The Ultimate PM Interview Study Plan (2025 Guide)

Are you worried about acing your PM interviews?

Preparing for the most commonly asked product interview questions can take a few weeks.

I've landed multiple mid-senior level PM offers from top technology companies (FAANG and unicorn start-ups).

I documented the process I followed for anyone else in similar shoes.

This is my PM interview study plan.

Find Companies

First, you'll want to pick a few companies you are interested in.

I’d recommend including your dream companies and "safety" companies that you'd consider working for or might want to use as an opportunity to practice for the dream companies.

This is an important exercise to determine what you want to do and where you want to work. It will also help eliminate a few companies you may never be interested in working for.

Remember, interviewing takes a lot of time on both sides, so you may want to avoid interviewing only for the sake of practicing.

You have mock interviews for that!

Some top companies PMs are applying to include:

• Google PM Interview Guide
• Meta PM Interview Guide
• Amazon PM Interview Guide
• Stripe PM Interview Guide
• Doordash PM Interview Guide

Schedule Interviews

Preparing for interviews is time-consuming and mentally exhausting.

I focused on six companies and spaced all my screening interviews over two weeks.

I did the same for all the six on-site interviews.

I limited the on-site process to one per week for companies where it was lengthy and time-consuming. Otherwise, in the final stretch, I did an average of two weekly interviews.

Recruiter Resources

Most companies are very open about what good looks like in an interview. So once your interviews are scheduled, read and absorb all the materials your recruiters share with you.

For example, Amazon focuses on leadership principles, Meta and Google prep content on case-based questions, etc.

Take your time, and don’t do the interview until you’re ready. No one at a large company cares if you push out a few weeks.

That extra time can make all the difference in feeling prepared and confident.

Being good at your job does not mean you’re good at interviewing. It’s a separate skill that you need to work hard to develop. I was surprised at how much work I had to put in to become good at interviews.

Create a Plan

I gave myself 8-10 weeks and created a strict plan, studying 2 hours after work every day and a few hours over the weekend.

I started with the Exponent PM course.

I didn't go too deep into Cracking the PM interview since I had already read it many years ago when I first transitioned into product management. However, it's a great read if you're new to product interviews.

I focused on one area at a time.

For example, I thoroughly practiced product sense before diving into Execution or Leadership and drive questions. It helped me stay focused.

Once I had the concepts and a rough idea of the approach, I started practicing some questions independently.

How to Practice

It’s important to practice with real questions. The resources I used are:

• Exponent (particularly their PM interview question database and private Slack Channel)
• The questions published on Lewis C Lin community.
• Glassdoor

Develop a structure or framework for dealing with the questions (more on this to follow). Run through a few practice questions in your head to get comfortable with the format you’d like to use.

Record yourself and observe how you respond to specific questions.

Mock Interviews

In the case of interviews, practice is the key.

And mock interviews are the best way to keep getting better at it.

In my case, I did mock interviews with ~10 people and multiple mock interviews with ~5 of them. Mock interviews are like flexing a muscle: the more you do them, the better you get at them.

Start finding partners to do mock interviews with. Exponent generally has high-quality people to practice within their peer mock interview platform. In the case of mock interviews, I’d focus on quality over quantity. Find the best people to practice with and double down on working with them.

When I started doing mocks, I was afraid, couldn't articulate, and couldn’t think straight. Doing lots of mocks made me comfortable with the format, which allowed me to calm down and think.

Work with a coach once you have your sea legs and feel confident.

PM Interview Tips

You could spend several months trying to perfect every nuance of your answers.

In my opinion, after a while, preparing for PM interviews tends to reach a point of diminishing returns. The fatigue is real, and you might even get to a point where you stop making any real progress.

So, I spent ~10 weeks preparing and juggling a full-time job and family.

Towards the later part of my preparation, I noticed I was getting worn out and just done with repeatedly repeating the same questions and answers.

There were a few things that helped me assess if I was ready to go into the interview battlefield:

• No fear of doing mock interviews: In the initial days, I just postponed my mock interviews because I felt absolutely uncomfortable, but as I practiced more, it started becoming a fun exercise.
• Can reasonably get to an MVP or a solution prep interview: Again, nail the structure and focus on the content.
• When the feedback started to get nit-picky: Towards the latter half of my prep, my peers and coaches started nit-picking on my solutions and encouraged me to interview. At that point, I felt I could proceed with the interviews.
• When you start getting bored: Trust me, this can happen! Too much of everything is counterproductive, and that also holds true for interview preparation. Don't overdo it.

I hope you find this guide helpful. Everything written here is what I did, and it took me a long time to identify how best to optimize my time preparing for PM interviews.