It is a visitor put up from our PMHQ Advisor, Fernando Delgado.
Context
I labored at Google for five+ years, the place I interviewed over 150 PM candidates. I then labored at Yahoo for 3 years, the place I interviewed over 100 PM candidates. At Yahoo, I used to be a member of the hiring committee for two years and co-founded the APM program. So the observations under primarily apply to these 2 firms and the Product Supervisor function.
Once you apply for a job at a tech firm, you formally enter their recruiting pipeline. That pipeline has a variety of filters that lower down the of candidates at each step. At a excessive degree, the method could appear like this:
- receives resume
- Recruiter calls candidate
- 1 or 2 cellphone interviews (may be in-person campus interviews for faculty college students)
- 3 to six in-person interviews
- Provide is prolonged
Be aware: often, there are exceptions to those steps. As an illustration, if a candidate has a proposal from a competitor with a good deadline, the corporate could select to skip step 3 altogether.
Step 1: Making use of
As soon as the corporate receives your resume, they determine whether or not your background is a match to the function(s) you utilized to. A part of this occurs algorithmically and a part of it occurs through people.
Algorithmically implies that software program ranks candidates primarily based on sure key phrases that seem (or don’t seem) on their resumes. After this has occurred, recruiters, PMs and/or hiring managers will take a look at prime matches. Most individuals with a stable resume get a cellphone interview.
Tip: every time attainable, apply to an organization through their worker referral program. This will increase your odds of getting a cellphone name considerably. In all probability 2x-5x extra at firms a lot of folks apply to. When you don’t know anybody on the firm, see if a buddy of a buddy works there, and get an intro.
It could be a good suggestion to shine up in your expertise or undergo a product supervisor bootcamp to hone your expertise.
Step 2: Preliminary Telephone Name
Some folks mistake this primary cellphone dialog for an interview. In actual fact, typically it’s skipped altogether. So it’s at all times a good suggestion to ask your recruiter who the primary cellphone name is with – a member of the HR division, or a PM/hiring supervisor.
This step will not be meant to filter out candidates, though it may well occur in excessive circumstances – e.g. if you happen to’re tremendous impolite to the recruiter, or it’s found that you just lied in your resume. Greater than something, this step is geared toward explaining the remainder of the method to the candidate, in addition to for the corporate to collect intel which can be essential for later steps. For instance, present wage, desired compensation package deal, how senior the candidate actually is, and so on.
Step 3: Observe-up Telephone Interviews
That is the place the enjoyable begins. You may be requested to do 1 or 2 cellphone interviews (perhaps over video chat). Questions for PMs will fall into one of many following classes:
- Behavioral
- Technical
- Analytical
- Product sense
- Technique
When you do exceptionally effectively on the primary cellphone interview, you may be requested to attend a half or full day of in-person interviews. When you do poorly, the corporate will cease the method there. When you do alright, however not like a rockstar, they are going to schedule a 2nd cellphone interview.
Typically, the 2nd individual interviewing you hasn’t spoken to the first interviewer. This implies there’s at all times an opportunity you get repeat questions. Don’t fear about that – it’s not your fault. If the query could be very particular, then be happy to say to the interviewer that another person already requested the query, however that you just’re comfortable to reply it once more.
Tip: it’s extremely really useful to spend a couple of hours making ready for these interviews. Even the very best PMs I do know need to spend a while making ready good anecdotes, realized, product concepts earlier than they the interview course of.
Step 4: Remaining Rounds
This step is similar to step 3, besides it occurs in individual, and there are sometimes not less than 4 interviews in a single day.
Most firms will give you lunch with one among their PMs. This isn’t meant to be a proper interview, however moderately a time so that you can loosen up and ask as many questions as you may have concerning the firm. Except you screw up massive time throughout lunch, this dialog will truly not rely in the direction of your interview scores.
Some firms will let you know that you’ve 2-3 interviews earlier than lunch and that you will have an additional 1-2 after lunch. When a candidate will not be doing effectively within the first couple of interviews, their afternoon classes get canceled to keep away from losing time. So if you happen to’re on this scenario, it’s at all times an excellent signal to have the afternoon interviews.
Tip: use the whiteboard every time it is smart. Pull out your smartphone or pill everytime you need to present a selected product to the interviewer.
Step 5: Analysis
By now, you’ve in all probability had a complete of 4-6 interviews. Everybody you noticed has submitted detailed interview suggestions. The hiring supervisor and/or hiring committee will check out your entire package deal: your resume, your interview scores, and the detailed suggestions from the interview panel.
As a rule, the choice of whether or not to increase a proposal to a candidate takes lower than 5 minutes of dialogue. On some events, the method can change into extra difficult – the hiring committee could need to get extra info from one of many interviewers. Typically, the hiring committee feels that an essential space was not completely examined, and they should schedule yet one more interview.
Scoring:
At most tech firms, every member of the interview panel will submit written suggestions to the hiring committee and/or hiring supervisor. This suggestions will often comprise a numerical rating, a abstract, listing of strengths, and areas for enchancment.
What the scores imply:
4.0: one of many prime folks I’ve ever interviewed in my profession. I’m ready to struggle for this individual with my CEO.
3.5: a really robust candidate. We should always undoubtedly rent this individual and I’d actually get pleasure from working with them.
3.0: this individual is an effective candidate. I consider we should always rent them, however may be satisfied in any other case.
2.5: good interviewers will sometimes steer clear of this rating, because it’s a synonym for “I don’t have a powerful opinion a technique or one other, so I principally wasted my and the candidate’s time”.
2.0: this individual will not be absolutely certified to be a PM. Nevertheless, I may be satisfied in any other case if different folks noticed stable potential.
1.5 and under: I strongly consider this individual shouldn’t be employed. I’m ready to justify my resolution in entrance of the hiring committee.
Since most tech firms will do a set of 4+ interviews, you’ll get a mean rating from all of the interviews. The typical of those interviews should be over 3.0 so as so that you can have an excellent likelihood of getting a proposal. As an illustration, the next units of scores would possible get a proposal:
- 4.0, 3.5, 3.0, 2.0
- 3.5, 3.5, 3.0, 3.0
- 4.0, 4.0, 3.5, 1.5
The next scores are in dangerous territory and may go a technique or one other:
- 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0
- 4.0, 4.0, 1.0, 1.0
- 3.0, 3.0, 3.0, 3.0 – nobody was blown away, so why hassle?
The next units of scores possible received’t produce a proposal:
- 4.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
- 3.0, 3.0, 2.0, 2.0
Remember the fact that whereas this course of appears democratic, scoring excessive with probably the most senior people is an effective consequence, even when the interviews with junior people didn’t go too effectively. Senior PMs (i.e. Administrators and above) typically have extra and affect over a hiring committee’s resolution.
In regards to the visitor writer: This was a visitor put up contributed by Fernando Delgado, Advisor to Product HQ and former Senior Director of Product Administration at the place he co-founded and led ‘s Affiliate Product Supervisor program. He has interviewed over 300+ product managers in his profession at Google & Yahoo .
