Sneak Peek into Launchmetrics’ Product Management Recruitment Process
Get to know more about Launchmetrics' innovative recruitment process for Product Management roles.
Margot and Cristina, two of our Product team members, co-write this article:
Margot Lasseigne, Chief Data Officer at Launchmetrics
Margot leads Launchmetrics’ data-driven initiatives, emphasizing the central role of data as the backbone of product development and reaffirming the company’s commitment to providing actionable insights and tailored data solutions in the Fashion, Lifestyle, and Beauty industries. She was part of the team who founded Launchmetrics’ proprietary algorithm, Media Impact Value™, as well as two of Launchmetrics’ leading analytical solutions, Insights and Discover.
Alongside her full-time role, Margot is a regular lecturer at the University of Sciences Po, teaching the Masters 2 New Luxury & Arts de Vivre and the Côte d’Azur University for the Masters Affluencers and Luxury Business in the Spring 2023. Margot holds a Master in Digital & Entrepreneurship from HEC Paris.
Cristina Santamarina, Product Director Metrics at Launchmetrics
Cristina joined Launchmetrics in late 2022 as a Product Director. She handles the higher-level coordination of the Metrics solutions, Insights and Discover, as well as the day-to-day operations of Discover. She combines this with facilitating training about product analytics at The Hero Camp.
Margot: At Launchmetrics, the product team is composed of 8 product managers split into 2 different tribes — “Launch” and “Metrics”. When I arrived in the company 6 years ago we were merely 3 product-focused team members with a much less structured organization. Since then we’ve expanded the teams, giving us the chance to iterate on the recruitment process several times. This gave us the opportunity to finetune the process to ensure we find the best fit for our team as well as the new hire!
With this blog article, we hope to highlight the different steps of the process and what we are trying to achieve at each stage. I’m proud to have co-authored this article with one of our latest recruits, Cristina, to share both sides of the story.
#1 — PM Soft Skills Assessment
What’s the goal?
By now, our HR manager has already done a quick pre-qualification call with the candidate. This first step aims to:
- Identify the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses and how they complement the Tribes
- Confirm general smartness and leadership,
- Verify that career growth expectations match with the role’s growth trajectory.
Who is in the room?
This interview typically lasts around one hour and is organized with the HR manager and the hiring manager.
What can the candidate expect?
There is nothing specific to prepare for this call. Just make sure your camera is working! We appreciate remote interviews (and working) at Launchmetrics — so long as you have a good webcam.
We usually spend a fair amount of time focusing on the candidate’s past experiences, making it more of a discussion. We look for proof of a structured and curious mindset as well as leadership qualities while assessing the candidate’s communication skills.
In most cases, we also ask candidates what top skills Product Managers (PMs) must have to thrive in their role. On top of making sure there is alignment, the goal is for the candidate to run a self assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, in order to confirm the candidate is indeed an asset which will complement the greater team. We assess the candidate’s skills across 4 categories (Execution, Creativity, Strategy and Growth) and ask them how they would rank themself for each of them.
Finally, we also make sure the role is properly understood and clarify any doubts!
Cristina’s feedback:
“This first interview was very similar to others I have gone through, but the self evaluation made it special. It showed that the Launchmetrics team had a framework and that all four skill categories were valued in the team. Already at this interview I loved their curiosity and the openness to answer questions.
But the real surprise came after my interview: I received an email with feedback! It’s a greate practice as I had never received anything beyond a couple of lines before from other companies. I took it as a sign of their willingness to to do things right and their commitment to transparency.”
#2 — PM Hard Skills Assessment
What’s the goal?
During this second interview, our main goal is to make sure the candidate has the hard skills that match our expectations. In particular, we are looking to:
- Make sure that the candidate has good product sense and is able to cut problems into small chunks with empathy and in an organized manner,
- Confirm they have the strong execution skills needed to succeed in the role,
- Demonstrate to the candidate that they will work with skilled professionals who will be able to challenge them and help them grow, creating a positive team atmosphere.
