CQProductSeries-Razorpay-Praveen Chavali

Hello everyone. Product Management is all about taking care of a product and making sure that the product works as desired by the company and is able to achieve its goals. Every product has its own requirements and different target customers. You’ll have to balance the company’s needs and customer satisfaction and coalesce them into something which can form a tangible product. So it’s more of a management role rather than something which involves hard technical skills. It’s more about coordinating between a lot of teams and bringing them together in a coherent form and getting something out. This is what product management is.

Yeah sure. The interview process was of 3 rounds, each being a knockout. The first was a business round, the second was a technical one and the third round was conducted by the Hiring Manager.

In this round, I was asked about a product case and many were asked for guesstimates. To prepare for it, shift your focus to case studies and case interviews. All management roles will have some form of case interviews in their selection process. The questions might vary but the underlying concepts will be the same. An important skill that managers need is to convey complex information in a structured way. Communicating structurally is very important to get your point across. Case interviews show how you think. The more cases you face, the more you enhance your structural thinking. For business cases, there are tons of resources available on the internet. Once you get the idea of how to think structurally, then you can shift to product cases. Solving cases is not something which you can learn academically but experientially over time.

The second round was a technical one. It’s to test whether you can talk to engineers or not. The engineers will be coding the recommendations you give to them. So you do need to have a basic understanding of the technical domain and stuff like how websites are created, how databases are maintained, how encryption works and a lot of things. They don’t expect you to code, but they just want you to know the basics. If you can just draw it on the whiteboard all you meant to convey, that’d be enough. The engineers there are specialized to do the coding work.

The third round is taken by the hiring manager who has the freedom to ask anything but it was mainly business oriented for me where I was asked product interviews. It was kinda impromptu, as they asked me my favourite product and then they started grilling me on it.As far I know there are no books for its preparation. Product cases, in general, require high awareness about the current developments in the fields and in general. It’s something which you cannot know in a short period of time. You have to keep in touch for months. Then only you’ll be able to form an opinion on it. You need to grab every single opportunity to showcase your skills. “Which is your favourite product or app?”. This is a very trivial question that needs to be answered wisely. It’s good to have two to three apps in mind, which may not be your favourite but you know a great deal about them. Try to answer in context to the round. Like in the business round, try answering the app whose business plan you know the best. This will differentiate you from the crowd.

There was no dedicated HR round but those questions were sprinkled all over. Some questions that are asked frequently are; your reason behind pursuing this field, “Why product management” and “Why this particular company”. These are very important questions, you need to back yourself properly. You need to show that the decision you’ve made to switch over to product is based on your interest in the field rather than any other motivations. One general advice for HR questions, always answer them in a structured format because they’ll judge your structural communication in pretty much everything

Yeah they surely give you an edge over the rest but they play a substantial role only until the shortlisting. After that, your performance in the case interviews takes precedence. Even if you don’t have that bright a CV you shouldn’t get disheartened. Most companies ask you to submit an assignment (a case study, product proposal etc.) in the first round of shortlisting. If you put in efforts in the assignment and perform well in the case interviews, you have a good chance of getting selected.

My time in KGP has definitely aided me in developing a variety of skills. KGP provided me with a platform through which I could access learning opportunities in the form of internships, projects and courses. My projects and internships improved my technical skills while my participation in interhall case studies gave me the essence of case interviews. More importantly, I am thankful for the people I met on campus. I was exposed to diverse perspectives which broadened my thinking. It also gave me a case group to practice cases. I am very grateful to the institute for that.

I’d like to suggest all to read more technical stuff, modern innovations, general trivia that you can sprinkle in between your interview to project an image that you are abreast with the developments. Product management is a very competitive role as I mentioned, there are very few openings each year. Always seek these small opportunities to showcase your general awareness that will differentiate you.

