I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Google
Interview
I applied to Google through two referrals. It took a few days after I submitted my application to be contacted by a recruiter. Once I was contacted, it was fairly quick to get a 30-minute phone screen scheduled. The phone screen was with another PM at Google who asked an analytical/estimation question and a product strategy question. I'd prepared by practicing estimation questions and strategy case studies I found online and through Cracking the PM Interview and basically did everything by the book. I felt pretty confident with my interview - great conversation and worked with the interviewer through the problems. After over 2 weeks post phone interview, I finally heard back from the recruiter saying they would not be moving forward and he wanted tell me over the phone so he could offer me feedback. His feedback was to improve in strategy and analytical case studies (uh, duh) but no deeper than that. This could have been an email instead of having me wait two weeks.
I'd advise lots of practice on estimation and strategy questions but also, don't get your hopes up or bank on getting Google.
The process was straightforward and moved quickly. After applying online, a recruiter reached out within a few days for a brief phone screen. That was followed by two video interviews, one with the hiring manager and one with a panel of team members focused on project planning and stakeholder communication. The whole thing wrapped up in about two weeks, and the team was responsive and clear about next steps throughout.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I walked through a specific project where a key vendor delivery slipped. I explained how I flagged the risk early in our weekly status review, reset expectations with stakeholders, re-sequenced dependent tasks, and brought the timeline back within an acceptable range by negotiating a partial early delivery.
standard 1st round digital interview, they are asking about your experience, background, some behavioural questions and technical questions. and they also share a bit more about the role, culture and expectation
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.