Discover the top skills and qualities to evaluate when interviewing product managers. From communication and user needs analysis to PRD writing and product planning, learn what makes a successful product manager in today's competitive job market.

The market environment is tough, and people in the internet industry are facing hard times. Right now, it's a job-seeker's market. Job postings go up, and a massive number of resumes come in every day. During product manager interviews, certain questions are asked repeatedly. I’ve compiled some of the most frequently mentioned questions and will share them with you. If you’re job hunting or frequently attending interviews, I hope this can provide some inspiration. I generally evaluate whether a product manager matches the recruitment requirements in the following five areas:

1.Basic Skills

1. Communication and Expression

   When I first meet a candidate, I typically ask for a brief self-introduction. This serves two purposes: first, it allows me to closely review their resume, and second, I can assess the candidate's language organization, communication skills, and logical thinking.
   Tip: Don't speak for too long. Focus on your highlights. If you have experience with B2B projects, talk about complex architecture designs, complex business logic projects, or cost-reduction and efficiency-improvement through data-driven methods. For B2C products, share examples of excellent user experience design, successful growth or marketing cases, or new business expansion.
   The content mentioned in the self-introduction is typically what you want the interviewer to ask about, laying the groundwork for more in-depth communication. Don’t go into unnecessary details—highlight your key achievements. The interviewer is most interested in the projects you’ve worked on. However, if you have any particularly impressive accomplishments, such as speaking at conferences, being an invited guest, writing articles on content platforms, or publishing a book, you can mention those.
   Avoid talking about things like following industry trends or reading common industry platforms like "Huxiu", "36Kr", or "Everyone is a Product Manager"—these don’t add much value and aren't differentiating factors.

2. Job UnderstandingFor mid-level and junior product managers, I often ask questions to gauge their understanding of the role and whether they truly grasp the responsibilities and expectations of a product manager.
   Tip: Product managers can be classified based on the company’s needs into strategic, tactical, and execution-focused roles:

• Strategic: Focuses on market and company situations, planning new businesses, including designing business and commercial models.

• Tactical: Focuses on setting strategies and ensuring they are implemented.

• Execution-focused: Focuses on executing the strategies, responsible for specific modules or systems.
  Regardless of the type of product manager, the core goal is to "create profitable user value". For B2B, the focus is mostly on cost reduction and efficiency improvement; for B2C, it’s about providing user value, which can include money, time, physical well-being, emotions, and cognitive benefits.
  To achieve this goal, products are developed using internet technologies and information systems. Narrowly speaking, a product refers to these systems, but broadly speaking, products also include other services provided to users. For instance, when users find a massage business via a mini-program, book an appointment, and experience the service offline, the core user experience is about whether the massage is convenient and comfortable—the online system is just a part of the product. In certain situations, fulfilling the user's needs might not even require the narrow definition of a product (e.g., walking by a massage shop and deciding to go in without any online system).

3. User Needs AnalysisThis section primarily assesses whether a product manager knows how to analyze user needs and identify real user requirements. It also evaluates how they prioritize when faced with numerous requests from bosses, business stakeholders, or users.
   Tip: When users request something, it’s often not their true need but a solution based on their understanding. Never treat user proposals as product solutions—this could easily lead to failure. Users have limited understanding: one, they lack a comprehensive view; two, they don’t always understand the technical aspects. If you follow their suggestions blindly, you’ll end up with a “faster horse” instead of an innovative product.
   A better approach is reverse analysis: investigate why users are making these requests by exploring the scenarios they’re coming from. Then, through research, find solutions that truly meet the users' needs and move forward with the design.

4. Product Requirement AnalysisThis aspect evaluates whether a product manager can transform real user needs into product requirements using demand analysis methods.
   Tip: Product requirement analysis requires knowledge of tools like UML (Unified Modeling Language), which involves use cases, state machines, sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, flowcharts, class diagrams, etc. Although product managers don’t need to write formal documents using these modeling languages, they must understand the underlying principles. Many of the product managers I’ve interviewed recently didn’t even know what UML was. Whether for B2C or B2B products, I think every product manager should be familiar with it.

