Is Clipboard Health a scam?
I applied for a product manager role at Clipboard Health. I received a request to complete a boring case study prompt about pricing optimization, without actually speaking to someone at the company. Based on Glassdoor and Blind, it seems it’s very common for Clipboard Health to ask candidates to complete lengthy case studies throughout the process. Their LinkedIn presence seems real, but is this a scam company? #clipboardhealth #product #productmanager
It’s not a scam but I would stay away. It’s the most toxic culture. Could not get out fast enough. They’re hell bent on writing with no communication of work thats been done things just get repeated and repeated and repeated. The employee churn rate is insane. 70+% have under a year with the company. Management has no issues with getting rid of people on a whim. People are constantly asked to challenge thinking but are let go on questionable circumstances when they do. Read the company’s website on their culture, red flags all over. Pay is competitive, no 401k
Agree with this, mostly. Clipboard is a bunch of arrogant amateurs from the top down. They treat their customers (nurses and nursing homes) as well as their staff like garbage. They write about their values on the website, but the only real value they have is squeezing every penny out of nursing homes and nursing assistants and their own staff.
I bailed the second I read their process. Who actually has time for that
I spent about 12 hours on the PM case and they actually got back to me a few days later with an invite to review it with their Chief of Staff. I probably only spent about 8 hours on the bulk of it, but I was hoping to find something counter-intuitive in my solution yet was unable to do so. For my solution, I built a model in Sheets and everything came out so straightforward the question didn't seem worth asking. Anyhow, their Chief of Staff scheduled the call for 20 minutes and then spent the first 10 minutes telling me about the company. I asked him if he knew what the PM hire would be working on in this role, and he said he didn't know. He also wasn't familiar with their tech stack other than that they used "a cross-platform mobile development framework". When we finally got down to reviewing, he commanded me to share my screen rather than asking me to do so - it was weird. To relieve some of the tension, I made a joke, "ah, so you want to see the youtube videos I'm watching?" I don't think he appreciated it. Anyways, after getting my screen share going, instead of having me take him through my case, he jumped in and started attacking my assumptions. I tried explaining why I made those decisions, but he wasn't having it. Then with only a couple minutes remaining, he asked me how I would approach a "different" problem from a product management perspective. The awkward thing was that he asked the case question again word for word. Then he wrapped up the call, and I received a rejection email the next day.
wild. aligns with an above comment on toxic culture.
Hey there, I was exploring clipboard health and found your solution. It’s great. A perfect answer for their case that really didn’t give you open ended options. The reason you got rejected is probably because they were looking for someone personality wise. Probably no one read your math, or your thinking. You got screened out because the conversation wasn’t jiving. You might have even embarrassed him with the questions. I hope you found a job, you clearly have the right mindset
my case study request kept going to my spam inbox. red flags in their process they wrote online. feels like so much unnecessary effort.
Yup, same happened to me. They are not serious about the process. Look at their heads and PM leaders. All recent undergrads with minimal experience . Very questionable .
Same with engineering. I felt that they were experimenting with their interview process and needed testers. Didn’t feel that they were actually interested in hiring. Ghosted after all the interviews without any feedback
My experience aligns with what dz139 mentioned above. Made it all the way to the final round with the COO for a similar position, all he did was attack the assumptions on one page of my 10 page case. He did the same with my "letter" I wrote to him for the final interview as well, asking questions about minute details that to be seem irrelevant. Any justification I brought to my answers were instantly followed with more questions. No wonder the churn rate is 70% after a year; they love their "writing" but reject candidates based on interviews where they question irrelevant assumptions about details that whiff the entire point of the case.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could guide me on how you solved the case study. I’m taking some operations research courses and I don’t know if that’s the right track or if it’s overkill
^same, any advice would be greatly appreciated
The perfect candidate for Clipboard's product team is a recent college graduate with no PM experience. If that is you, apply here. You will work remotely, and independently, writing up long reports about what you think engineers should build. Your manager, who is also a recent college graduate with no experience, will then tear those proposals apart so that you "improve." Clipboard does best with a blank slate.
Interesting. I took a look at their product org on LinkedIn and most of them as others have said are recent college grads. Some folks have 7 to 8 years of exp but not all in product. I mean while ideas are great you need at least some degree of experience to understand how software is built and acquire domain and expertise. To me it seems they prefer hiring order takers that can work like hamsters and just run with what senior leaders tell them to do. Seems like a bunch of kids with connections to vCs where they will flame out when the VCs decide to pull the rug.
Did the same case study for a group PM position few months ago. It’s a scam if you ask me