AMA: Retool Head of Product Marketing, Kevin Garcia on PMM Interviews

One way that I like to prepare for an interview is to go in with the mindset that you are an investor (which you are, with your time!). As an investor, you want to learn everything you can about the company: 1. Who are they? (homepage, fundraise announcements, careers page descriptions) 2. What do they do? (docs, G2, TrustRadius, Twitter, support forums, YouTube videos) 3. Who are they solving for? (main nav website, titles on G2/TrustRadius, blog posts) 4. How big/interesting is that market? (industry sites, Twitter, influencers, analyst reports) Why all the preparation? The same reason you research your audience when launching products: the more you know about the context around the company and who they target, the more you can cater your career story to what matters for them. At a bare minimum, every PMM should read a company's website, blog, and (if applicable) technical docs. This preparation is more valuable than memorizing generic answers to interview questions! Take, for example, if you wanted a career at AdRoll (one of my former employers who offers software to run ads, emails, and growth experiments). They mostly generate business through product-led growth (aka self-serve signups) and cater to SMB businesses. If you know that when talking to the head of sales, you can cater your conversation to how you've helped create launches that expand self-serve users to annual contracts—which is much more relevant to them simply because you know how the company acquires most of their customers. 

I've mentioned this framework in other answers, but I believe that great product marketers are great researchers, storytellers, and project managers. A standout product marketing portfolio would include work that helps you cover these critical bases. I've added below some examples of things that could help you stand out in each area. Research: * A summary of a research project you ran and how the insights were used * An example of a research question + interview questions you used in customer calls * An overview of a beta process you helped run, how many customers you talked to, and the outcomes that your insights helped solidify * An example of how you incorporated insights from industry experts or reports into a launch Storytelling: * Core messaging + the landing page you built to distill the message * A product blog post you wrote to support a launch + outcomes * A video tutorial or webinar that you helped write or execute * A product announcement email + outcomes Project management: * A project plan that you used + the outcomes of the project * A product launch plan that you used + the outcomes * A hefty asset + a description of the team you coordinated to ship it * A cross-functional project timeline and breakdown + how you'd do it better

Congrats on the MBA! There are two types of internships: the internship you apply for and the internship you create. For well-known PMM internships, you apply for an existing role. There is often a lot more demand (applicants) than supply (internships available) so honestly your best bet to stand out is to build relationships at the company and prepare a compelling application that shows you are a self-motivated, high potential individual. But you might also consider creating your own internship. It takes work, but you can convince a company to build an internship around you. I should know, I hired an intern at AdRoll and my team hired an intern at Segment all based around a persuasive candidate. How to get a PMM internship when the company doesn't have a formal program*: 1. Define your own timeline, budget, and responsibilities 2. Define the business impact you hope to help the company achieve 3. Define your intentions for when the internship is over 4. Sell the dream to the company *This will likely only work at startups under 500 people! Once a company gets bigger, it's harder to make one-off exceptions happen! The theme behind 1, 2, and 3 is to make it as easy for the company to say "yes" as possible. Here's what a prospective intern sent to me when I worked at AdRoll: "I would like to intern at AdRoll for the next two quarters and help with [opportunity] which I noticed in your latest press release. I have experience in a similar area and I believe that I can help [business metric]. I would love to be considered for a full-time role after the six months, but I am happy to discuss that once I've started meeting or exceeding your expectations. While gaining experience is most important to me, I am exploring other opportunities where compensation ranges [desired comp]. I'd appreciate if I could make my case with you in a quick 15-min call this week. Let me know when is a good time to connect." I took the call and they got hired as an intern (and then as a full-time employee). All because they made it very easy for me to make a business case and hire them.

In my mind, the best performing product marketers exhibit three must-have skills: 1. Research 2. Storytelling 3. Project management To expand on each: 1. The instinct and ability to research, talk to customers, and analyze data to find new insights 2. The ability to combine insights + product features into stories that resonate with your audience 3. The drive and cross-functional skills to work across any internal scenario to drive external results In my experience, folks with (1) and (2) but not (3) tend to be really thoughtful and analytical, but have a harder time connecting that rich insight to business outcomes. Folks with (2) and (3) but not (1) tend to move fast and ship often, but the substance of their work might not hit the mark. For what it's worth, I've never found someone who spikes in all 3 (for those curious, I personally have been on a long journey at getting better on storytelling). I've also found that every company operates differently. Some companies are SO good at data and insights that you don't need to be an expert analyst. Some have product ops teams that help run the cross-functional projects. There will be places where your spikes just don't fit for the team. So if you're a PMM candidate, don't worry about nailing every spike. Instead, make sure that the anecdotes and ideas you share help provide a well-rounded picture of who you are.