Hello everyone. Product Management is all about taking care of a product and making sure that the product works as desired by the company and is able to achieve its goals. Every product has its own requirements and different target customers. You’ll have to balance the company’s needs and customer satisfaction and coalesce them into something which can form a tangible product. So it’s more of a management role rather than something which involves hard technical skills. It’s more about coordinating between a lot of teams and bringing them together in a coherent form and getting something out. This is what product management is.

Yeah sure. The interview process was of 3 rounds, each being a knockout. The first was a business round, the second was a technical one and the third round was conducted by the Hiring Manager.

In this round, I was asked about a product case and many were asked for guesstimates. To prepare for it, shift your focus to case studies and case interviews. All management roles will have some form of case interviews in their selection process. The questions might vary but the underlying concepts will be the same. An important skill that managers need is to convey complex information in a structured way. Communicating structurally is very important to get your point across. Case interviews show how you think. The more cases you face, the more you enhance your structural thinking. For business cases, there are tons of resources available on the internet. Once you get the idea of how to think structurally, then you can shift to product cases. Solving cases is not something which you can learn academically but experientially over time.

The second round was a technical one. It’s to test whether you can talk to engineers or not. The engineers will be coding the recommendations you give to them. So you do need to have a basic understanding of the technical domain and stuff like how websites are created, how databases are maintained, how encryption works and a lot of things. They don’t expect you to code, but they just want you to know the basics. If you can just draw it on the whiteboard all you meant to convey, that’d be enough. The engineers there are specialized to do the coding work.

The third round is taken by the hiring manager who has the freedom to ask anything but it was mainly business oriented for me where I was asked product interviews. It was kinda impromptu, as they asked me my favourite product and then they started grilling me on it. As far I know there are no books for its preparation. Product cases, in general, require high awareness about the current developments in the fields and in general. It’s something which you cannot know in a short period of time. You have to keep in touch for months. Then only you’ll be able to form an opinion on it. You need to grab every single opportunity to showcase your skills. “Which is your favourite product or app?”. This is a very trivial question that needs to be answered wisely. It’s good to have two to three apps in mind, which may not be your favourite but you know a great deal about them. Try to answer in context to the round. Like in the business round, try answering the app whose business plan you know the best. This will differentiate you from the crowd.

There was no dedicated HR round but those questions were sprinkled all over. Some questions that are asked frequently are; your reason behind pursuing this field, “Why product management” and “Why this particular company”. These are very important questions, you need to back yourself properly. You need to show that the decision you’ve made to switch over to product is based on your interest in the field rather than any other motivations. One general advice for HR questions, always answer them in a structured format because they’ll judge your structural communication in pretty much everything.

Yeah they surely give you an edge over the rest but they play a substantial role only until the shortlisting. After that, your performance in the case interviews takes precedence. Even if you don’t have that bright a CV you shouldn’t get disheartened. Most companies ask you to submit an assignment (a case study, product proposal etc.) in the first round of shortlisting. If you put in efforts in the assignment and perform well in the case interviews, you have a good chance of getting selected.

My time in KGP has definitely aided me in developing a variety of skills. KGP provided me with a platform through which I could access learning opportunities in the form of internships, projects and courses. My projects and internships improved my technical skills while my participation in interhall case studies gave me the essence of case interviews. More importantly, I am thankful for the people I met on campus. I was exposed to diverse perspectives which broadened my thinking. It also gave me a case group to practice cases. I am very grateful to the institute for that.

I’d like to suggest all to read more technical stuff, modern innovations, general trivia that you can sprinkle in between your interview to project an image that you are abreast with the developments. Product management is a very competitive role as I mentioned, there are very few openings each year. Always seek these small opportunities to showcase your general awareness that will differentiate you. Secondly, product cases generally tend to be broad. You can explore a multitude of avenues but it is important to keep time in mind. You are expected to arrive at a conclusion in about 30 mins. If you aren’t able to give a solution in the allotted time, it won’t give a good picture. So be quick while solving cases. Find people who’re really good at solving cases and practice with them.