5 ms·

I interviewed for a Product Manager role at Google and my experience was awful. Put this things in perspective, I was a Director of PM managing a team at my cur

I interviewed for a Product Manager role at Google and my experience was awful. Put this things in perspective, I was a Director of PM managing a team at my current role and working a lot with customers, presenting in speaking engagements etc as part of my day to day. I get into the interview and the person on the other side seems to know very little of my background. He says he is a PM and starts with how much is google's spend on storage for youtube on an annual basis. Knowing very well, I walk through assumptions like the average youtube video size, no of formats based on screen res and video quality etc etc and give him the logic. He pauses and says give me a dollar value. He doesnt want to understand the logic behind the calculations. Anyway, next few questions are more of the same.. code optimizations etc etc. After 3 or so questions, we were done. No, do you have any questions for me. No customer related discussions. No what I have done in the past and how I've been successful. I feel like these kind of interviews are not judging what the person brings to the table, rather do you know what I'm gong to ask you and that's all that matters. I always look for 2 things in any interview. Are you smart and motivated because nothing we do is rocket science. If you are smart and motivated, you will succeed. The other is, will I (and the rest of the team) get along with you. Teams need to work together and people who lack tact in personal skills end up being very difficult to work with.

brobdingnagians 8y ago
I feel like this hits the nail on the head. They aren't looking for smart, motivated people who will work well on the team. They think they are, and that's what they say they are doing, but large companies have a hard time really doing that. There are so many other motivating factors and interests in the interviewers, the committees, the corporate structure, etc. If you are running your own company and building the product and you know you are going to work with a person you are interviewing, you can select, consciously and unconsciously, for all kinds of things that are important to you as an individual and you are free to pick the person you think has the "smarts you want", which might be technical, personal, emotional, etc. And which might compliment your own skills. But there are all sorts of strengths, and you can be biased enough to select for the ones that work with/for you. in a massive company, you get a watered down set of some sort of skills selected for by a competing line of somewhat disinterested (which can be a bad thing) people trying to meet some "objective" one-size-fits-all criteria.
amelius 8y ago
My guess: they already knew 80% about you before the interview even started, but they needed to obtain your DNA for the remaining 20%. The interview was just a diversion. /s
rlpb 8y ago
> He pauses and says give me a dollar value. He asked you for "how much is google's spend" and you finished your estimations without giving him a dollar value? Did you forget his question? > He doesnt want to understand the logic behind the calculations. From your description that sounds like a false assumption to me. It sounds like despite your estimations you didn't give him an answer to his actual question, and so he had to prompt you.
- alehul 8y ago
  I'm fairly sure that he was speaking his calculations aloud in the process of reaching the dollar value when the interviewer stopped him and asked for an answer. It's a great interview question in the sense of a Fermi problem (I was once asked by a startup "how many window washers are there in [CITY]?"). The premises you choose and how you evaluate them, however, are so much more important in a Fermi problem than a correct answer. I remember being about 5x off but it was only because of a drastic underestimation on the time it takes to clean a window.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    Fermi problems are terrible questions when asked about things the questionee has no concept of. The point of a Fermi problem is to make an educated guess, and doing so requires knowledge of the problem space the guess is being made in. Pulling random constraints out of your ass for a domain you do not know does not demonstrate this ability.
    - alehul 8y ago
      If you're saying that in regards to the window washer question, I actually enjoyed it! The point of a Fermi problem is to arrive at a reasonable estimation for a fairly unknown value by extrapolating and connecting from known values (by known, I mean there's a more narrow lower and upper bound). I wouldn't say that a Fermi problem about how many window washers are in a city is a terrible question; it is more challenging than something in which you already have domain expertise, but that just makes you have to extrapolate further, which is the real point of the Fermi problem. In fact, pretty easy (and knowable) starting points are the population of the city, windows per individual, etc. Doesn't a Fermi problem without domain expertise display more critical thinking and reasoning style, while a Fermi problem with domain expertise is less of a Fermi problem, and more of a knowledge test?
rvn1045 8y ago
I think the thinking behind not asking about your background and looking at your resume etc - is that these things can introduce a bias. By asking for particular types of questions and training their interviewers in a particular way they are trying to reduce bias and streamline the whole process.
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  In the truest sense of the process, an interview and hiring/not hiring decision IS discrimination. You are selecting for traits you (in theory) want, and (in theory) rejecting traits you don't want. Well, you are doing it if your interviewing process is not broken. If you simply try to elide all bias, then you would never be able to make a decision.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    Some types of discrimination (in the basest sense of the word) are illegal and others aren't, though.
    - bicubic 8y ago
      ...Like discrimination by gender or race? https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desperation-to-improve-diversity/ https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desp...

