apple product manager Interview Questions

Often considered the "CEO" of their product area, product managers oversee the strategy, production, and implementation of a particular product. Because product management teams include members from different backgrounds such as engineering, design, and data design, product managers must have strong communication skills and excel in cross-functional work environments. Expect to answer questions about your management abilities, prioritization skills, and experience working in product. Though not required, technical backgrounds are advantageous particularly when applying for roles at tech companies.

apple product manager Interview Questions

apple product manager Interview Questions

Often considered the "CEO" of their product area, product managers oversee the strategy, production, and implementation of a particular product. Because product management teams include members from different backgrounds such as engineering, design, and data design, product managers must have strong communication skills and excel in cross-functional work environments. Expect to answer questions about your management abilities, prioritization skills, and experience working in product. Though not required, technical backgrounds are advantageous particularly when applying for roles at tech companies.

196Apple Product Manager interview questions shared by candidates

Top Product Manager Interview Questions & How to Answer

Here are three top product manager interview questions and how to answer them:

Question #1: What are your preferred management frameworks?

How to answer: Describe which management frameworks you prefer to use when managing teams and products and explain why you like them. Outline any limitations of the frameworks and how you overcome them. If possible, research what frameworks the company currently uses and discuss how your own methodology can work within those frameworks.

Question #2: How do you prioritize between the different needs of your users?

How to answer: Product managers need to make tough decisions that balance the needs of different users while keeping in mind the resources of the team and the general cost-benefit analysis for the company. Explain the process you use to make those decisions, including what research you do. Outline how you communicate your decisions to internal and external stakeholders, how you manage expectations, and how you deal with any negative reactions.

Question #3: What is your strategy for onboarding yourself to a new product?

How to answer: A product manager is expected to know everything about a product, such as how clients use it, the business model, and the roadmap for further development. Outline who you plan to talk with to learn about the product and its users, how those conversations will happen, and what you hope to learn. This is a good opportunity to show your enthusiasm for the future of the product and its possibilities and any research you have already done.

Top Interview Questions

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Apple
Project Manager was asked...June 18, 2013

Sequence the following four items in order of importance: Cost, Design, Quality, Time

3 Answers

To Apple, Quality is #1. I assume Design would be #2, Cost #3, and Time (Schedule) will be #4. Less

Be sure to give reasoning with the order chosen

It varies from product to product. In certain financial industries; you may have to work through time to market, stripping down aspirational wants from whats required. In other cases such as customer facing application, I would look at Design, Quality while keeping cost and time into consideration. Design something quickly and to a high standard, but then it will not be cheap. Design something quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality. Design something with high quality and cheaply, but it will take a long time. Less

Apple

What would you do if your coworker anounced two days before launch that they were not going to deliver and in fact had not been working on their deliverables as previously stated in prior meetings.

2 Answers

Didn't envision myself getting into this situation but would mitigate if all else failed. Less

I would first determine how far away the deliverables were from completion to see if the situation could be salvaged. Would additional resources help? Longer hours? If the situation was not salvageable, I'd do an impact assessment and estimate the time to correct, meet with my direct supervisor and plan to notify the shareholders as soon as possible Less

Apple

How would you solve an issue if you didn't know exactly what the problem was?

3 Answers

Trying to find if there was a similar issue or situation in the past to figure out what the problem is. Less

Below are some ways you can approach the answer: 1-> Find the problem using a framework, say 5 Whys or Fishbone Diagram etc. Root cause analysis can also help. 2-> Zone down on the issue and analyse, is it a company wide trend, regional trend, industry trend, seasonal trend etc., i.e., try to localise the problem and then address it. 3-> See whether it was a process error, human error, technical defect, information error etc. 4-> Can you replicate the same situation to study the issue and cause? Less

I'd look at what the end goal was. What the soulion would achieve and work backwards from there. What is blocking us from the end goal. Why are they blocking us from the end goal. Less

Apple

How do you put in place testing for a product that might cause personal injury to the user?