First of all, you're not alone! I've definitely fumbled my way through several interviews. Rather than offering really general advice, I'd like to get specific. When I think about interviews, I think of two ways you can impress a hiring manager: 1. Substance - You show that you're qualified for the role and would add value to the team/business 2. Style - You show that you're a great communicator and are someone that the team wants to work with I think there is A LOT of high-level advice for both that exists on the internet, so I'm going to focus on tactical things that you can do the week before your interview. Substance 1. Read their website, their docs, their latest funding announcement, and their last blog post 2. Write down your top 3 best product marketing experiences onto sticky notes that only include: what you launched, what audience you were going after, and what impact it had in the business (specific numbers) 3. Write down your biggest lesson you've learned from messing up onto a sticky note that only includes: what went wrong, the impact, and a specific action you took to fix it/prevent it from happening again 4. Record yourself on your phone describing the last product you worked on. Watch the video 24-hours later and decide what needs to improve. 5. Record yourself on your phone describing the product the company sells. Watch the video 24-hours later and decide what needs to improve. 6. Write down 3 questions that you NEED to know the answer to if you were an investor that was curious about their strategy or product (e.g. "Does the company intend to stay focused on developers or do you intend to eventually sell to non-technical teams?). 1, 4, and 5 help you learn what you don't know and feel confident in the interview. 2 and 3 help you be thoughtful and structured when retelling your experiences. And 6 is crucial. I don't hire PMMs that aren't curious/passionate about the space we're in. Asking substantive questions is a HUGE signal that you're a great thinker. Style 1. Record yourself on your phone giving a 30-second opener about yourself that includes: highlights from your career, why you're interested in their company, and one thing that you read about them that stands out to you. Watch the video 24-hours later and decide what needs to improve. 2. Practice talking about your last product as if you were talking to: a coworker, a stranger at a conference, a stranger at a music festival. 3. If you tend to be shy/quiet in interviews, watch standup comedy and take notes about how they respond to their audience and keep the conversation going. 4. If you tend to be talkative/intense in interviews, watch TED talks and take notes about how they balance passion with objectivity/calmness. 5. Write down your top 3 favorite co-workers ever onto sticky notes that only include: their title, how they worked with you, and what they did that made you want to work with them. 1 and 2 are all about getting comfortable talking about yourself so you can cater to your interviewer on the fly. 3 and 4 are all about remembering the qualities that help you feel more like yourself in the interview. 5 is all about gratitude. Hiring managers are building teams. They want to work with someone who can build meaningful relationships with others. PMMs that are proud of the people they've worked with give me great signals about cross-functional collaboration and long-term success.

There are a lot of ways to measure sales enablement: lead-to-conversion rates, win-rates, sales rep NPS, etc. HubSpot does a great overview of popular options in this post. In my experience, there is no one-size-fits all and getting to the "right" answer requires a deep understanding about how marketing and sales contribute to your business. In the end, it's all about alignment (with sales) and impact (for the business). If you're starting from scratch (e.g. new business unit, early-stage startup), I recommend working with your head of sales to define success. In the short-term, it might be about unblocking common objections with great content (e.g. a competitive one-sheet or a deep dive on a product differentiator). In the long-term, it is your job to stay aligned as things evolve and start measuring the impact your work is having on the pipeline. Even with a small sample size, you can try to cater your work so you can answer questions like: * How often has this asset been seen? * How often is it seen by someone in the sales pipeline? * Is there a difference for the AE when a prospect sees it (is it easier to sell)? Is there a difference in outcome (are we more likely to win)? I've worked at companies that had various approaches to sales enablement goals, but in every case it was eventually crucial to tie the work we did as close as possible to revenue impact.

This will depend heavily on the kind of product you are interviewing to market. The more technical the product, the more "technical" questions you might get. Even so, you should be 100% prepared to: * Talk about what their product does (use cases) * Talk about who their product is for (audience) * Understand that context their product lives in (market + technical specs) You should know these things regardless of whether they're being asked in an interview. These are all important to know before signing up as their new PMM. At Retool, our product helps developers to build business software. My core audience is developer-focused, and use cases include a lot of complicated internal processes (e.g. helping banks manage loan applications). So when I'm hiring, I need PMMs who can: 1. Understand how developers build software today 2. Sell to developers That does not mean you have to be an engineer. You do, however, need to prove that you can learn and teach really hard things. You should use technical interviews to show that you have unlimited learning potential. When I was interviewing for my role at Segment, they worried that my background (ad-tech, B2B SaaS) might not be technical enough for a developer product. But I shared the steps I took to learn about programmatic advertising and data privacy laws at AdRoll, and how I used that knowledge to help inform great product decisions and product launches. I made the case that I could learn hard things and earn my seat with a hard-to-impress audience, and it made all the difference.

I love asking behavioral questions! As a hiring manager, I gain a lot of perspective about the candidate. As a candidate, you get the chance to stand out by storytelling—one of the most important skills a PMM can master. Two behavioral questions I would ask director-level candidates are: 1. Tell me about a time where your messaging did not work. What went wrong and what did you do about? 2. Tell me about a time a cross-functional partner gave you constructive feedback. What led to the feedback and what happened next? In both cases, I am looking for a willingness to iterate. A director-level PMM will need to constantly make tough calls around messaging, priorities, resourcing, hiring, etc. And they won't get it all right on the first try every time. In their answers to these questions, I am looking for a willingness to be vulnerable and share concrete, specific details. How candidates talk about their learning moments is also critical. Director-level teammates help set the tone and model behaviors for the rest of the team. Finding someone who not only takes the learning opportunity but who also passes on the learning to others can help build more trust and mentorship within the team.