Williamson: Product interviews should use non-technical, unrelated case studies
Scott Williamson · Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Feb 21, 2024 · at 28:48
Scott Williamson, former CPO at GitLab and VP of Product at SendGrid, explains why he presents product candidates with case studies outside their industry domain.
0:00 / 0:30exact quote · 30.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I'd like to pose a non-technical scenario that they haven't worked in before and actually isn't what we do either. Because I don't want them to, A, rely on the jargon that they learned in their last job, and I don't want to also sort of penalize them for asking them about an area that I know really well, and boy, they should have seen this. So ask sort of a non-technical, semi-unrelated case to ask them how they would solve a problem.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Scott Williamson
Williamson: Founders should not hire product leaders before achieving product-market fit
“And I think if you hand it off before then, it can be very problematic because it's these decisions, which ICP, what are we going to prioritize to build for them? What's the core user experience? These things are so central to a company, especially if it's a P…”
Williamson: AI will merge PM, design, and engineering into a single role
“I can imagine this triple roll down the line where they're doing PM, design, and engineering with the help of AI.”
Williamson: MBAs are unnecessary for PMs unless aiming for executive roles
“If you want to be a badass PM, I don't think you really need it. You can learn the skills that you need to learn through product-focused training, through being in the right situation, through learning from Jedi Masters at your company. If you want to be a CPO…”
Williamson: PMs should spend 50% of time with customers, not 5%
“Now, to do that well, you need about half your time to be out of the building. Most PMs spend about 95% of their time facing engineering. And zero to fives talking to customers and being out in the world.”