I applied online. I interviewed at TrackMaven (Washington, DC) in Mar 2016
Interview
Applied on Glassdoor or LinkedIn and got a response requesting a phone interview a few days later. The call took about 30 min and was very basic and high level. "Director" of People first asked what I knew about TrackMaven to which I responded with a perfect answer, her words. The next 15 minutes were spent raving about how awesome it is to work at TrackMaven. I suppose after that I was suppose to beg for the job.
After the "TrackMaven is awesome, we have catered lunch..." speech I was asked to describe my company and my position. I answered with detail and was able to articulate how my current experience as a PM aligns with the responsibilities of the advertised position. After explaining what dictation software is (who in the 21st century has never heard of dictation software?) and covering more of my day to day activities, I was asked for my current salary. After that, the recruiter was eager to get off of the phone (lol)! I could sense this and I asked if she thought I was a good fit. As another glassdoor interview reviewer mentioned, "she hemmed and hawwed and gave a non-answer". She did say something about wanting a PM who had worked with "technology X" (hidden out of respect for their upcoming product). This of course is irrelevant and here's why. The process for creating a product for "technology X" is no different than creating an app for watching live streams of purple kittens eating catnip. In general, you need to understand the customer's pain points, validate the market, build concepts, build stories around those concepts and then map those to specific features. For a PM position I would have expected to get the following question - "You have not worked with "technology X". If you worked at TrackMaven and Executive management tells you to create a product that leverages "technology X". What do you do?". To my surprise, I was never asked this question.
Now, I hope this review does not come off as a rant from a disgruntled interview reject. But I will say that I have solid PM experience at an established company with proven results at every stage of my 12+ year career . That being said, I do think I deserved an in person interview.
I will end with this;
For potential candidates;
If you are 4-5 years out of college and like reading and re-tweeting Medium articles all day then this is the place for you. If your an experienced professional then look elsewhere, unless you are applying to a VP position.
For TrackMaven;
Be more specific in the job description with what you are looking for and give honest feedback if someone doesn't meet the mark. Focus less on "perks" (almost everyone is giving the same perks by the way) and more on why someone would want to spend 10 hours a day building your product.
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