Product Management 101-Lecture 9-Interview with a Google Product Manager HD Video Lecture | Understand Product Management: A Complete Course

oh hi this is a man I am a computer
science engineer by education I did my
undergrad in computer science from Delhi
and then my masters from Austin Texas
after which I joined Microsoft I was a
programmer in the office team for about
three plus years in Seattle after that I
wanted to move to product management so
I decided to study business as well as
come back to India so I joined ISP I
spent one year at I speak after ISP I
joined Google as a product manager I
spent about two years at Google working
on Google Apps and after which I joined
a young company called practie last
month practice is a practical designs
product in health space to improve
patient health and patient experiences
when they go and when they go to doctors
for their treatments so as a p.m. to be
multiple hats during one day you are a
strategist for your product so you work
with leadership and other product
managers to make sure that is this to
build the strategy for your product and
to make sure that the strategy that you
be working on is robust a given
competitive landscape and any factor
that can affect it as a p.m. you spent a
lot of time with your engineers almost
every day to make sure that the product
that are under development the product
that is under execution is moving the
right way right features are being
implemented the prioritization is right
so engineers look up to you all the time
you know to make sure that the stuff
that they are working on is actually
going to be helpful useful and impactful
as a product manager you work with
various other teams like marketing to
make sure that your
marketed in a proper way you work with
the support team to make sure that to
understand what you come customers are
complaining about and to make sure that
there is an appropriate support system
around the product that you are
launching you work with the operations
team to make sure that if there is an
on-ground component for your product
that is well laid out and so you
basically work with every every team
that can possibly that pass it there is
a possible bearing on your product and
that also plays a part in taking your
product to the user and that forms a
part of the wood product experience in
general there is you are considered the
owner of the product and you are going
to be helpers like you are generally
very closely associated with the success
and the failure of the whole product
experience and not just the product that
you are delivering
so there are four key things I believe
that Google looks for in a product
manager first is you have strong
analytical skills strong product skills
strong technical understanding and
fourth is a creative kind of mind the
kind of questions that are used to test
these skills are not very different from
what other product companies use so you
can definitely expect some estimation
questions which are used by consulting
companies as well to test your
analytical quotient you can expect some
product questions where you can be asked
to give your opinions or your analysis
on a product that maybe you like or a
product that the interviewer wants to
discuss with you then there is of course
an engineering round at Google where an
engineer engineer talks to you and he or
she can be discussing your technical
understanding of various products of
what goes under the hood you know when a
product is created and 4ci talked about
creative end of mind so you know when
you when all these questions are
discussed and an interview can be
keeping an eye on how creative you are
you know in in trying to think of things
which like in trying to think out of the
box of course and you know are trying to
think from first principles and not not
trying to do a line of what existing
products - and stuff like that so I
think assume a has only a limited
usefulness when it comes to product
management hiring when it comes to
applying for a broad manager position in
Google resume it definitely gets you in
but know that that if you are a person
with prior product experience if you are
a person with prior techie
perience especially in guard companies
then I mean if you basically hit just
these couple of notes then basically you
are a great candidate to be interviewed
at Google you know so you are a great
candidate to be at least even a try for
your candidacy at Google so just make
sure when you're ready to resume that
you know all these strong points that is
your experience in your private
companies your tech background have you
started a company before your MBA of
course also helps these things are
brought out in your resuming and that
should help you
that should help a way for your for your
interview for being called for an
interview at Google so Google has one of
the strongest product management
programs on the planet in fact Google
shaved the product management career in
the value or anywhere else for that
matter to a great extent interview
process in Google interview process for
a product manager at Google consists of
various stages the first part being you
know it starts of course with your
resume and after your resumes
shortlisted you are invited for a
telephonic interview you can have one or
two California introduced based on how
they go after that you are called on
site for face to face interviews you
meet as a part of these interviews you
meet product managers you meet engineers
basically what you are tested on are
your analytical skills your creative
skills your product skills and your tech
skills after your face-to-face
interviews based on how they go you
generally meet a senior a very senior
level person
the in the correct management letter and
that's basically it
once those interviews are over they did
not give you about how you reduce rent
and you know whether they they are
offering you a physician or not so so
when I hire a manager I would test for
things family his or her a little
questioned second guard skills third
resourcefulness and fourth technical
depth so all these four things I think
come in really handy for a product
manager to be successful now how how
would I test these four things so one
can employ various kinds of questions to
test these estimation questions for
example can help in in testing your
analytical skills a lot of consulting
companies use that for the same reason
they have also been helpful for the same
reason in the product management degrees
as well to test your product skills you
know I can discuss products with you
their opinions and your analysis on
products how you think about them how
you strategize about them how you think
about new features that you can put into
them how what is your comment on the
existing features things like that then
for a technical depth I believe is also
very important for a product manager
especially because a big part of the job
a big part of the time at office they
spend working with engineers so if the
program product manager has a technical
depth he or she has an easy easier time
developing a rapport with the engineers
so the fourth thing I talked about was
resourcefulness this is a really hard to
measure but I think a very important
skill for a manager to have because
product managers don't don't work in in
a dream setting they work in a realistic
setting
where a
they also have to be they have to
deliver on the vision that they are
working on and they have to work with
the resources that they have at hand so
these are the four things I believe you
know abroad man you should have and I
value I particularly value in a bird man