5 Blindspots Killing Your PM Interviews (From Someone Who's Seen Hundreds Fail)

Most PM courses are teaching you to fail interviews. I know that sounds harsh but here's what's happening:

These courses teach you to memorise frameworks—CIRCLES, STAR, BUS, AARM, DIGS.

So you show up to interviews and robotically recite: "Let me walk you through my CIRCLES framework... Comprehend the situation, Identify the customer..."

(I get it.. Frameworks sell...)

But the hiring manager probably saw these frameworks too and immediately thinks: "This person can't think independently."

I've coached hundreds of career transitioners over the past few years, and I've noticed one thing in common:

The people who succeed fastest aren't the ones who know the most PM frameworks - it's the ones who breaks them.

So, Here Are 5 Blind Spots I've seen holding people back

(Note: I've changed names throughout to protect privacy, but these are real situations from real coaching sessions.)

#1 They're Speaking Features When Companies Need Outcomes

Let me show you what I mean.

When I coached Sarah from a financial services company, she spent 10 minutes explaining how she redesigned account statements—the technical details, the user flows, the database architecture.

Buried at the end? "$5M in annual savings."

That number should have been the first sentence. Not the last.

This is the #1 blindspot I see:

You think PM work is about building features. It's actually about taking risks to achieve business outcomes.

Every PM conversation should answer: "Why does this matter to the company's bottom line?"

Not "improved user experience." Not "made it easier to use." Those are outputs.

What's the outcome? Revenue? Retention? Cost savings? Competitive advantage?

If you lead with features instead of impact, you sound like someone who executes what they're told, not someone who decides what to build in the first place.

#2 They're Anchoring on Frameworks Instead of Solving Problems

I watched James bomb a Meta interview even though he knew CIRCLES perfectly.

The interviewer challenged his North Star metric choice. Instead of collaborating to find a better answer, James got defensive. He thought the framework was supposed to be his shield.

Frameworks aren't scripts. They're thinking tools.

Experienced PMs adapt them constantly. They skip sections when time is short. They pivot when interviewers push back.

You know what interviewers are actually testing? Whether you can think through ambiguity. Whether you're coachable. Whether you can collaborate on a problem you've never seen before.

If you panic when someone interrupts your framework, you're revealing something: You're reciting memorized answers instead of actually thinking.

#3 They're Jumping to Solutions Before Understanding the Problem

When Maya practised a Google Maps parking question with me, she immediately dove into consumer pain points.

I stopped her: "Why should Google Maps care about parking over other domains?"

She said it was a complex problem to solve, and Google was the best place to solve it. That was the wrong answer.

Junior PMs compete in the land of solutions. Senior PMs compare opportunities and spend most of their time on "why" and "which" questions before they ever touch "how."

• Why is this problem worth solving for the business?

• Which customer segment matters most?

• Which solution best balances impact and feasibility?

The actual solution design? That's often the easiest part.

#4 TheyThink "Good Product Sense" Means Having Opinions

Multiple people have told me the DMV needs a "better UI."

Okay. Better how? For whom? Measured against what outcome?

"Intuitive" and "user-friendly" aren't product sense. They're personal preferences.

Real product sense means understanding customer behaviour, market dynamics, and business trade-offs.

Can you defend your product decisions with:

• Customer behaviour data or research?

• Business impact projections?

• Competitive positioning logic?

• Resource trade-off justification?

If not, you're sharing taste, not demonstrating judgment.

#5 They're Treating Interviews Like Tests Instead of Conversations

Kevin would restart his entire framework whenever I gave him feedback during practice sessions.

I finally told him: "The interviewer isn't trying to catch you being wrong. They're trying to see if you can collaborate on solving a problem together."

Interviews test collaboration and coachability, not perfection.

When someone challenges your assumption, that's not criticism—it's an invitation to think deeper together.

The candidates who succeed:

• Get curious when pushed back on

• Build on interviewer input instead of defending their first answer

• Change direction fluidly when given new information

• Think out loud so the interviewer can follow their reasoning

The ones who struggle treat every challenge as a threat to their credibility.

The Real Blindspot: You're Trying to Become Someone New

Here's what nobody tells you:

You don't need to learn PM skills. You need to demonstrate how your existing problem-solving translates to product outcomes.

Companies hire PMs to solve business problems using product as a lever. The framework knowledge? You can learn that in weeks.

But business judgment? Execution experience? Working through ambiguity? That takes years to develop.

If you're reading this, you either already have it or know parts of it. You've just been applying it in a different context.

The path isn't "become a PM." It's "explain how you've already been doing PM work without calling it that."

When Maya finally got this, everything changed. She stopped saying she "handled difficult people" and started saying she "built alignment across competing priorities to drive product outcomes."

Same skill. Different framing.

That's the shift that gets you interviews.

The Bottom Line

Breaking into PM in 2026 isn’t about memorising frameworks or grinding interviews. It's about building a career in PM. It’s about judgment, positioning, relationships, and proof.

The people who win don’t just want the title. They build the skills, the evidence, and the network that make the title inevitable.

Want to break into PM? I’m running a 4-week cohort starting February to take you on the journey with knowledge, coaching, and workshops.

We’ll cover market strategy, AI-powered prototyping, stakeholder influence, and how to land the role.

https://maven.com/productacademy/master-product-craft-with-ai