APM Preparation Guide

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What?

A systematic yet customisable APM Preparation strategy booklet

Why?

Helps in removing the noise and ambiguity in the APM prep journey

Who?

Prepared primarily for Indian engineering placements candidates

Deciding for APM Role

This is a very personal topic and should be unique to your taste. This will keep you motivated throughout the preparation journey and nevertheless, is the first interview question.

Preparation begins by answering ‘Why product management?’.

For that, you must know ‘What is product management?’

• Know your values and traits which affect your career
• How past experience (either in a product or non-product role) makes you fit/ ready for APM.
• How do future goals (both short term and long term) make you enthusiastic/ motivated towards APM

Scope of APM Preparation

For entry-level roles, these topics are enough. Although, as per companies domain, a few rounds might be conducted. (Eg. in HiLabs, the Data Science round was also compulsory.)

Generally, at the APM level for engineering undergraduates, there are two rounds.

• Deck submission round on building a product or feature.
• Two interview rounds

• Product Design: on building a product
• Root Cause Analysis: on finding the root in an undesired situation

Skills required for cracking APM tests

This section may seem simple and commonsensical, but it is definitely not easy. Gear up for insane practice, mock interviews and learnings from blogs/ videos/ podcasts/ books, etc.

In both the rounds, candidates are required to come up with a solution having

• deep understanding of the problem,
• analysing every possible solution and
• efficiently communicating/presenting their ideas. 

Resources for APM Preparation

Limit yourself to a single resource first which resonates with you, and once you finish that move to the second resources. Almost all the resources will give the same/similar knowledge.

For entry-level product roles, basic topics of Product Management are tested.

• Decks: The aim is to upskill yourself to create decent decks (top 1%ile)

Resources: PM School decks, The Product Folks decks, IIT/IIM Product Competition decks (if available), Product case studies blogs, etc.

• Interview: The aim is to perform brilliantly in product interviews (top 10%ile)

Resources: podcasts, mock interviews on youtube (Exponent, Rocket Blocks, etc), product interview books, newsletters, forums on Reddit.

• Knowledge: The aim is to gain foundational knowledge for product management

Resources: Courses/ Bootcamp on Product (NextLeap, Embark, Insurjo, Doremon Den, PM School, etc), EdX/ Coursera/ Skillshare etc.

Timeline for APM Preparation

Much time should be spent on mock interviews and building deck templates, as the knowledge required for entry-level APM positions is very limited.

Month	Target	Hour/Week	Focus on
June	Create a deck template for product building request Gain foundational knowledge and internalise	10 to 15	Deck prep + Knowledge
July	Create interview templates for PD and RCA Build product resume and a story of ‘Why APM?’	10 to 15	Interviews prep + Knowledge
August	APM decks and practice interviews from past year	15 to 20	Exam readiness
September	Ace placement tests and deck rounds	10 to 15	Deck + Tests
October	Ace placement tests and intensive interview prep	10 to 15	Interviews +Tests
November	Practice for interviews and HR round	10 to 15	HR + Interview

Product Design interview cheat sheet

Clarify [5 to 10 minutes; then take a break]

Have a sound understanding of what to build and why to build and under which circumstances we are building the product.

• Understand main vision for product (of organization/ parent org)
• What we want to achieve, and why? (Market share/ Revenue/ Engagement, etc)

• Quantify it as North Star (which will be used in the later part of the interview)

• Check of constraints (Monetary/ Operational/ Time, etc)
• What to build? Essential features and Job to be Done

• Be clear on all the terms (Eg: build a smart pen — what is ‘smart’, what is ‘pen’)
• Be clear on the use-case (Eg: pen – to write)
• Be clear on user jobs (Eg: To use a pen – holds the pen, thinks of content and writes on the surface)

Empathise [10 - 15 minutes; then take a break]

Treat every segment of the interview as a filter to next segments. Based on previous data, make a smart judgement. Always think and ask ‘what is the purpose of this question?’.

• Define your target users.

Example of user segmentation: Gender, Age, Profession, Literacy, Digital Literacy, Geography, Ethnicity, Dietary, etc.

