Cracking the PM Interview

Cracking the PM is a dense workbook/reference that is well-written and fulfills its promise.

Despite its age, it is still an outstanding book to prepare for Product Management interviews, whether you are looking for a job or recruiting professionals that fit your organization's needs.

I would argue that most of the advice also applies to Product Design interviews or any business-centric type of interview.

Please note that the book clearly focuses on Product Management in the context of tech companies and, consequently, has a bias towards engineers-as-product-managers. Nevertheless, technical background of note, there is a ton of value to unpack here.

Cracking the Coding Interview is a book everyone in tech has heard about (if not already read), but I was surprised that Gayle wrote a PM one too!

Want to land a PM/TPM position at a top company? Read this book.

Great example questions and resume advice, and a detailed breakdown of the interview process for major tech companies (and I can attest to this book's accuracy on that front). This is a book I'll re-read anytime I'm looking for a new role or when I become an interviewer myself.

Switching into the PM role myself lately, I was looking for some guidance on what that involves. The most useful parts of this were the early descriptions elaborating on the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager, as well as some of the descriptions of what PMs do at various tech companies. After that though, I found less value in this one. Going into how to write cover letters and resumes wasn't as useful.

Switching into the PM role myself lately, I was looking for some guidance on what that involves. The most useful parts of this were the early descriptions elaborating on the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager, as well as some of the descriptions of what PMs do at various tech companies. After that though, I found less value in this one. Going into how to write cover letters and resumes wasn't as useful.