The key to success in your Product Manager job hunt is preparing for your interview. Conducting research about commonly asked questions and preparing your responses to these questions ahead of time will help you nail that Product Manager interview and land the job of your dreams. One question asked in almost every job interview is, “what is your greatest strength?” You may already have a few ideas of what your greatest strengths are, but the goal is for them to relate to the job you are interviewing for.
What Greatest Strengths Are Employers Looking For in Product Manager Candidates?
There are three strengths that employers find particularly attractive in Product Manager candidates:
- The ability to make the company money
- The ability to save the company money
- The ability to save the company time
You may believe that you do not have these strengths, but believe us: you do. You just need to learn how to frame your past work experience and successes to highlight them.
Start by doing the research into your daily life to uncover them. Make a list over the next week or two of everything you do in your day-to-day at your current job. It does not need to be Product Manager related in any way. For each task, ask yourself if you have helped the company make money, save money, or save time through completing that task. It may not be direct, but you will likely find that your daily tasks do in fact contribute to the company in one of these three ways.
If you find that your tasks tend toward one of the three options more than the rest, then you’ve found your greatest strength to focus on. The next step is to turn that strength into a story and express it in a compelling way.
Structuring Your Answer For Your Next Product Manager Interview
Your goal is to answer the question, “what is your greatest strength?” while also highlighting how that strength will help the company. A great strategy is to think of yourself as a product. Identify your competitive edge, or what makes you unique as a candidate. Are you faster or better at something than other applicants? Look back at the list of your daily tasks and how they benefit the company you are currently working for.
Strengths That Make the Company Money
Identify what it is that you do that drives traffic, revenue, or engagement. This is how you make the company money. For example, your strength may be that you are customer-obsessed. You can elaborate on that strength by talking about a time when you anticipated the customers’ needs and offered them a product as the solution, driving more business to the company.
You can always mention additional strengths when you are highlighting your greatest strength. If your greatest strength is your customer focus and that drives you to research your competitors to ensure you are offering the product that your customers want and need, be sure and add that into your response. Your potential employer will appreciate hearing your hard skills that are a direct response to your soft skill strength.
Strengths That Save the Company Money
Whether you have examples from your current position or just your personal life, companies want a Product Manager who is good at saving money. When highlighting your greatest strength of saving the company money, it is great to give numerical examples of how much money you saved your current company over a certain time period.
To relate saving money in your personal life to your Product Manager position you may say something like, “I’m always looking for ways to save money for myself and my friends and family. I am just a frugal person in general and love to look at a situation and highlight all the areas where I can save money.”
Strengths That Save the Company Time
Most companies spend about 10 to 15 hours per week fixing mistakes that they could have avoided with a simple checklist. As the saying goes, time is money, which is why a Product Manager that can save the company time is so valuable.
If your greatest strength is that you are process-oriented you will want to show potential employees how that will ultimately save them time. For example, documenting processes and developing them to be more efficient will make onboarding easier and minimize the learning curve for new hires.
Nail Every Product Manager Interview Question
Remember: always lead with your greatest strength and add your reason why to tell them more about yourself and your skills that will make you the best Product Manager for this company.
There are a few standard templates that you can use to answer this question in your Product Manager interview. To develop answers that are more relevant to your particular skill set, schedule a free call with us. We will review your list of daily tasks and help you articulate your skills in a way that relates to the product management position you are interviewing for.
