I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Rakuten (Bengaluru) in Jul 2020
Interview
Went through 7 rounds of discussions and case studies with the product, tech, senior leadership, program management stakeholders.
Spent 12-14 hours on a case study related to their own business unit.
Cleared all rounds of interview, but saw very clear red flags of the toxicity in the work environment.
One guy glorified that people work for 18-20 hours a day for 6 months straight without taking a break. And the expectation from the candidate was the same.
Most product team members were nice and it was a learning experience.
But, the HR recruiter was very rude and unprofessional.
In the end, they made a very lowball offer ( lower than my current salary), which I had to decline after a few rounds of review & discussion. This is after the HR knew my salary expectation on the 1st call.
My suggestion is to avoid this company for this role, which will only waste your time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You're the PM of a grocery supermarket. How would you design a digital solution for the same?
Mainly English. They shared about the hiring team then asked about my background, strength and weakness, technical questions and one question in Japanese. Overall it was quite nice experience. 2 interviews in total, one 1on1 and a 2on1.
The whole recruitment process was straightforward and fast, there were level of interviews. First was HR interview, then a user interview, and finally the final interview. The whole interview process took about 1 month from scheduling, but was about 2 months from application.
Referred by Rakuten employee and got up to 3 positions to apply. After HR checked your resume and fit, totally 3 interviews came: hiring manager, team leader & senior manager.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What kind of project have you ever led? Scale and responsibility ?
Product Manager applicants have rated the interview process at Rakuten with 2.8 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 44.6% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Product Manager roles take an average of 28 days to get hired, when considering 45 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Rakuten overall takes an average of 35 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Rakuten as a Product Manager according to 45 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 28%
Phone interview: 17%
Group panel interview: 15%
Background check: 10%
Skills test: 10%
Presentation: 6%
Personality test: 5%
Other: 4%
IQ intelligence test: 3%
Drug test: 1%
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