Cracking Tech PM and PMM Cases
Students practice tech product management and product marketing management interviews at a Kilts Center workshop.
- By
- March 16, 2026
- Marketing
Miranda Zhao, MBA/MPCS ’20, still remembers the confusion she felt when she started practicing case interviews for tech product management roles as a Full-Time MBA student.
“None of the interview questions made sense to me,” she says. “What skills are they trying to assess? Is this going to be relevant for my job?”
Practice helped. One of the best opportunities was the Tech Product Management/Product Marketing Management Interview Prep Workshop, organized by the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing and the Booth Technology Group. At the annual workshop, students develop their tech PM and PMM interview case skills with accomplished alumni in those fields to prepare for internship and job recruiting.
After attending the workshop, Zhao went into her interviews with more confidence. She landed a PM internship at Amazon Web Services, and once she graduated, a full-time PM role at Google.
Last year, Zhao interviewed for a new role as a PM at Sierra, a customer-experience AI startup. This time, she realized she more fully understood the theory behind the case interview questions that once stumped her.
Zhao got the job—and decided to pay it forward. She volunteered at the Kilts Center for Marketing’s 2025 workshop to share her casing insights with current students. More than 100 students registered to practice cases with 11 alumni volunteers. The event also included networking time for students to learn more about the alumni’s experience in PM and PMM roles.
“I wanted to give back to the community, knowing how hard students work to get a job or internship,” says Zhao, a former Kilts Fellow. “With my experience in the industry, I can give more context to why these questions are being asked.”
Practicing for Tech PM/PMM Interview Success
Interview cases for PM and PMM roles can seem deceptively open-ended. One common question is, “How would you design a fridge for blind users?” But interviewers aren’t just evaluating candidates’ solutions—they want candidates to show a sound thought process behind their responses.
“The most important aspect is defining the ‘why’ behind an answer,” Zhao says. “Previously, I thought that just meant following the script. But at Google, I learned that PMs are responsible for rallying the teams around the right problem and convincing vice presidents and directors why their product truly matters.”
Ahead of this year’s Tech PM/PMM Interview Prep Workshop, the Booth Technology Group held learning sessions to help first-year MBA students gain additional exposure to tech PM and PMM cases. Full-Time MBA student Cindy Wu, a BTG co-chair, says that with increasing student interest in tech PM roles, the group saw a need to introduce first-years to cases even earlier.
“We wanted to really prepare them not only to be more productive during the workshop, but also to start the recruitment process earlier,” says Wu, who participated in the 2024 workshop and helped organize this year’s.
“The most important aspect is defining the ‘why’ behind an answer.”
— Miranda Zhao
Coming from the advertising industry, first-year Full-Time MBA student John Shuck didn’t have experience with tech PM or PMM cases before the Kilts Center workshop. He worried about how he’d keep track of so much information and organize his answers for the cases. But at the workshop, he received “good, concrete advice” from one alumnus about how to set up his responses.
“If you can simplify the starting point, it makes the rest of the case a lot easier—especially when you’re clear on your target customer and can reframe the problem statement around their needs,” Shuck says. “If you think too broadly, such as ‘all women aged 25–54’ or something like that, that’s not really going to help you when you get to the actual features in the product.”
The Importance of Continued Case Prep
Each alumnus offered a different perspective on casing. Zhao focused on helping students understand why the case questions were being asked. Joel Rabinowitz, MBA ’19, a product marketing manager for Meta who has been volunteering with the Kilts Center since he graduated, pushed students to approach cases creatively.
“That, typically, is when a light bulb goes off,” Rabinowitz says. “At first, they approach the cases through rigid frameworks without questioning the baseline assumptions. Once they feel free to challenge those assumptions, they arrive at more unique, thoughtful solutions and have more fun solving the case.”
The Tech PM/PMM Interview Prep Workshop takes place each November, before students generally begin interviewing for tech PM and PMM internships in January. This means it’s crucial for students to take the alumni’s tips and continue to practice cases afterward.
“The No. 1 lesson I share is that preparation is the most important factor to succeed in cases,” Rabinowitz says. “We can give you examples of how to break down a case, but it’ll only become second-nature through practice.”
Wu agrees that the workshop can be “a wake-up call” for students who may not have practiced cases much yet. But she also knows the work can pay off. With the skills she learned at the 2024 workshop, Wu secured a summer PM internship at Apple. She’s since accepted an offer to return in a full-time role after graduation.
“This was one of the best events to attend as a first-year to prepare for recruitment,” Wu says. “Up to that point, I was just practicing with classmates, but this workshop was very informative about how to do it the right way.”
The Tech PM/PMM Interview Prep Workshop is one of several career-prep events the Kilts Center hosts for students each year. The center’s popular case interview workshop for the consumer packaged goods industry also takes place each fall. Explore more of the Kilts Center’s career prep events.
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