Lenny Rachitsky: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Project management is a unique role. Because we do just about everything, you don't really get pigeonholed into being compared along a single dimension with everyone else, and everyone who's hiring PMs, just like when they're hiring execs, they're hoping that they bring them on to solve some burning problem that they have. So, it's your job when you're in the interview process to figure out what that burning problem is. So, put on your discovery hat and go figure out what is the actual job to be done of the hiring manager when they're bringing on a new PM onto their team? And if you can do that and then make a good case that you are the person to solve that problem, then hiring you becomes a binary choice between do I hire the solution to my problem or do I hire someone else? And I think what ends up happening a lot is when you're in a interview process, you're just trying to put your best foot forward, trying to say that you're great at everything. You have very few weaknesses. Maybe you tried too hard, like whatever, but everyone's going to say that. So, you're just one of end people, and you want to make yourself a little bit of just you versus the field. You're the solution to a problem and then everyone else is like a roll of the dice. So, the way you're describing it is the company has a job to be done, say it's drive growth of some feature. In this case, it's like for Linear, just build a killer or successful B2B product. I don't know. That's a broad one. Usually, you're not interviewing for head of product role, so that's maybe too broad. So, it's like what is this PM role's job to be done at the company and then help convince them you are the best person to do that job and solve this problem for them. Yeah, and a lot of times when you take that approach, it'll feel like you already work there, and the way that I did this, like I got advice from a friend. He said like, "I was interviewing for this job at Mode that you referenced." I'm like, "How should I approach it?" He's like, "Just act like you already worked there. What would you do?" And then it's like, "Okay, I could do that." So, then when you're in this interview process and someone's asking you questions. He goes, "Do you have any questions for me?" You can ask them like, "What are your OKRs this quarter? How can someone help you achieve those?" You can be that specific about it, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, sure. I can tell you about the exact thing that I'm doing this quarter, and then you'll have some level of intelligence about what people are actually trying to solve because I think often we just get stuck in these very high level general types of questions like, "What's the company goals sand all that kind of stuff, and it's like, no, you can get really specific. If you were collaborating with that person in your job, what would you say to them?…

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