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Read up on the latest Technology Trends
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Complete at least 10 mock interviews
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PM advice checklist
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5–6 hours: read a book such as Cracking the PM interview or Decode & Conquer and pay particular attention to the frameworks/structure used in different types of questions. Alternatively, take an online Course. This is a solid alternative to reading a book, since watching calibrated PMs answer interview questions is an effective way to improve your own delivery — you’ll pick up techniques for tone, speech pacing, energy, and body language. I recommend Product Alliance’s Hacking the PM Interview.
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2 hours: prepare a set of personal stories to answer behavioral questions. They should cover strengths, weaknesses, struggles/challenging situations, achievements, life values/principles, mistakes made, and stories outside of work.
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3–5 hours: study 6–7 different products deeply. Your analysis should cover goals, main use cases, key pain points, users/personas, current solutions, what can be improved, competitors, and metrics to measure success.
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1.5 hours: ensure you are familiar with the most important technical concepts. You can read 40 Computer Science terms explained in layman’s terms (http://carlcheo.com/compsci). You should feel comfortable discussing high-level algorithms and data structures, as well as describing how common technical systems work behind the scenes (browsers, APIs, websites vs apps, and so on).
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1.5 hours: practice estimation questions as well as general analytical problems. These usually involve breaking down a seemingly intractable problems into smaller, digestible pieces, and then tackling those individually.
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2–4 hours: work with peers or PM coaches to conduct mock interviews. You can find peers in communities such as PMHQ (https://www.productmanagerhq.com), and coaches at Product Hired (https://producthired.com/coaching) / interviews.tech (https://www.interviews.tech).
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