We were hiring a product marketing manager and needed someone to clearly demonstrate their GTM and strategic thinking skills. This is a necessary part of the interview process.

This would be interview round 3.

First round: recruiter interview to see general fit

Second round: hiring manager interview with me to determine competency and cultural fit

Third round: this assignment panel interview

Last round: VP of Marketing round. This is a final gut check to test competency and fit with the head of the department

The hardest part is deciding how much information to include in the prompt. You want to make sure it's easily understandable and provides enough instructions. You also don't want it to be too prescriptive so you can provide room for candidates to be creative in their approach.

When I used to have it even shorter, I realized that some candidates didn't include the information that I wanted because the prompt was not clear enough.

I don't believe more information will be helpful because I would like them to ask me questions. I find the best candidates will evaluate the prompt and follow up with me to get the insights they need, which simulates real-life situations more closely at a startup - ambiguous and fast-moving.

Presentation skills is one area candidates generally forget to spend time working on. I have seen candidates answer each question in a Q/A style, which lacks flow. It's important to understand the point of the exercise is to test your ability to tell a cohesive story and so the components must be cohesive.

Yi Lin Pei

This is a typical assignment I give to candidates applying for Product Marketing Manager roles. I also include my detailed rubric for how I evaluate the quality of the assignment.

, we’d like to gain an understanding of how you’d approach some real-world scenarios to evaluate your storytelling and product marketing skills. We’re looking for you to put together a response to the prompt below (in slides format).

Please prepare to spend 30 minutes discussing your approach/walking through your presentation and the rest of the time (30 minutes) answering questions.

New Product GTM (This is entirely fictional)

 a suite of advanced reporting features to provide detailed marketing and sales insights for our creators (target customers). Our research has indicated that many customers currently rely on third-party tools for sales funnel analytics reporting, e.g. page traffic, click throughs etc. By incorporating these functionalities directly into our platform, we aim to streamline their setup process and provide more precise, reliable data with more functionalities, including AI powered predictive insights and recommendations.

Please outline your considerations and strategy for a go-to-market plan for launching this new suite of features to market. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the HM to schedule a prep call.

As a hiring manager, I use this rubric to judge the quality of the assignment and presentation to decide who to advance to the next round and who to hire.

Product Marketing Interview Assignment and Scoring Rubric from Yi Lin Pei

Product Marketing Manager Candidate Assessment

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