5. PRD WritingThis is one of the most important aspects of basic skills. While product managers are involved in strategy and tactics, much of their time is spent writing documents. No matter the level, if a product manager doesn’t know how to write a PRD (Product Requirement Document), they are not qualified. Product managers need to have a high-level vision, but also be able to execute effectively.
   In every interview I conduct, I ask about PRD writing, but many candidates still fail to answer well. Some give very brief, vague answers, while others miss key points or lack logical structure. By 2024, there’s so much information about PRDs online, yet anyone with even a few months of experience as a product manager should be able to write a high-quality PRD—it’s a fundamental skill.
   A PRD can be divided into different types:

• From 0 to 1 (New Product): This requires a complete structure, including the project background, goals, and an overview plan.

• Regular Iterations: Typically for a module or several modules.
  The core of a complete PRD is the product architecture, key business process diagrams, and feature structure to give developers a full understanding of the product. It also includes global interactions, input fields, pop-ups, default pages, pagination, default sorting, etc.
  The largest section of a PRD focuses on the requirements for each functional module. Specific functional requirements should be broken down into several parts:

• Function Description: What is this feature for?

• Pre/Post Conditions: What conditions are required to execute this function, and what happens after it’s completed?

• Business Process: What is the normal flow?

• Branch/Exception Process: What branches or exceptions might arise?

• UI Interaction: How does the UI interact, what elements are present, and how are they validated?

• Backend/Frontend: Who performs the validation?

• Tracking: Which elements need tracking, and where should the tracking be implemented?

• Permissions: Which users or user types have access to this feature?

6. PrototypingI usually only ask about this when interviewing junior product managers. Earlier in my career, I created high-fidelity prototypes, but now I focus more on medium-fidelity designs. Now, as long as the general idea is clear, it suffices.
   Tip: Be familiar with prototyping and have your go-to B2B and B2C component libraries. It’s helpful to know how to quickly create common modules. For junior product managers, creating complete, high-fidelity prototypes can serve as a plus in their portfolio. However, for mid- to senior-level product managers, it’s less relevant.

7. Project ManagementThis section focuses on assessing whether the product manager can effectively drive a project and understand the full process of taking a product from concept to delivery and operation.

2.Product Planning Ability

Product planning is something all product managers need to do, no matter their level. Only by taking the initiative in product planning can they gain a sense of control and accomplishment.
This section assesses whether a product manager has strategic thinking and is actively shaping the product or simply responding to requests. It’s rare to hear good answers. Some candidates mention making short-, medium-, and long-term product plans based on market trends, competitors, and company needs, but these responses are often vague, lacking methodology or actionable outputs.
Tip: 

Product planning follows a layered strategy: mission, vision, tactics, roadmap, and execution. The method and outputs vary based on the level. For example, planning based on company mission and vision might produce a lean canvas or business plan to clarify how to position the product and develop core competitiveness. Strategy-based planning might produce product blueprints or architectures. Roadmap planning leads to a phased execution plan.

3.Industry Understanding

This section evaluates the candidate’s insight into the industry and users. A product manager must have a deeper understanding of the industry and users to create exceptional products.
Tip: 

I highly recommend that product managers research the company’s industry before an interview. Analyze the industry using frameworks like PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors), and study the current state, market size, and competitors. It’s not necessary to go deep; just have a template that covers key points in a chart or mind map.

4.Growth and Operations Ability

This section assesses whether the product manager understands business growth and has the ability to drive it. In the current market, where products are stabilizing, growth capability is crucial.
Tip: 

• Use the OSM model to drive growth:

• Objective: Set a clear goal, such as increasing GMV.

• Strategy: Develop strategies to achieve this goal, focusing on aspects like user acquisition, activation, retention, and referral.

• Metrics: Use key metrics to track the success of your strategies.

5.Career Development

Most people say their career path is product manager → senior product manager → product director → executive. However, few have a clear understanding of what each role requires.

Tip: 

I recommend a clearer career development path: In any business organization, the main focus is on two things: 

1) creating products, and 

2) selling them. 

In the future, product managers will increasingly focus on sales, not just product creation, which forms a complete business model. Future product managers will not only be responsible for the product but also the business and, eventually, the organization.