I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Northwestern Mutual (Milwaukee, WI) in Feb 2022
Interview
I interviewed for a remote position. The interview was broken into 4 parts: Recruiter, HM, technical, business.
Recruiter asked common questions related to HR matters. HM was a cool person and I enjoyed talking to her about the role and her team. I thought I was off to a good start. Met the the technical team and both guys were super sweet. The last interview didn't make much sense to me as they kept on probing me about why I wanted this role and almost made me feel bad about applying to their company. It was confusing and I got the feeling that I wasn't a good cultural fit.
What was most surprising is that I got an offer and in fact the last interviewers gave me a strong rating. I still didn't take the offer because I've been in such "foggy" environments before and I didn't thrive. Overall I would recommend the team in Milwaukee as they all sounded very nice and friendly!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain the typical product management role, risks, communication style etc.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Northwestern Mutual
Interview
NM sends so much spam from their financial planners - over 50 emails around the holidays - that my email has automatically marked them as spam, even after removing them from the filter many times. This made the interview process difficult. HR did not contact me by phone and they made an attempt over email. I replied but their response got marked as spam, and I never heard back. Overall, a very disappointing experience and it spoke volumes about how employees are valued there. HR should really reevaluate their outreach process and make a more serious attempt to reach out to candidates when their company is in the business of sending so many emails to get business.
Overall, a lot of efficiency to be gained from working with the third party recruiter to interview process with internal team. The whole process took over 2 months from first contact, large waiting periods with little to no communication,
The process was easy and simple. Conducting introductions. The first stage of the interview process is meeting the hiring manager and exchanging introductions. ... Making conversation. ... Gathering information. ... Performing the interview. ... Concluding.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me something about yourself. How did you hear about this position? Why do you want to work here? Why did you decide to apply for this position? What is your greatest strength? What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Product Manager applicants have rated the interview process at Northwestern Mutual with 2.3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 38% positive. To compare, the company-average is 56.8% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Product Manager roles take an average of 31 days to get hired, when considering 8 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Northwestern Mutual overall takes an average of 20 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Northwestern Mutual as a Product Manager according to 8 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 22%
Group panel interview: 17%
Phone interview: 17%
Skills test: 17%
Background check: 11%
Drug test: 11%
Personality test: 6%
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