brobdingnagians 8y ago

I feel like this hits the nail on the head. They aren't looking for smart, motivated people who will work well on the team. They think they are, and that's what they say they are doing, but large companies have a hard time really doing that. There are so many other motivating factors and interests in the interviewers, the committees, the corporate structure, etc. If you are running your own company and building the product and you know you are going to work with a person you are interviewing, you can select, consciously and unconsciously, for all kinds of things that are important to you as an individual and you are free to pick the person you think has the "smarts you want", which might be technical, personal, emotional, etc. And which might compliment your own skills. But there are all sorts of strengths, and you can be biased enough to select for the ones that work with/for you. in a massive company, you get a watered down set of some sort of skills selected for by a competing line of somewhat disinterested (which can be a bad thing) people trying to meet some "objective" one-size-fits-all criteria.

amelius 8y ago

My guess: they already knew 80% about you before the interview even started, but they needed to obtain your DNA for the remaining 20%. The interview was just a diversion. /s

rlpb 8y ago

> He pauses and says give me a dollar value. He asked you for "how much is google's spend" and you finished your estimations without giving him a dollar value? Did you forget his question? > He doesnt want to understand the logic behind the calculations. From your description that sounds like a false assumption to me. It sounds like despite your estimations you didn't give him an answer to his actual question, and so he had to prompt you.

alehul 8y ago
I'm fairly sure that he was speaking his calculations aloud in the process of reaching the dollar value when the interviewer stopped him and asked for an answer. It's a great interview question in the sense of a Fermi problem (I was once asked by a startup "how many window washers are there in [CITY]?"). The premises you choose and how you evaluate them, however, are so much more important in a Fermi problem than a correct answer. I remember being about 5x off but it was only because of a drastic underestimation on the time it takes to clean a window.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  Fermi problems are terrible questions when asked about things the questionee has no concept of. The point of a Fermi problem is to make an educated guess, and doing so requires knowledge of the problem space the guess is being made in. Pulling random constraints out of your ass for a domain you do not know does not demonstrate this ability.
  - alehul 8y ago
    If you're saying that in regards to the window washer question, I actually enjoyed it! The point of a Fermi problem is to arrive at a reasonable estimation for a fairly unknown value by extrapolating and connecting from known values (by known, I mean there's a more narrow lower and upper bound). I wouldn't say that a Fermi problem about how many window washers are in a city is a terrible question; it is more challenging than something in which you already have domain expertise, but that just makes you have to extrapolate further, which is the real point of the Fermi problem. In fact, pretty easy (and knowable) starting points are the population of the city, windows per individual, etc. Doesn't a Fermi problem without domain expertise display more critical thinking and reasoning style, while a Fermi problem with domain expertise is less of a Fermi problem, and more of a knowledge test?

rvn1045 8y ago

I think the thinking behind not asking about your background and looking at your resume etc - is that these things can introduce a bias. By asking for particular types of questions and training their interviewers in a particular way they are trying to reduce bias and streamline the whole process.

hpcjoe 8y ago
In the truest sense of the process, an interview and hiring/not hiring decision IS discrimination. You are selecting for traits you (in theory) want, and (in theory) rejecting traits you don't want. Well, you are doing it if your interviewing process is not broken. If you simply try to elide all bias, then you would never be able to make a decision.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Some types of discrimination (in the basest sense of the word) are illegal and others aren't, though.
  - bicubic 8y ago
    ...Like discrimination by gender or race? https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desperation-to-improve-diversity/ https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desp...