Learnings from my Product Manager interview @ Facebook
This article is part of a multipart series of my experiences interviewing at Google, Facebook, Airbnb and Walmart Labs.
I interviewed for Facebook’s RPM (Rotational Product Manager) program. Which is a 18 month program where you get to rotate across 3 different products and learn the foundations of product management. All in all, super interesting for anyone looking to transition into PMing. Also very competitive.
The interview process for RPM is exactly the same as that for a PM.
The Process
Recruiter call — Similar to any recruiter call, the recruiter would ask you about your background, recent work, why do you want to work at Facebook. A few ‘tell me about a time when ..’ questions will also be asked. You should ask what the next steps are, you can get a good gauge of what your next round would be and how likely you are to proceed.
Phone Screen — This is two 45 min video call with a PM. It would be one Product Sense and Execution. It starts with a quick questions about yourself, (5–8 min max) then the interview questions. Finally you get a chance to ask few questions (3–5 min).
Onsite —3 onsite interviews. Product Sense, Executions and Leadership and Drive.
Wait for Results — This is the tough part. You’ve done all you could and now you had to wait. Your recruiter would sit together with your interviewers and get feedback from them. Your recruiter should call you and tell you next steps.
A thing to note — Facebook (and Google) hire PMs as generalists. Which means that typically you aren’t hired for a particular team. After you get a yes after your final round, you will have team matching to see what team you would work with this could happen either before or after you start your job.
Breakdown of each interview type:
Product Sense
This is Facebook’s version of product design question.
Improve product — eg. How would you improve stories? Ask the interviewer if they have a goal in mind, else derive the main goal of the product and focus on improving that. (most of the time its engagement, do NOT focus on monetization)
Design product X — eg: Design a social travel product. These questions don’t have a right answer, but the important thing is to show structured thinking. Talking about FB mission is super important here. How does your solution tie into the high level mission of the company? If you are building a new product which already exists in the market, how does your product address pain points/ use cases that are unique or
A big part of product design for Facebook is being able to describe your solution well. Be comfortable with drawing wireframes for your solutions.
Product Execution
Metrics for success — How would you measure the success of X?
Important tips:
- Ask clarifying questions: Where in the product lifecycle is this? (launch/growth — this helps set the goal)
- Chart out the actions that users go through with the product. Use the 5 buckets to categorize them. — Acquisition, Activation, Engagement, Retention, Monetization
- Focus on few north star/primary metrics. Do not list out all the possible metrics that could be tracked for the product.
The GAME method is a great framework you can use. More details here.
Diagnose —You came into work on Monday and saw that your product X just experienced a 20% drop in DAU. What will you do?
Asking clarifying questions and structure is the crux of this question. I’ve put together my framework here.
Tradeoff — Would you prioritize feature X or Y? How would you determine if this feature should be rolled out?
You may have to suggest an A/B test here. Go through common terminology with A/B testing — eg: control group, p-value, and treatment.
Leadership and Drive
This is a behavioral interview. You should definitely prepare for this interview with stories that are structured and practiced well. I’ve talked about few skills to focus on here.
Preparation
I’ve put together PM interview resources here.
Other Tips
- Facebook offers a interview prep session with current PMs if you have proceeded past the video screen round. Your recruiter may tell you about this, or you could ask for it to be scheduled. Though I am not sure if everyone has access to this.
- Reach out to current PMs, they will be more inclined to help you out if you say you have an interview coming up. They can give you feedback on your approach to questions and what to focus on.
Conclusion
In the end, I didn’t make it. After my onsite interviews, I got a no from the recruiter. Preparing and interviewing at Facebook was extremely fun. I loved practicing with others preparing for the interview. The questions are interesting and they push you at times to see how creative you can get.
A big reason for writing this is so that I can remember the learnings from my process, so that next time I won’t have to spend as much time gathering the knowledge. Hopefully it helps a few as well.
