 2011, so a lot of the solution space has been covered. We often discuss competitor products in the interviews as well -- I consider it a strong positive signal if they can already meaningfully benchmark against competitors. But the reason I don't make that the core case is because we have so much more insight into how our product works and why it is the way it is, so it's easier to validate their instincts/thought processes against reality.
- schraeds 13y ago
  No thanks.
- harlanlewis 13y ago
  Upvoted both your comments - agreed with all of it.