• Narrow down to a specific cohort of users (based on ‘what we want to achieve’) and identify pain points on using current alternatives to the product
• Narrow down to specific pain points (prioritise on ‘north star’)

Ideation [10 - 15 minutes; then take a break]

There is no punishment for re-inventing the wheel. Read about futuristic technologies and design trends to hone critical thinking.

Always remember the north star of the product and the core problem target

Build a technologically feasible, financially viable and user-friendly solution.

• Feel free to have a moon-shot here; bring your creativity to the table
• Think of unique selling points and key features of the product built
• Try to integrate with the existing ecosystem of the use-case.

Go high level first and then deep dive into specifics whenever asked. 

Measure [5 - 10 minutes; then take a break]

Try to formulate a grand formula for tracking the success of the product. Show your analytical abilities by adding weights to certain indicators.

• Outcome metric measuring the initial north star

• DAO, MAO, Revenue, etc as per the case

• Adoption metric measuring the start of the journey

• CTR on ads, Successful authentication,

• Usage metric measuring the user activities in the journey

• N of M steps, time spent, etc

• Satisfaction metric measuring the end of the journey

• NPS, CSAT, Repeat usage, etc

Extras [if time permits (not necessary); then end the discussion]

This segment is hardly ever reached. Try to have a rough understanding of these topics and feel free to humbly take the assistance of the interviewer in arriving at the decision.

• Pitfalls and callouts for relevant technologies used

• Bias in ML Algorithms
• Manual errors by user interactions
• Research and Development costs if futuristic technologies used

• Go To Market Strategy

• Beta phase → Alpha phase → V2 phase; Taking feedback and improvising

• Pricing Strategy

• One Time/ Subscription/ Pay per use

Root Cause Analysis interview cheat sheet

Clarify [5 to 10 minutes; then take a break]

Understand the core problem faced by the company. Broadly analyse every stakeholder. For eg: if purchase volume is going down in e-commerce, the problem might as well be on the seller side; but often we analyse only the customer app.

• Understand the company
• Know the various product lines of the company
• Understand the stakeholder involved in delivering the solution

Understand how the metric affected is connected to the north star of the company.

Measure [10 to 15 minutes; then take a break]

Sometimes, even a simple breakdown of metrics such as dividing metrics into different phases, can result in a clear understanding of the case.

• Break down the main metric into child metrics as mathematics formulae
• Relate the metrics in different ways as Product-wise, stakeholder-wise, market-wise, steps-wise, etc
• Rephrase the problem statement now, with more focused metric and context.

Enquire [5 to 10 minutes; then take a break]

Remember to treat every segment of the case as a filter for the next segment. Be prepared for the “why the asked question is necessary” explanation.

• Timeline -> duration, periodicity (day-time, week, month, season), trend
• Location -> range (global, local, national), urban/rural, climatic zones, ethnic zones, etc.
• Devices -> Mobile (Android, iOS, versions), Desktop (Browser, Native, builds)
• Users -> Age, gender, ethnicity, income, literacy, etc

External Analysis [5 to 10 minutes; then take a break]

Make sure you understand the players in the market who we are depending on. For example, if a website is being served on a particular cloud service, and that cloud service is having frequent downtime, the metric of the website will be affected.

• Analyse the trend in the market

• Competitors Industry-wide
• Indirect competitors
• Players involved in the value chain

• Analyse the environment

• Governmental issues, legal issues, issues related to PR, nature-related issues, etc

Action Flow [5 to 10 minutes; then take a break]

Action Activities are dependent on the type of product and there are certainly many sub-steps for what the user is trying to achieve. Go high level first, and if you find a problem with any step, then dig the rabbit hole for that particular step.

• General flow of actions: Intent → Discovery → Onboard → Action Activities → Exit
• Transition of one stage to another is measured by metrics depending on the situation

• ASO/SEO; Authentication; CTA; N of M steps; NPS/ CSAT

• In every step enquire about modification in

• Design (UIUX, feature, etc)
• Technical (Model, engine, etc)
• Strategy (Operational, pricing, etc)

Product Interview Template

Take calculated pauses to think. Do not rush to answer, build your approach. Treat your interviewer as an information source and not a solution source.

The idea behind creating interview templates is to reuse them on multiple problem statements.

Key principles to be followed:

• Thinking from first principles
• MECE (Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive)
• Demonstrate Technical, Financial and Design understanding

 

All the Best!!! 🙂