Google and paypal PMs teach how to tackle behavioral interview questions
Interviewer: Tell me about a time you used data to improve a product. This is a common PM interview question.
Other popular behavioral interview questions are:
📍Describe a time when you resolved a conflict with two colleague
📍Tell me about a time when you persuaded your manager to take a decision.
📍Share an example of a time you had to make a difficult decision.
Behavioral questions are common in all job interviews regardless of the role or company.
A wrong way to approach this is to dive into the details. A proven approach to ace this question is to use the STARL format.
Let me show you how to execute in 4 steps.
1. Prepare 4-5 stories before the interview
2. Think for a minute
3. Write down your story in the STARL format
4. Tell a convincing story to answer the question
Let's deep dive.
1. Prepare 4-5 stories before the interview:
Before the Interview, write down 10 achievements of your career.
Interviews are stressful. It's better to have the stories before.
2. Ask for a minute to think:
It's okay to take a minute to think during an interview.
Use the stories you prepared before the interview to think of a convincing example you can utilize to answer the interview question
3. Write down your story in the STARL format.
STARL stands for :
S- Situation
T- Task
A- Action
R- Result
L-Lesson
Let's break down the various parts:
🎯Situation:
Set a background for your story. Talk about your experience that answers the question using a current or previous role.
🎯Task:
Describe your goal or role in the situation.
🎯Action:
describe specific actions you took to handle the situation or overcome the challenge.
NB: Avoid using "we". use "I" instead. You want to clearly show your role in the scenario.
Here is an example of rephrasing a "We" story to an "I" story.
"We had a meeting to discuss" can be rephrased as "I called for a meeting with my colleague to discuss the situation."
🎯Result:
focus on two or three main results of your actions.
🎯Lesson:
Highlight 1-2 lessons you gained from the experience that answers the initial question
NB: Make sure your lesson answers the interview question
Let's take a general example you can get in any interview
Example 1
Interviewer: Tell me about a time you used data to make a decision
Situation: In my current role as a Product manager
Tasks
I was tasked with improving the adoption of a feature
Action:
To do this I did the following
1. I setup funnels on the data platform to user behavior
2. I carried out 10 Customer interviews to understand the issue
3. I worked with the design team to redesign the flow
4. I conducted usability tests with 6 users to discover the best solution
5. We launched the Solution with an A/B test
Result
Using data
1. We increased feature adoption by 5%
2. The increase led to a 2% increase in revenue
Lesson: I learned to always leverage data in improving products.
Example 2
Interviewer: Tell me a time you resolved an issue between 2 colleagues
Situation: In my previous role as a finance intern.
Task: I noticed 2 of my colleagues were not collaborating properly on a project.
Action:
1. I spoke with both of them privately to understand the issue
2. I called a meeting with my two colleagues and we discussed the issue.
The root cause was one of my colleagues felt my other colleague wasn't carrying his weight.
Result:
1. I helped resolve the dispute
2. We completed the project a few days before the deadline
Lesson:
I learned that when settling employee quarrels it's important to get to the root cause.
When you are ready, I can help you in three ways:
Give you free resources (worth at least 3500$) that helped me transition from customer success to Product management
Give you 4 case studies I submitted to hiring managers that got me offers from different companies
Give you a sample resume used by PMs to land a Microsoft offer.
Bonus resources
Acing the pm Interview by Google PM at Product School
Behavioral question guide by Diego Granados
Behavioral question by Google PM at exponent