This post is a continuation of - https://www.teamblind.com/post/PM-Interview-Prep-Plan-How-I-got-PM-offers-from-Google-Expedia-Microsoft-and-Facebook-pj56HMHQ This post is not mine but I include it here for reference. The above post breaks the tasks up and gives you a plan of how this big mountain can be scaled. By the end of reading the post and the comments I felt that getting a good PM offer was achievable with rigor and grit. Also, it sets the expectations straight in terms of the level of prep required. I did not go as deep on the technical prep as detailed in the post but I agree that for past Engineers, it's your trump card if you crack the technical rounds. That being said, I got a strong hire from the Dir of Engs for almost all the interviews I did. If you are looking for preparation tips, this post will assume that you have read the post above. The main goal is to give back to the community I learned so much from and which was largely responsible for this big step in my professional career. About me: Total 11 yoe (5 Eng. + 6 PM), MS, no strong tags yet. Last TC: 300k (with stock appreciation) It took me 9 months of preparation (yeah seems like a long time). I mention the time here for all of you who are not able to crack it in the timeframe that the post above mentions. Each of our situations are unique and thus the timelines. I got a series of rejections and successes in that time. You will notice that I have a lot more rejections than successes. Rejections: Amazon L7 - interviewed 2 times; rejections after onsite. I refused to interview at L6. Quora - Senior PM. Rejected after onsite. The recruiter did a debrief later pointing to some of my behavioral answers and answering data/analytics questions. Coupang - Principal PM. Rejected after the HM call - no fit. TikTok - Not sure of the level. Weirdest of them all. Told me they loved me till the last moment then suddenly to fall silent. Facebook - Rejected after onsite. Uber - Rejected after the HM call - no fit. Dropbox - Senior PM - Rejected after the HM call. Grammarly - Senior PM - Rejected after the HM call. Tinder - Senior PM - Rejected after the HM call. Twitter - Senior PM - Rejected after the HM call. Offers: Paypal - T26, 264k, LA. Microsoft - 2 offers L64, 215k, 325k, Seattle. Google - L5, 330k, Mountain view. Accepted this offer Udemy - Principal PM, 210k Base+210k Equity, SFO. TripAdvisor - Associate Director, 235k + 25k joining bonus, Boston. Other interviews, where I stopped the interview process: Walmart, Better.com, Zillow, Chewy, Intuit, Appfolio, Splunk ---------------------------------------------------------------- A few reassertions/add ons from the last post: - Find a study partner: Find someone you can trust and be open with. Two minds working and strategizing towards one final goal, helping, correcting each other along the way is the real deal. Much better than mocking with someone. - Mock with real companies if you can. Candidates can only go so far to simulate an interview environment. There can be feedback just for the sake of feedback. I found interviewing with companies to bolster my confidence as well, when I saw/heard about real offers. - Preparation is a big bit of the interview but your attitude/mindset is the final 10~20%. This bit is really essential to cracking these interviews. I luckily landed myself onto the book mindset and it helped me develop the attitude I needed for winning these interviews. Here is the book I'm talking about - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - A PM interview is a sports game: You will win some and you will loose some. I still see many posts on Blind where people get destroyed after not getting through a company/job they dreamed of and prepared hard for. There can be so many reasons for successes and failures and some of them are not even in your hand. So I hope you can stop wasting your time on moaning about your losses; yes learn from them, yes think about what you will improve for your next interview but that’s it. Move on. It is just a sports game. If you read the mindset book and are able to draw a parallel to what it takes to win a sports game, it will make your interview preparation a lot easier. I will continue to revise this post based on the questions that I get. Thanks Blind community, there is power here to change lives! #microsoft #google #tripadvisor
How did u juggle so many interviews while still doing full-time job?
Good post. Did you ever detect what was the deal breaker in the hm fit calls?
My take was that they had more candidates in the pipeline that had better matching profiles for the specific roles. E.g. one of them was a pm for search and I did not have direct relevant experience there..
How many hours total would you say you spent prepping and practicing?
A lot.. I would try and get at least 2 hours per day on the weekdays and and maybe around 15 over the weekend. This routine maybe for 7 months.
Sounds like your career progression hit a roadblock at Associate Director @ 11 YOE That’s a good timeline to Director in my opinion in F500. I’ve seen 12-15 YOE hit that title. It takes more YOE to hit that title in FAANG
Yes definitely there are people with those titles at that yoe..I was off to slow start..maybe stayed in Eng a little longer than I should have.. probably a couple of other things that I could have done better.
Which offer you opted? Was it the same kind of effort you put to get a job at Wayfair, assuming that’s where you currently at
I did end up taking Google. Will revise the post to reflect that. The level of preparation between the two companies was completely different. Given the prep this time around, feels like I completely winged my Wayfair interview.
Congrats OP. Your hard work is amazing. I struggle with product design questions. Any suggestions?
Thank you. My goal was to get to FANG. I must admit that at times it felt I might still miss the mark in spite of the effort. Consider myself lucky to be in the green. On the design questions the main thing that the that can separate you from the 1000 other candidates is the creativity..to get that going, try practicing design of everyday things you see in your daily life, don't time yourself in the beginning, to bring out the real colors.
Op can you tell me what mtv means? By the way I followed your post from 3 years ago and glad to know you reached your goal!
MTV is mountain view. For credits - the post from 3 years ago is someone else's. I mention it here as that is a great post and still the best prep source I found.
Congrats! Can you tell me how the Zillow process was like and what type of questions were asked?
The first round is the hm round where they are gauging your fit for the position and also explaining the role. My second round was with some head of AI and I got a product sense question specific to Zillow. Got out of the process after that.. overall super nice people.
Thank you!
OP congrats for you. Please help me understand- for Google PM interview, how did you get the phone screen? Did someone refer you or recruiter reached out to you first??
I had interviewed with Google before and failed the onsite. Once you are in the system the recruiters will call you every year, unless the feedback was a disaster. I got the first call by directly applying on the site.
OP, my issue is that I am not in the system. G Recruiter never reach out to me. What is ur recommendation? I applied on the Google careers website but never heard back
Google offered me role at L3 while I already have 4.5 YOE. Should I join or ask then to consider me for L4?
There is no harm in asking. I was being down leveled as well. I asked the recruiter and some leveling up interviews were arranged. But this might just be a single data point and not the norm.