Estimate the market size for your newly proposed Chromecast feature.
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Estimate the market size for your newly proposed Chromecast feature.
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Estimate storage for Google Maps.
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I was flipping through HBR's On Communication book last night, and I found this great summary on the unintended consequences (from the listener end) when:
You are going to make a Wi-Fi connected speaker with voice capabilities. How do you make that?
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I'm happy to announce more kudos for my latest book, The Product Manager Interview.
This time, a reader used it to get a job offer at Microsoft as a Program Manager. Woo hoo!
Conquer those interviews,
Lewis C. Lin
Recently, I was asked:
Why isn't it appropriate for an interviewee to be represented by a negotiation expert like companies do for salary talks?
You're absolutely right. It is unfair to the employee to NOT get professional representation.
Negotiation is not as easy as it seems. In 2016, one NFL player decided that it was "easy to negotiate" and tried to represent himself. The deal he self-negotiated was widely panned as one of the worst labor contracts ever:
“I think the Russell Okung contract might be the biggest debacle of a contract I have ever seen. Okung, who at this stage of his career is somewhere between the 10th and 15th-best left tackle in football, eschewed an agent, decided to negotiate his own contract, and signed with Denver for a non-guaranteed $5 million for 2016. … For a player of his stature, it’s a ridiculous contract.”
- Peter King, Sports Illustrated, March 20, 2016
On the other side, most recruiters are TOUGH negotiators. They absolutely DESTROY candidates. It's not so much that recruiters are the Navy Seals of negotiation. That is, most recruiters haven't had extensive negotiation training and their tactical (negotiation) moves are only a slight cut above the average person's.
It's more because recruiters have two MASSIVE innate (not trained) advantages that candidates don't:
For professional athletes, actors, and singers, it's appropriate for them to have representation at salary talks because it's the norm.
For executive-level compensation or organized labor, professional representation is also the norm.
But for standard employee-to-employer negotiations, professional representation is not appropriate only because it's not commonplace. During the offer discussion stage, if you told a recruiter to "talk to my agent," they'll either mock you, get scared, or both. If you want a good negotiation outcome, last thing you want is to deal with another party that either despises you or is afraid of you.
But as Bobby Arora puts it, you can create a "synthetic situation" where you can have a simulated professional agent representing you. I'll call it a "shadow negotiator."
It would be exactly as Bobby puts it. You relay the compensation information you're hearing from the recruiter, and the shadow negotiator (behind the scenes) tells you what to say and do. Thanks to the digital age, negotiation via email is becoming more commonplace, so it'll be even easier to relay information to your shadow negotiator.
My favorite job interview question right now, credited to Peter Thiel is:
What's the one thing that you believe to be true, but nobody else agrees with you?
I find this question fascinating because:
Recently I was asked:
How important it is for a product manager to project his or her voice at work in tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon?
Yes, you have to project your voice as a product manager. Here’s why:
If you’re not comfortable projecting your voice, try the following:
How does Alexa or a Google Home device communicate with the cloud?
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What do you like (or not like) about our products?
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My day-to-day breakdown as PM:
One of the best kept secrets about negotiation:
A great example of this is the reality TV show, Pawn Stars.
Why do negotiators decline an opportunity to get more information about a deal? Here's why:
Photo credit: Pawn Stars via Wikipedia
Simply write "confidential" in the field. Expect your recruiter or HR contact to react when you do this. They don't like it when candidates don't follow instructions, especially when it's a required field or when a candidate does something out of the norm.
If you do buckle under the recruiter's pressure, you divulge your biggest piece of negotiation leverage. There's no reason for your prospective employer to beat your current salary by anything more than a slight margin. This is called revealing your best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA).
When asked why you won't reveal your current salary, simply tell your contact that you pledged your current employer that you wouldn't reveal confidential business information (via a signed NDA). If they whine and say every other candidate hasn't had a problem with this, simply restate your position. Take the high ground. You might even been respected for your integrity.
Do keep in mind that you do need to divulge how much do you expect to get in compensation. This is a different question from "how much do you currently make?" Recruiter doesn't want to waste time with a candidate they can't close, especially if their salary expectations are out of range. So a possible line could be, "Due to confidentiality reasons, I can't divulge my current salary, but I can tell you that I expect a base salary of $50,000 for this role. It's in line with market rates for a professional with my skills and experience." Most recruiters would appreciate and accept this information, in lieu of your current salary.
If it helps you sleep better at night, just know that the "What's your current salary?" question is completely unfair to the candidate. To be fair, candidates deserve answers to this question, "What's the highest possible you're willing to pay for this position?" But don't bother asking them. The company won't tell you (but a executive recruiter might).
Josh Bersin of Deloitte reported that "More than 60% of all companies are redesigning (or have redesigned) their performance management process, typically moving from top-down rating and ranking to a feedback-centric, developmental, often rating-less model.”
There’s a couple of benefits to a non-numerical performance review model:
There’s also a few disadvantages:
Looking for some good blogs to read as an aspiring or experienced product manager?
If so, here are the blogs and websites I'd recommend:
How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?
This question was asked at an Uber PM interview.
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You are a PM for Groups/Events/Videos. Define the goals and metrics How do you measure success?
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Imagine you are a PM of an existing product, what goals you will set for your team or how you will measure success of your team
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How would you go about describing the “high level technical architecture” of a mobile application?
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