Excellent article, Jackie. I especially love how you've broken down the expectations by seniority. Very relatable.
I had a few questions that I hear from my network:
1. Theres a strong focus on comfort with AI in interviews these days. But many PMs are still making that transition and haven't had real world opportunities to prove themselves. Some are still in the process of upskilling themselves. How can seasoned candidates stand out in Senior PM processes where expectations around AI literacy and tool usage is so high?
2. As a hiring manager, how do you differentiate between made-up feel-good stories and genuine experiences?
Thanks Aatir! For #1, I haven't dug into the new interviews a ton myself a ton yet, but I saw https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/vibe-coding-interview might be helpful. For #2, it hasn't seemed to me that any one ever totally made up a story (I might just be lucky). Instead what I tend to hear is people who portray their decisions/actions as correct, when I think they were probably wrong. I differentiate by trying to put myself in their shoes, and using my own product expertise imagining what the pitfalls might have been, then asking about those - a bad answer brushes them off, while a good answer reveals that they did think deeply about it and understand it well. Eg. "Were you worried that sending so many emails would get you marked as spam?" If they really knew what they were doing, they can quickly reply with some details how the team thought about it
Excellent article, Jackie. I especially love how you've broken down the expectations by seniority. Very relatable.
I had a few questions that I hear from my network:
1. Theres a strong focus on comfort with AI in interviews these days. But many PMs are still making that transition and haven't had real world opportunities to prove themselves. Some are still in the process of upskilling themselves. How can seasoned candidates stand out in Senior PM processes where expectations around AI literacy and tool usage is so high?
2. As a hiring manager, how do you differentiate between made-up feel-good stories and genuine experiences?
Thanks Aatir! For #1, I haven't dug into the new interviews a ton myself a ton yet, but I saw https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/vibe-coding-interview might be helpful. For #2, it hasn't seemed to me that any one ever totally made up a story (I might just be lucky). Instead what I tend to hear is people who portray their decisions/actions as correct, when I think they were probably wrong. I differentiate by trying to put myself in their shoes, and using my own product expertise imagining what the pitfalls might have been, then asking about those - a bad answer brushes them off, while a good answer reveals that they did think deeply about it and understand it well. Eg. "Were you worried that sending so many emails would get you marked as spam?" If they really knew what they were doing, they can quickly reply with some details how the team thought about it
Thanks, Jackie. Very helpful.