Recently had an onsite with Google for a PM role. Made it to HC for HC only to ask for follow ups. Did the follow ups, and it wasn’t good enough to pass through. Shocked beyond belief, have to say I felt very ready. Did 100+ mocks, but I will say that I learned there’s more luck to it than I thought. Getting the right interviewer on the right day can really make a difference. If you’re in my position or ever are, don’t feel down. It happens to the best of us, no matter how prepared we feel. Anyways, have Facebook next Friday and was looking for tips on execution (mostly the metrics side of it) and people to practice with. If any current FB PM’s have advice I’m all ears. The blind community has been helpful thus far so though I was disheartened about Google, gotta just keep on going. It’ll be my first official PM role, so if anyone has recommendations outside of FB I’m happy to listen. Just exited a startup as a founder so unfortunately no TC.
Startup successful exit or abandoned? If successful exit how much $$$ did you get
Not sure what the relevancy here is. Did abandon, kind of forced to by external factors. Raised 7 figures though and built a final product.
Was just curious, I’m very interested in entrepreneurship myself. That’s awesome, so your someone who makes shit happen. Do you plan on starting another business anytime soon?
I had similar experience with Google .practiced 30 mocks on onsite day felt like I cracked .. however learnt it was not good enough... ultimately Google is just another company...I think I realized I was just following the trap of going to top schools , getting high standardized test score and assuming that top companies is the way to go....
Most folks at google are overachievers but insecure and cracking some randomly difficult process makes them feel better...once you get in it feels like ego goes up a notch...nothing wrong with it just that it's a bubble that FAANG employees are living in...
Tbh I really enjoy the questions they ask, especially Google. It’s actually fun lol. I think maybe you ran into some bad eggs. Most of the people I met were insanely nice, but I did have 2 individuals who seemed to dislike me the second I walked in the room. You can’t win em all though. I don’t think FAANG by any means is necessary, but it does for you what a big school does, it gives companies, VC’s, angels, etc. a partial understand of the risk of investing in you. Right or wrong, there’s no perfect formula and this is the one we’ve got to deal with.
I think the questions are great but answers are too cookie cutter.. most interviewers are looking to a specific pattern of words in your answers and if they don't hear it soon enough then it's a no...TBH I don't think they need to interview they could just do a closed book written exam style where people answer in essay format...in any case they type everything the candidate says so why not just make it a written exam....that way atleast the randomness will be lower
PM interviews are rather arbitrary and unnecessarily difficult. Don’t give up, just go somewhere else and try again later.
Thanks for the words! Do you have any Facebook specific advice? Really just trying to come up with a good approach to handling metrics questions. Feel good with root cause and trade-off questions.
I'm in a very similar situation, startup founder transitioning to PM. What kind of mocks did you do?
Google specific mocks, and now focusing on FB specific mocks.
Where did you do mocks