More companies are turning to take-home assignments as a way to evaluate candidates during the interview process. These assignments are effective in assessing a candidate's problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. Interviewers gain a more in-depth understanding of a candidate's abilities, as they can see how they approach and solve a problem over an extended period. Take-home assignments are also a good way to simulate the day-to-day responsibilities of the role, making them a valuable tool for evaluating a candidate's fit for the position. Since there is very little written about it, here's a guide on how to excel on your next take-home assignment.

What skills do these assignments look to test?

• - Writing and presentation skills
• - Creativity
• - Market research
• - Design sense
• - Prioritization
• - Creativity

Which format should you use to submit your assignment?

Companies sometimes do offer a choice between a written document(pdf) or a PowerPoint presentation as a format for submission.

Here are tips on how can choose what would be the most suitable:

Create a presentation when you are comfortable presenting your ideas visually and  have a strong design sense. While presenting this, make sure you are succinct in your communication. It gives stakeholders a good sense of how you would perform in the role and may also help you get brownie points.

Writing is better when you are better at verbal communication and for ideas that require elaboration. It's an excellent opportunity to showcase your understanding in-depth.

There is no definite answer, choose the format that showcases your strengths better.

One common question asked during interviews for product management roles is how a candidate would design a new product or improve an existing one. To assist you in preparing for such questions, we will take a closer look at one such question, outlining the critical elements of structure and the important considerations to keep in mind while answering it.

Sample question - Build a new restaurant reservation app for urban areas to increase the number of bookings.

• - Make sure you think about a list of clarifying questions and ask the HR or the interviewer directly before you attempt the problem.
• - Listing out the assumptions that answer potential questions the interviewer may have is a good way to demonstrate a meticulous approach.
• - Adding design principles like supporting multiple languages, accessibility requirements, etc. can help impress and distinguish you from others.
• - Clearly outline the goals and target user demographic, taking into account any unique factors of the urban environment.
• - List all the functional, social, and emotional needs of the users.
• - Generate a list of features that solve those needs. Don’t forget to add a few  moonshot ideas to showcase creative thinking.
• - Consider the tradeoffs, and risks, and prioritize the solutions. You can also call out features that are differentiators or provide a competitive advantage. ‍
• - Define the success metrics.‍
• - Show how the proposed product will look and feel through visual aids such as simple wireframes.
• - Talk about the GTM strategy including pre and post-launch activities.

Once you are done, get feedback from a couple of other people, only if your assignment allows it. It can reveal any missed pain points or alternative solutions. However, it's important not to seek feedback from too many people, as this can lead to confusion.

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid:

• - Spending too much on wireframing as opposed to establishing a clear vision
• - Focusing more on presentation format than content
• - Not thinking critically about user pain points
• - Not defining clear success metrics
• - Not getting feedback on ideas
• - Not considering trade-offs about product decisions
• - Not providing a clear structure for the report/presentation

This is similar to a live interview, but since you are given a few days to answer this, interviewers expect a more in-depth response, much like launching a real product. To succeed, aim to be as comprehensive as possible.

Here is an example of a sample case:

Case: There is a 30% attrition of employees with less than a year of experience. The research shows that there are two reasons for that. 1) They lack career trajectory 2) They are not aware of the opportunities inside the company. There are people in the company with 6-8 years of experience willing to help them. How would you design a product to solve this problem?

There are a few assumptions I would like to make:

• - This attrition is across all departments of the organization
• - The experienced people can devote approx 5-7 hours a week for mentoring people
• - The recruitment process is standard.
• - The mentors to new employees ratio 1:2 which means they have enough time to help new employees.

The goal is to reduce the attrition rate of new employees. I will go about discussing the users and some potential features that can solve the root-causes listed above for the attrition. Then I will move on to prioritize the features on how they help in achieving the goal. Then we can look at metrics and some wireframes.

The users for this portal are:

• - The new employees - People who just joined in, with less than a year of experience.
• - The experienced people (mentors) - They can advise new employees on their career paths, show them examples, recommend them fields they can go into or skills to learn.
• - The HR managers - These people overlook the entire hiring and human resource management and should be able to see the skills, roles, backgrounds of all employees.
• - The executives

I would like to prioritize the top 3 users for this product as they are the heavy users.

The executives probably only want to see end results which can easily be shown in a dashboard

Let’s discuss the pain points by understanding the user journey:

• - When the right roles open internal employees don’t get to know about it.
• - There is no clarity on the career path, especially new employees who have no idea what skills to learn, which path to take.
• - The old employees have no other avenue to showcase their skills other than their role. There is no additional responsibility/activity.

Features:

• Skill matching with roles: The employees enter their skills and the feature recommends positions that match their skill and level of experience. They also get push notifications when a team matching their skill is hiring.
• The HR managers add new job roles and descriptions to the portal and send notifications to all employees (internal).
• Explore Mentors: The new employees can search for mentors, filter them by name, skills, teams and roles. They can then view their profile which gives them an idea of their career path.
• Set up one-on-one: The new employees can then inbox and block a one on one time from mentors’ calendars which shows open spaces or recommended times(like office hours). The mentor receives the invite which he can accept or decline with a message and the event gets added to both of their calendars.

Prioritizing Features: To numerically prioritize the features, I will use a scoring system, from 1 to 5, to rate a feature across these attributes. The total is calculated by adding and subtracting the positive attributes.

The features explore mentors, job notifications and skill matching with roles are the most important. This will truly solve the two main reasons for employees leaving and reduce attrition. The new employees would be able to learn trajectories from people who have taken that road before and make informed decisions. The skill matching would help them find opportunities within the organization and hence love what they do.

The other tasks can be achieved through slack, emails etc and hence have a lower priority.

Some other things that can be done to reduce the attrition rate are:

• - The new trainees can be assigned to a rotational program where they get to work in several teams and features. For example APM programs that not only improve the skill of people but also help them identify how they want to progress in their careers.
• - Seminars for career growth.
• - Most millennials value contribution to a vision more than just collecting paychecks. So teams can have their own visions which employees resonate with.

To measure success I would use the following metrics:

• - Reduction in attrition - 10% in 3 quarters
• - Portal Usage per week
• - Number of arranged one-on-one with mentors in a week
• - NPS

Please see the attached wireframes below for the web pages.

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