Not sure what I'm doing wrong here as a PM. What the hell do I need to do to crack the big company move? I'm doing mocks, applying frameworks, practicing questions from Glassfoor/Lewis Lin. TC: $185k plus paper money 5 YOE with masters.
You are not doing anything wrong. Those companies are loosing a great chap like you. Be amazing đââď¸
You donât even know them?
MSFT, how much does it cost you to be nice and show a stranger some support?
Every interview is an experience and you get better. Iâm positive youâll land something soon. Donât beat yourself up! Also talking as an ex faang pm. FAANG interviews are usually a hit or miss. You only need 1-2 douchebags with implicit bias to fuck up your chances.
Good advice. Luck plays a role too as pointed out here. 1-2 bad apples can really ruin ur chances given how close the competition is.
This is so true⌠with any interview,interviewers bias or mood plays a big role unless these companies make it mandatory to record the interview to see how Much of a douchebag their interviewers are
I echo the sentiment above. I interviewed & made it through Google HC but then got screwed at TM. Rejected everywhere else, except TikTok (a long list at this point). I learned 2 things: 1. Meta & Google (+ similar) are just the luck of the draw with how good your interviewers are. My first Google interview was rough due to a worse interviewer. The latter interviewers were amazing. 2. Smaller companies care a ton about culture fit. At Meta and Google, you just need to pass the interview and then match with a team. Before the hiring freezes / lack of headcount, a lot of teams would take anyone who was decent. Now it's a competition to be the "perfect fit". At the smaller companies, it was very similiar. You can get rejected because your experience is close, but not exactly the background they need. If your having issues at the non-team stage, E.g. Product Sense & Execution interviews => Go do Exponent or Prod. Alliance or something If you're having issues with team match - look into more suitable teams or roles to apply to. Finally - man it's a rough job market unless your senior. Even 5 years at L5 isn't easy to get these days. Plus a ton of great talent also saturated the market through layoffs the last few months. Your not doing anything wrong, it's just very competitive and people who would've gotten in last year may not this year.
Appreciate your thoughtful reply. Notto rebuttal you but in the spirit to demonstrate my persistence/previous efforts. I used product alliance last year with G. Have also paid for membership on exponent for a couple months. Also paid for several sessions with coaches last year. It's a mix of team matching and pre-team matching. For Stripe, DD, and Uber, had teams interested I was interviewing for. I gguess I'm coming to a loss at what to do to improve my chancesbecause I'm blind to my feedback. The process feels like a black box, esp when get good feedback in mocks.
FWIW, for G, I passed everything except the technical round. I just didn't go far enough in the sys design. Had the sys design mapped out but didn't create data tables and columns. I just didn't know the interviewer wanted that level of detail. Passed everything else strongly. Got an opportunity to re-do the technical, but I got hung up on estimating peak traffic for one of their products because I wasn't aware the max number of connections a server could have :(
You need to learn from each failure.
You should lie more
Lololololol
Do you know what questions you are struggling with? Just knowing frameworks wonât help if itâs too rigid. We know if youâre trying to memorize a framework vs actually understanding it. We make sure probe your questions and assumptions at multiple levels. Let me know if that helps. I do mock interviews if you need coaching.
Exactly, OP needs to learn from each failure
I would love feedback, but most of the time don't get it from the recruiter or the feedback is very broad/vague and hard to connect the dots to which interview that was for. I may get in my own head and get nervous, which feezes me up. The whole interview process feels like a play with these frameworks. It feels like it's just being on stage and needing to say the right things. In my Meta interview, I received the exact same prompt that was given in the Meta-held practice rounds they hold and received a failing mark on that (gave the same response). Anyway, appreciate the thoughts and encouragement. Time to land one in the new year!
I'm not a PM yet but feel that answers leading from a framework first can get biased by the forced fit issue. Do mock interviews to see if you're answers sound authentic enough. Sometimes it may be better to give a natural answer and show fitment or alignment to a framework rather than the other way round. Not sure if this helps. All the best landing your move.
This is not the right approach for an interview where you will be evaluated more for your thought process than for the final answer you arrive at. Take more time upfront to determine the right framework.
Hereâs a thought - For them to be able to pay you significantly higher than what you make and to value your work exp, theyâll need you to perform at a certain level and maybe thatâs where you are lacking. You can easily get into these companies at junior level with same or slightly higher salary.
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Keep your head high. Rejections sometimes not your fault. There are too many candidates now than ever in the job market. Consider this as a good experience builder and keep on trying. You will get there. Talk to someone who is in your field that you can trust for advice. Sit down with them for a coffee / happy hour. Gather knowledge to see where you may improve and hammer on those parts of the interview.