Meta's PM loop centres on three interviews: product sense, analytical thinking (execution and metrics) and leadership and drive. Prepare for each separately. For product sense, practice one structure until it is automatic. For analytical thinking, practise defining goals and metrics for real products and diagnosing a metric that has dropped. For leadership and drive, prepare six to eight stories you can tell in two minutes each. Do at least three or four timed mock interviews with someone who will interrupt you as a real interviewer will.

Whether you can turn an ambiguous problem into a good product. Interviewers want to see you explain why the company would care, go broad on who the users are, choose one group for a clear reason, go broad on their problems, prioritise one, then design a focused solution and talk through its risks. Signpost your structure at the start and check the interviewer is happy with it. That gives you control of the conversation and gives them a clear path to score you against.

You usually have 30 to 35 minutes once introductions are done. A good split is about five minutes on why the problem matters, five to eight on audience, five to eight on problems, and five to eight on the solution. Most candidates run out of time on the solution because they are slow at listing audiences. Practise segmenting quickly (age, income, time available, both sides of a marketplace) so you have more time for prioritisation and design.

Leading with your own idea. "I've had this problem and here's what I'd build" is one of the quickest ways to fail. The interviewer wants to see you take in the whole space and reason to a product. The second most common mistake is picking one audience without considering others, or prioritising without saying why. Name your criteria out loud: size of the opportunity, willingness to pay, ease of building, time to market.

Pick any everyday product you don't normally think about, such as a napkin, a parking sign or a ticket machine. Ask who uses it, including the business on the other side. List their problems, choose the most valuable one to solve, and decide how you would fix it. Doing this a few times a week builds the habit of starting with the customer and makes you much faster at segmentation in the real interview.

Amazon interviews are built around its Leadership Principles, and most questions are behavioural: "Tell me about a time when…". Expect several interviewers, each covering two or three principles, and a Bar Raiser. Build a set of strong stories, map each one to the principles it demonstrates, and practise telling them with clear actions and measurable results. Interviewers will probe for detail, so know the numbers behind every story.

Aim for eight to ten strong stories, each covering two or three principles, plus a couple of spares. I prepared this way myself: five core stories I knew in depth, a second set for the gaps, and a sheet mapping every story to the principles. Include at least one real failure, one disagreement with a senior person, one time you went deep into data, and one time you delivered with fewer resources than you needed.

Be specific and use "I", not "we". Interviewers look for ownership, self-awareness, how you handle conflict, and whether you grow the people around you. Strong answers explain the situation briefly, spend most of the time on what you did and why, and finish with the result and what you learned. Prepare examples of difficult feedback you received, a hard working relationship you improved, and a time you brought a sceptical group with you.

No. I don't share confidential material from former employers. The structure of these interviews and what they test are widely known, and that is what matters. I help you build the skills and stories that work whichever question you get.

Promotion is decided by people who need confidence you're already working at the next level. Find out exactly what that level expects at your company, take on scope that shows it, and make sure your peers, cross-functional partners and your manager's manager can speak to your work. Ask them for feedback well before the cycle. Then write your case with evidence of impact, not a list of activity.

Your results now come through other people. The basics are: help each person see how their work connects to their own goals and the company's, remove what stops them focusing, hold regular one-to-ones, give timely feedback, and hire well in the first place. Delegate goals rather than tasks. The hardest adjustment for most new managers is stopping doing the work themselves.

Start by understanding their goals and their realities: what they're measured on, what they're worried about, and what their team can actually deliver. Then work out what you can give them that helps with those goals, and shape your proposal so it becomes their success too. I've used this to turn a resistant peer into one of my closest partners. It takes longer than pushing, but it lasts.

Companies increasingly expect PMs to use AI in their own work and to understand how AI products are built and evaluated. In interviews, be ready to explain how you use AI tools day to day, and in product sense questions consider AI solutions where they fit the problem. I build products with AI every day and can help you talk about it credibly, with real examples.

We start by agreeing what would make the session most useful. For interview prep, that is usually a timed mock interview with immediate feedback, then work on your structure or stories. For career coaching, I mainly ask questions to help you work out your own answer, and share direct advice when that is more useful. You leave with one or two specific next steps.