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.-Brought to you by:Maven: I’ve just launched my unique curation of their top coursesGibsonAI: Your AI Database Engineer-In this episode:Preview - 00:00:00Hierarchy of Practicing for Interviews - 00:01:41Ad Break - 00:05:29Understanding How Your Words Are Interpreted - 00:07:34Recognizing the Assumptions People Make About You - 00:11:04The Correct Way to Answer "What's Your Weakness?" - 00:15:16How to Answer "Tell Me About Yourself" - 00:19:04Practicing Responses for "What's Your Biggest Weakness?" - 00:27:06Ad Break - 00:32:41How to Answer "Why Do You Want to Work Here?" - 00:35:21Approach to Answering Behavioral Questions - 00:38:39Handling Product Design Case Interviews - 00:43:04Handling Execution Case Interviews - 00:50:05How to Land Interviews in 2025 - 00:56:59Optimizing Your Resume - 01:03:00Gayle’s Future Goals - 01:06:14-Email productgrowthppp at gmail.com to discuss advertising or guest opportunities.-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, AmazonTal Raviv - Gen AI PM, Early Patreon, RiversideI’m so excited to share them with all of you. Get full access to Product Growth at www.news.aakashg.com/subscribe