Google APM Study Guide

Google Interview Prep Guide - Associate Product Manager (APM)

Preparation Overview

The product management interview will largely consist of hypothetical questions and at times a few situational questions focusing on effectively leading end-to-end product roadmaps.

Interviewers want to know that you can handle the full lifecycle of a product with a clear, creative vision, develop product launch plans, use metrics and data to help drive your decision-making, understand and analyze user needs, motivate cross-functional teams, and conduct research on markets and competitors.

• Strategizing: Begin with showcasing strategic thinking when faced with the initial prompt. How are you incorporating this way of thinking throughout your discussion?

• Navigating complexity and ambiguity: How do you deal with ambiguous situations and problems? Think about how you would react and make decisions in situations when you have no visibility of the total picture.

• Delivering results: Give examples of what metrics you would use to determine the success of a product. How do you evaluate the success or failure of a product? Be prepared to discuss how to use data effectively to move critical decisions forward and how to measure impact.

• User-centric approach: Begin analyzing the needs of the target audience and looking for ways to meet them. What are the problems that the current and target customers are facing?

• Use a Structured Approach: Using a framework or structured approach ensures your answers are clear, concise, and easy to follow.

Preliminary Assessment

You should expect one 45-minute phone interview with a Product Manager focusing on the product insights, strategic insights, and analytical components - we recommend reviewing these areas in-depth. It’s important to note that while there may be a few questions about your background and previous experiences, the majority of the interview will focus on how you think, communicate, approach problems, and creatively problem solve (or the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.).

Interviews

You should expect 3-5 (one on one) virtual interviews (the number will be dependent on which role you’re interviewing for), focusing on the six components of a Google Product Manager.

Six Components of a Product Manager

1. Product Insights

Google Product managers should first think about user experiences, start from the customer’s perspective by using tools and the expertise of others to gather user insights in order to understand and empathize with user needs, including incorporating users with varied life experiences.

With the user in mind; create the purpose, value, and perspective of what the product should be over the long-term, and to articulate the vision to stakeholders. Convey a clearly defined product vision in a way that captures attention and creates a credible plan that compels others to action.

Finally, having the ability to combine an understanding of the problem space with a technical and business understanding of the options available to address it, and synthesize them into credible solutions. Ability to articulate the solutions across a range of detail depending on the audience.

Sample Questions

• How would you improve restaurant search?

• If you were to build the next great feature for Google Search, what would it be?

• How would you improve Google Maps?

• How would you design an alarm clock for a person with a visual impairment?

2. Strategic Insights

By incorporating and applying one's understanding of the customer, competitive intelligence, external trends, and data from lagging/leading metrics, Google’s Product Managers can successfully establish or adapt strategies. They are able to account for how different strategies and decisions impact the results of a given product. This could include defining short- and long-term monetization or cost-savings opportunities, customer choices/options, and pricing strategies.

Sample Questions

• How would you grow [a certain product] product?

• Should Google offer a StubHub competitor? That is, sell sports, concert, and theater tickets?

• How would you monetize [a certain product] more effectively?

3. Analytical

Google Product Managers demonstrate an understanding of challenges facing a product, absorbs relevant information, and develops opinionated perspective. This includes understanding of the product’s market/industry, competitors, and product space’s underlying functionalities and capabilities. They are able to articulate solutions across a range of detail.

Sample Questions

• How many messages per second does Gmail receive?

• You notice a 30% change in usage of your product, what would you do?

• As a PM in Gmail you come in on Monday, take a quick look at the metrics dashboard and see received emails have dropped 15% last weekend over the weekend(s) before. What do you do?

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration

Google’s Product Managers work with cross-functional teams (marketing, UX, PR, engineering, etc.) to get things done. They have the ability to effectively address difficult questions, handle pushback from a high-level audience, and maintain a professional demeanor while engaging in difficult or sometimes high-pressure situations.

Sample Questions

• How do you resolve conflicting product requirements? What or who determines which requirement takes the hit?

• How would you manage through a latent field failure or bug that is directly impacting customers and driving return rates up or support contacts?

• Your largest customer is loudly advocating for a new feature which is not in your prioritized roadmap. Sales, eager to please, have gone straight to Engineering to see if they can drop everything and get this done. What do you do?

5. Craft and Execution

While keeping the user in mind, Google’s Product Manager’s have the ability to strike a balance between level of detail, prioritization, and execution by being intentional. They demonstrate deep knowledge of the product lifecycle; the overall process for developing, maintaining, and evolving products. They are able to differentiate the roles and responsibilities of engineering and other functions, major phases, checkpoints, and deliverables. Google PMs understand common technical and non-technical issues and considerations for launching, updating, or sunsetting products.

Sample Questions

• Pick a product of your choice. What are the goals of the product? What’s in your monthly business review deck for the leadership team?

• You are about to launch a new app that is of strategic importance for the company. 1 month out from launch internal Dogfood suggests the app isn't ready (you are below target on several key metrics including CSAT). What do you do?

• Imagine I'm a VC, offering you $20M to build any technology-enabled product/service you'd like. Please walk me through how you would get started? (Problem, Solution, User, Monetize, TAM)

• At what milestone or markers would you look for to determine if a product isn’t performing well and what considerations do you make before you sunset the product? What is the process you would lay out? How do you handle the stakeholders?

6. [Full-time role only] Googleyness and Leadership

Product Managers are assessed not only on core product skills but also on how you get work done and collaborate with others. Interviewers will use a mix of behavioral and hypothetical questions to assess:

Googleyness: Share how you work individually and on a team, help others, handle ambiguity, and push yourself to grow outside of your comfort zone. Understand what it means to be Googley by reading Google’s corporate philosophy and the Google Values.

Leadership: Be prepared to discuss how you have used your communication and decision-making skills to mobilize others. This might be stepping up to a leadership role in an internship or with an organization, or by helping a team succeed even when you weren’t officially the leader.

General Interview Tips

• Explain - We want to understand how you think, so describe your thought process and decision-making throughout the interview. Remember, we’re not only evaluating your technical ability but also how you solve problems. Explicitly state and check assumptions with your interviewer to ensure they are reasonable.

• Clarify - Many questions will be intentionally open-ended to provide insight into what categories and information you value within the technological puzzle. We’re looking to sew how you engage with the problem and your primary method for solving it. Be sure to talk through your thought process and feel free to ask specific questions if you need clarification.

• Improve - Think about ways to improve the solution you present. It’s worthwhile to think out loud about your initial thoughts on a question. In many cases, your first answer may need some refining and further explanation. If necessary, start with the brute force solution and improve on it — just let the interviewer know that's what you're doing and why.

  Practice - Stay current with tech trends and innovations by reading relevant news articles and blogs. Understand who your users are. Become comfortable working with frameworks. Integrate these topics in mock interviews.

Don’t Forget

• Apply a user-centric approach

• Ask clarifying questions before proceeding

• Seek out hints if needed

• Check or validate assumptions

• Aim to find multiple solutions before choosing the best one

• Consider new ideas and methods before tackling a problem

• Remain inventive and flexible in your solutions

• Be yourself