5 Cliches You Might See In An Interview

Here are a few cliches found in Product Manager JDs that you ought to unpack with the hiring manager during interviews:

1. "Be extremely comfortable with numbers and be data driven"

=> Sure. What analytics tools do you have in place currently? What metrics do you measure today?

See more: 15 Key Product Management Metrics and KPIs

2. "Gather product requirements, prioritizing feature implementations & improving overall user experience"

=> Gather requirements from whom? Customers, internal stakeholders, potential clients? Do you have a prioritization strategy in place?

3. "Define the product strategy, set goals, and figure out how to get to them."

=> Cool. Is there anyone who will validate my strategy & goals? Anyone to bounce off ideas?

4. "Analyse competition" (& other variants)

=> How would you describe the gap between your product & competition at the moment? Are we playing catch-up?

5. "Conduct research to identify customer needs and market gaps"

=> So, will I have direct access to customers for interviews or do I have to go through sales? Any documented customer insights to give me a head start? Who in the org knows the domain the best?

JDs are often produced in haste by modifying a template (guilty of this myself). Therefore, don't take them on face value. Investigate.