Since the start of the pandemic, everyone has been busy adapting to a working-from-home (WFH) routine and there was truckloads of work that needed to be done, which meant working days were no longer a standard marketing “9-to-5” job (not that marketing is ever a 9 to 5 occupation!). Any free time I had was spent away from the PC, either gardening, baking, yoga-ing, or going to the supermarket. But being worked to the maximum of my capacity with not enough personal time left me wondering whether it would be a good idea to have a look around for other product marketing positions in companies that had remote working embedded in their culture prior to 2020. By the way, some stats by McKinsey on the future of remote working can be found here; a similar article can be found in the Business Harvard Review here.

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I did a lot of research on various companies and industries that sell software or consultancy services and have remote working principles and I found some that I thought were interesting as far as products and company culture goes. During the marketing interview process, I wrote down standard product marketing manager interview questions these companies were asking me:

• Tell us a bit about yourself, how come we are here talking today?
• Why would you want to leave your current role?
• What are you looking for in your next role?
• Take me through a launch of a product you did and the go-to-market (GTM) plan.
• What do you believe a product marketing manager’s job is?
• What companies or organisations do you follow closely and why?
• What was a project that went wrong?
• What was your biggest marketing mistake to date?
• What collateral do you create for a product launch?
• How do you work with the rest of the marketing department (campaigns, events, leadgen, digital, etc.)?
• What is the most important skill of a product marketing manager?
• How do you measure the success of a product marketing launch?
• Why do you want to work with us?
• Tell me about one time you influenced a product roadmap.
• How do you research about the different personas?
• What could we/the industry we operate in could do better?
• Who do you think is our biggest competitor?
• Tell me about one time you convinced someone to change their mind.
• Why have you changed jobs that often in the past?

And some more interesting questions that I didn’t have ready answers for and made me think on the spot:

• If you had a magic wand and you could have any role at any company you would like, what role and what company would you choose and why?
• What company do you think have a great product but are terrible at marketing?
• In a minute, give me 15 uses of a ping pong ball apart from playing ping pong.

To effectively answer these product marketing questions, I tried to focus on what these questions attempt to evaluate:

• Creativity,
• Understanding of user-centric marketing principles,
• Knowledge of industry-wide trends,
• Product vision,
• Product strategy,
• Competitive analysis,
• Market analysis,
• Product roadmaps,
• Business strategy.

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As soon as I got to the next round, that is where the product marketing manager task presentation came to play.

Most companies give you a task that has to do with a GTM strategy plan, or launch of a product and it takes around a week to pull together. This has to include your positioning, your value proposition, your target audience, competitor products or services and their messaging, a list of collateral you will create for sales training, and then the main message you will give to the tactical marketing team (a.k.a. marketing managers, leadgen/growth marketing, campaigns managers, events, digital marketing managers, 3rd party agencies) so they can do their job. Now, for this task you will probably be asked to produce the tactical marketing strategy, too. If the company knows what product marketing is, then they will not ask you to go into detail. If they ask you, however, to give them extra detail on the tactical marketing, you might as well stop at this interview stage now. Even being successful for that job, remote working doesn’t equal flexibility for these companies, more like “let’s cram more work where people used to commute before so we can save some budget”. Make sure you also add a marketing metrics examples slide, as it is usually a question that comes up after the presentation, if you haven’t added it.

I personally don’t know what to make of these tasks. Sometimes, it can feel like you are a product marketing contractor working for them for free for a week. In the presentation you do all the research, you give them your opinion on what they can improve and how, you lay your hard work in front of them to judge you and then they just take the work and in the majority of occasions they don’t give you the job. Either this is because you have already done the job by presenting them the options and they don’t need you to execute it, or because what they had in their head as options did not match your plan. In both occasions, you will definitely be better off somewhere else.

Saying that, I did have a couple of good tasks that were focused around the company but a non-existent product. A good example is a company I interviewed with that is top in their industry in digital marketing software. During my task, they asked me to present a B2B sales training for any technological product from any well-known film. I found that not only interesting, but fun. And product marketing, even in the B2B space, needs to be fun and enjoyable – and they achieved that with the brief. The product I chose was Doctor Strange’s cloak of levitation. My presentation opened with the below slide:

I explained that the technological product I picked is the Cloak of Levitation. As it flies and protects Doctor Strange from the baddies, as well as can travel the multiverse, we can use it as a transport mechanism to keep transportation workers protected. People who will use this will be the last mile delivery drivers – from food delivery and logistics to parcel and mail delivery workers-, public sector protections services such as the police and the fire brigade, but also armed forces in the central government of countries. I added a couple of examples on when the cape will be used with my “When” point. I mentioned the timeline of where the cloak can be used and how it can be used by the workers – to fly, to defend, but also to attack.

The rest of my presentation included:

• Facts and pain points about the goods delivery services industry,
• Facts and pain points about the public sector and armed forces,
• The pain relievers of each industry,
• Explanation on what the cloak of levitation is and what are the USPs,
• The components of the cloak of levitation,
• The competitors of the cloak/replicas in the market,
• The right vocabulary to use – remember, a cloak is different than a cape! -,
• A matrix of the target audience, why will they use the cloak and how it can benefit them,
• As there are two versions of Doctor Strange’s cloak of levitation (a red and a blue), which version would be the one for each persona we target,
• Product enhanced beyond the red and blue cloak of levitation,
• The value proposition of each cloak for the different persona groups,
• An overall tactical marketing plan on how we promote the cloak,
• Assets available for sales and internal contacts for further questions,
• FAQs that the customers could ask and answers, eg how much does it cost, can I customise it, what if the cloak won’t fit me, etc., and
• A mini quiz on the presentation to ensure it was memorable.

I had fun when I created that presentation for Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation. And that showed during the presentation, too. And the interviewers also seemed to have fun, especially during the quiz time. Did I get the job? No, the company had strong candidates overall and I was down at the top 2. Did I feel that the product marketing manager interview process was smooth? Yes. Will I use their product for improving my digital marketing efforts? I will definitely recommend the product to my department so we can get a demo going. Will I recommend the company overall? Big, fat, yes.

If you want to have a copy of my Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation presentation I did for my product marketing manager job interview, don’t hesitate to email me here. I will be more than glad to send you a copy.

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The question is: did I get a new job in the end? Well, have a look at my Linkedin profile and see for yourselves. And while you are at it, add me, too!

Thank you for taking time reading my article. If you have any comments, please feel free to share below. If you want to email me directly, drop me a line.