Lauren Ipsen: observation

Transcript context

…I want to talk about what recruiters often do wrong and what you've learned there. But before we get there, one last question: do you have any tips for a product manager in the interviewing process, how to be more successful interviewing? I've had this come up a few times when I've interviewed product folks that they'll speak down on their counterparts or say that the reason they weren't able to meet deadlines or push product in the right way was because of the engineering team or because of other components of the business and it wasn't them. And so I think that's never a good way to go about it. So it seems obvious, but you would be surprised how not obvious it is. So thinking about things more holistically, speaking honestly about your strengths and things that you want to continue to grow and improve upon, and then being able to tell your story, like practice telling your story. So often people don't do that, especially when they're not looking for jobs, and then it's not until their 10th interview that they know how to tell their story and what they did and what they impacted and why they were someone to be missed when they moved on. Those are things that you want to know how to speak to, and unless it's something you've been doing or practicing, it's less natural. That's some advice I think just off the top of the head. Awesome. That's really good advice. One thing that makes me think about, I know I want to get to this last section, but do you think the best product leaders have their kind of story figured out in the future and work backwards from that and have a sense of where they want to end up, or just kind of take it as it goes? Because I'm the latter. I had no plan, I just went to see ... follow the path that was presented. Do you think that is generally true for folks that end up being successful, or do you recommend people think about, "Here's where I want to be in five years, here's what I need to do to get there"? Do you have any guidance there?…

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