[AMA] I've interviewed >150 PM candidates at Google.

One reliable way to demonstrate product vision in general is to keep yourself up-to-date with the progress in the industry and doing some thought exercises. Having a good grasp of the domain is a good starting point. Then, connecting the dots and laying out a view of the future state would be next.

Thanks. Follow up question - in the Google interview, the question can be on any domain as it's a generalist role. So how do you prep for this?

Positive: One candidate with no academic technical qualification aced the interviews. Perhaps the best candidate I've interviewed. And now they are thriving at G. (Never ever judge a candidate by the resume; my rule of thumb) Negative: A candidate brings up a misogynistic and racist comment right at the beginning of the interview.

I'm another Google PM interviewer and I 100% agree about not judging by the resume. After a whole I stopped reading resumes before case interviews completely because I realized they were just biasing me.

A) (not trying to act too smart but...) Honestly, it depends on the question a lot. In most cases, practical answers are surely preferred, but too obvious practical ones don't add much value in understanding the candidate's abilities. There are also cases where candidates try too hard to be creative and completely miss the practicality of the solution. That doesn't help for sure. B) There is no single reason that comes to my mind. Often it is about the appropriate depth in the response. Some go too deep and don't give much chance to explore other dimensions and some stay too broad and never get to the details of any one dimension. Getting the fine balance really helps.

Frameworks. People think of they followed the framework then somehow they deserve a prize. If you are following a framework, it means you're doing the answer the same way as many other people. If you're going to do it, do it better than everyone else. Or even better, just use it to get yourself started and then show me that you're better than the other candidates. Usually when people use frameworks they end up only getting as far as framing the problem within 45 minutes and not answering the question at all. Generally I'm kind of appalled at how little people think they need to accomplish within the interview. People who get strong hires usually get much farther in their solution.

Usually one candidate goes thru 4-5 interviews. Sometimes more for onsite. And, there is no mandated SLA for submitting interview feedback. With this, it is the recruiter's/scheduler's job to follow up with each interviewer to submit the feedback. Some do it quick, some don't.

+1 The blocker here is definitely the interviewers. I have been guilty of taking longer than a week to get back to recruiters with feedback even when the candidates are really good. When you include phone interviews and potential follow-ups combined with the need to put together a package for the hiring committee, have it reviewed and authorized by SVP. It's a goddamn miracle this ever happens in under a month. Interviewing is completely voluntary for PMs, so sometimes I'm kind of lazy about it, especially when about 70% of all candidates are barely worth the feedback at all. Sorry about that

I've noticed that even internally switching to PM ladder is a difficult task. Moving out and coming back in would be better. To land a role: From skills perspective, the usual run of the mill product design, strategy and analytical would be very important. I suggest you to start reading up on the web about PMing in general and then focus more on skills that you want to improve on. And then mocks.

This is a difficult one. It is mostly a function of time and many other things. Availability of roles + candidate fit (both from candidate and the team). Looks like you have some time (since you mentioned before HC). Hope you find a good match. Sorry, I wasn't very helpful with the answer.

Honestly, nothing can replace real experience. But can people fake their way in? Some might be able to. During the interview, an experienced interviewer would bring in questions with real life situations that an experienced candidate can handle with ease.

Each level has certain expectations linked to those from the candidate. As levels increase, ambiguity in the problem definition increases. At lower levels it's about solving a given problem by executing well. At higher levels it's about dealing with ambiguity and defining a clear path forward for the teams. And in interviews, it'll be based on these skills.

Can you give some examples?

The HC looks at the entire package. This includes feedback from all the interviews. As such there is no specific weight assigned. However, because a person is experienced in interviewing, they know how to give the right kind of feedback to the HC. And, as a result, their feedback usually is very actionable by the HC.

Thank you for the response! Oh is the hiring committee a total different group from the interviewers? So the interviewers don't actually make the decision collectively?