Product case interview tip: Don’t write a book report
Here’s a pattern I see a lot:
Candidate is asked a product sense question
Candidate asks some clarifying questions, outlines their response, takes a deep breath.
They begin their response by launching into an extensive discussion of the business environment, competition, technology trends, hiring trends, developments in self-driving car technology, AI, the employment environment…and so on.
Woah. I am never quite prepared for how much content gets thrown at me sometimes.
I call this content “book report content”: content that, while meaningful, does not contribute to a larger thesis. A book report is usually written to prove that the author read the book. Like a book report, this content really only serves to demonstrate that you are well informed. I think this content is great, and sometimes interesting, but it has one major issue: it doesn’t always advance your argument.
The Product Simply approach says that everything in an interview is an argument. At various times, you might be arguing that a certain strategic approach is the right one, a particular product is the right one to build, or that you have a certain quality that the hiring company values. In every scenario, your job is to identify and emphasize the content that will best help you make your point.
Book report content is everything that doesn’t do that. It’s good content that’s become fluff—informative, maybe, interesting, maybe—but not helpful for proving your point.
An example: if the question is “build a product for parking”, you might be tempted early on in your response to discuss that self-driving car technology is growing, and that Waymo is bringing its self-driving tech to a new metro area next year. That certain is real, but why are we talking about trends in self-driving tech? If you provide no explanation why it’s relevant to the question of what to build, you’ve just wasted your content.
There is a way to discuss things like industry trends and competitive products in a way the delivers more value. The trick is to put this content in a place where it contributes to the argument. For example, you can discuss self-driving technology early in the solutions section.
Next, let’s discuss potential solutions. Before we do that, I want to discuss some technology trends that might affect what solutions to choose. I’m especially thinking of Waymo—self-driving tech gathers a ton of data that we might use to inform our product about parking availability.
Now, instead of being mere book report content, the content becomes part of the rationale about what to build.
Overall: think about how you can position content in a way that supports your overall thesis, and don’t pack it all into a large, nebulous introductory sections.