3 Answers

You said "after sending your resume initially, they called after couple of weeks.." couple of weeks means after how many weeks ? Less

After I sent the resume in, I received a call from the hiring manager about 2-3 weeks later. After that phone interview I didn't hear anything from them for about 6-8 weeks. Less

My answer was along the lines of knowing the requirements of the product and testing to those. That includes understanding any federal, medical, and industry regulations and guidelines that must be followed for a product. Identifying requirements from all sources is key and that includes safety and regulatory requirements. Less

Apple

State your top 3 strengths and top 3 weaknesses, as fast as you can. Go!

3 Answers

I feel this question is mainly to understand how much you know yourself. Do you come up with cookie cutter answers or are you responding by being true to yourself. Less

Luckily, I studied this beforehand!

I'd honestly pause and ask what the goals of the question are. If they're asking this to see if I'm going to treat it like a project management question, a project manager shouldn't ever hurry the answer. If they're asking this because they think it's just a great question, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to work with a team they hired. Less

Apple

Nothing super difficult... mostly behavioral questions: why Apple, why now.. Why the department I was interviewing with specifically. There was a negotiation case in one of my interviews.

2 Answers

I was really excited about Apple as a place of employment... the people were really bright, talented and good collaborative people. That is exactly what I was looking for and I communicated that. I didn't have much experience with Apple products but they didn't seem to mind (I was honest). Less

What was the case they presented you during your interview?

Apple

I want to do cow counts in US what are your approach

2 Answers

Cowculator...

I answered that I will check goverment census and get the inputs from them, then interviewee asked if they donot have that information, then I mention I will check which are the areas more diary products are selling I will get the counts, then I said I will check from feed store where more cow feeds are selling I will get the counts from those area Less

Apple

Describe an interesting problem and how you solved it.

2 Answers

I worked in a legal office and noticed that there was an opportunity to protect customer privacy. I brought up the exact issue to the team in a meeting and worked on reminding and implementing until it was a regular practice. Less

Hi, as an Apple employee, I have collected Apple interview questions, based on my and my colleagues' recent experiences, and provided our insights/answers that got us in Apple. I got great feedback from candidates applying for many roles including product / program / project management and design / sales. You can find it here: interviewjoy.com/services/interview-process-details/apple-job-interview-apple/ (please do not forget to also look at the reviews at the bottom of that page). Thanks and good luck! Less

Apple

if email did not work, what would you try and do to fix it?

2 Answers

This is too vague... Need to be more specific. For instance, email as a mean for communication does not work, then find another way to communicate such as Google Hangout (Never mention using Skype for Business bc it's Microsoft). Another mean of failure is that the email server is not working properly, then proceed with checking for connection, browser, etc. Another way is that email will not reach to Africa because they do not use email, then use phone... Etc. I guess this is a teaser question for you to find out the details and give out multiple case scenario solutions. And also to test how quickly you can think during a phone interview or in person interview compared to sitting in your couch... Basically a brain teaser... Less

I would try to reboot the computer and reload the Internet browser or email app and sign in again. If it's still not working, try a different browser. If that does my fix the issue, then the problem might be with the Internet connection, in which case you can disconnect the power from the modem/router temporarily and then reconnect power to reset the Internet connection Less

Apple

Q: Why Apple? Q: What frustrates you? Q: What makes a good project manager? Why are you a good fit for this position? Q: What are your strengths and weaknesses? Q: How technical are you, from a scale of 1-10? Q: How comfortable are you in Excel, from a scale of 1-10? Q: A work resource, is available 8 hours a day, for two weeks (assuming 5 days per week) and their allocation is 30%, how many hours are they allocated for the project. (Answer: 24 hours)

2 Answers

Its 2 weeks. so 30% of 80 is 24

8*5=40, 30% of 40 is 12

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