Cracking the PM Interview, with the author of the book Gayle McDowell

Everyone thinks they know how to prepare for a PM interview until the interviewer baffles you with a twisted question.

Gayle McDowell, the author of Cracking the PM Interview and the architect behind hiring processes at top tech companies, breaks down exactly how to ace behavioral and case interviews.

By the end of this episode, I’m confident you’ll know why most candidates fail PM interviews and exactly what to do instead.

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Brought to you by:

Maven: I’ve just launched my unique curation of their top courses

GibsonAI: Your AI Database Engineer

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In this episode:

Preview - 00:00:00

Hierarchy of Practicing for Interviews - 00:01:41

Ad Break - 00:05:29

Understanding How Your Words Are Interpreted - 00:07:34

Recognizing the Assumptions People Make About You - 00:11:04

The Correct Way to Answer "What's Your Weakness?" - 00:15:16

How to Answer "Tell Me About Yourself" - 00:19:04

Practicing Responses for "What's Your Biggest Weakness?" - 00:27:06

Ad Break - 00:32:41

How to Answer "Why Do You Want to Work Here?" - 00:35:21

Approach to Answering Behavioral Questions - 00:38:39

Handling Product Design Case Interviews - 00:43:04

Handling Execution Case Interviews - 00:50:05

How to Land Interviews in 2025 - 00:56:59

Optimizing Your Resume - 01:03:00

Gayle’s Future Goals - 01:06:14

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Email productgrowthppp at gmail.com to discuss advertising or guest opportunities.

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I hope you enjoyed the last episode, where I shared 11 key lessons from 50 podcast episodes and answered a bunch of your questions. Up next, we have episodes with:

Satish Mummareddy - L7 PM at Meta (Fmr)

Ethan Evans - Fmr VP, Amazon

Tal Raviv - Gen AI PM, Early Patreon, Riverside

I’m so excited to share them with all of you.

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