Product Manager applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3.4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 52% positive. To compare, the company-average is 61.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Product Manager roles take an average of 38 days to get hired, when considering 643 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 38 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a Product Manager according to 643 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 39%
One on one interview: 24%
Skills test: 10%
Presentation: 6%
Group panel interview: 5%
Background check: 5%
Personality test: 4%
IQ intelligence test: 3%
Other: 2%
Drug test: 1%
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I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Google in Apr 2018
Interview
I applied via employee referral.
I was contacted by a recruiter a few days after submitting my application. We scheduled a first call, where I was walked through the entire process.
We then scheduled a first interview with a PM via hangouts (45 min).
After feedback from interviewer was reviewed, we moved ahead to schedule the on-site interviews.
Please note that while they aim to do 5 x on-site interviews face-to-face, in my case I did most of my interview via conference call from the Google office. Be prepared to perform well via conference call, and also be prepared for surprises, i.e. going in thinking you'll have a face to face interview only to find out it will be via video conference.
Feedback from all the interviews is gathered and submitted to a hiring commitee. The hiring commitee reviews and discusses each candidate's feedback and decides to make a hire recommendation or not.
In my case the feedback from my interviews was mixed. Some went really well, while in others I could have performed better.
Impressions:
* Google and its recruiters do an outstanding job at keeping the candidates informed at all times and provide constructive feeback.
* Some of the interviews can be really easy to navigate while others can be really hard. To some extent I believe this can be to the actual difficulty of certain questions or how hard an individual interviewer is probing, but also due to empathy (or the lack of) with the interviewer.
* Be as prepared as possible. Don't go unprepared. If you fail, Google expects you to wait for at least 12 months before applying again.
* For the on-site interviews, try to get as many interviews face-to-face as possible to increase your chances. Interviewing via video conference won't make it easier.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What's your favorite product and why? How would you improve it?
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA)
Interview
Very standard to start with - recruiter call, then a phone screen with PM covering product design and a quick market estimation discussion. the virtual onsite is 5 rounds: product design, product strategy, analytical, technical, and googleyness and leadership. product design is easily the biggest hurdle. they want you to take a massive problem space, narrow in on a specific user, and map out pain points before even touching solutions. strategy was all about business trade offs and scale. the analytical round focused heavily on execution (with a lot of metrics) technical round does not require coding, but you have to explain system architecture and trade offs under the hood. googleyness is their behavioral round where they mostly check how you handle conflict and team coordination.once you pass, you go into team matching which can take a few more weeks. my best advice is to stop memorizing rigid frameworks. i had a mock on prepfully with a google pm and it really exposed how hard they push back on your initial assumptions (get a mutual friend or a professional coach who you don't know much, turns out to be a surprisingly good reality check). process is a marathon ngl, you’re bound to get tired but very rewarding too
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you improve Google Maps for advertisers?
The process was straightforward and moved quickly. After applying online, a recruiter reached out within a few days for a brief phone screen. That was followed by two video interviews, one with the hiring manager and one with a panel of team members focused on project planning and stakeholder communication. The whole thing wrapped up in about two weeks, and the team was responsive and clear about next steps throughout.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I walked through a specific project where a key vendor delivery slipped. I explained how I flagged the risk early in our weekly status review, reset expectations with stakeholders, re-sequenced dependent tasks, and brought the timeline back within an acceptable range by negotiating a partial early delivery.
standard 1st round digital interview, they are asking about your experience, background, some behavioural questions and technical questions. and they also share a bit more about the role, culture and expectation