Who is in the room?
This step usually lasts around one hour and is run by 2 senior product team members. One of them is a note taker and the other leads the interview. We’ve noticed that we like doing it with two people because of the two complementary tasks. The interview leader focuses on guiding the interview on the right path by asking pointed questions, while the note taker has time to step back and think about the content of the candidate’s proposals, and challenge them from a higher level perspective.
What can the candidate expect?
For this step, there is nothing to prepare but we usually all leave the room/zoom quite tired, so bring your energy! It is probably the most challenging and engaging for the candidate but also for the interviewer!
The session is split around 2 questions, each lasting around 30 min. The first one is meant to assess product sense. We ask a very high-level question/problem and just watch how the candidate approaches it, explaining their thought process. By default we avoid any topics that are too close to our industry as well as to ensure that it’s relatable for all candidates. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be related to tech at all! Along the way provide guidance to the candidate (depending on seniority) and discuss the hypotheses together. We expect a good description of the user persona and identification of the pain points in order to set a relevant vision and to further brainstorm solutions. For example, the question we asked Cristina was “How would you improve the elevator experience?”.
The second question must prove that the candidate has good execution skills and a data driven approach. We’re asking them to put themselves in the shoes of the PM for a very well known product and ask how they would set and prioritize objectives for the team. We expect that the candidate walks us through points such as: defining a north star metric, running discovery, defining OKRs and roadmap, and coordinating delivery. It’s key for us to cover those different steps. In this case, because we were interviewing for Discover, one of our analytics products our software suite, Cristina had to imagine she was the PM of Google Analytics.
Cristina’s feedback:
“I totally agree that this was by far the most demanding part of the process, especially the first part. As someone who likes to prepare and investigate, this felt like improvising, and I had to deal with the uncertainty and the ignorance of the business model (what do I know about elevators?!) as well as with having to think in a different way: out loud and explaining why before I move on to the next thought. While it was challenging, the interviewers made it easy, pleasant and fun as they were constantly prompting, guiding me along the way to areas that were the most interesting for the exercise, and reassuring me that they weren’t looking for the right solution as it was all about the process.
The second part was easier, as it related to a product I know and use, and therefore less abstract.
After the interview I felt super energized, almost looking forward to starting my own elevator business, and for sure even more excited about working with a team where this kind of thinking was encouraged.
To make things even better, shortly after I received my second feedback email, which was once more thoughtful, specific and actionable. The company’s recruitment feedback emails were probably what I appreciated the most about the process. I believe they would have even been useful to prepare for future interviews, should I have not joined the team in the end.”
#3 — Case Study
What’s the goal?
Here the goal is really twofold: building confidence on both our side and the candidate’s.
- Confirm the candidate is able to understand our challenges
- Help the candidate better understand what would be their day-to-day responsibilities if they join the team and make them excited about their potential future mission!
Who is in the room?
This next step also lasts around one hour and is usually run by a member of the top management (VP Product, Chief of Data, or Chief of Strategy) and the hiring manager.
What can the candidate expect?
For this interview, the candidate has homework to prepare! We provide around a week to work on a business case study which of course is adapted to the target squad and seniority of the position. As a rule of thumb we expect it to be around 3 to 4 hours of work and preparation.
The first 45 minutes of the interview is a presentation from the candidate. Format is free (mock ups, prototypes, slides, video — everything is allowed).
We usually keep the remaining 10–15 minutes for questions from the candidate around the vision and mission of the company, benefiting from the executive team member’s presence.
Cristina’s feedback:
“This was fun! I know that case studies in recruiting processes are controversial and have been misused, but in this case it gave me an opportunity to look at the product, understand its challenges, put on our users’ shoes, and show the way I work.
For this exercise, the team gave me access to Discover, one of the company’s SaaS modules. In B2B, too often we don’t get to use the product until after we start working with the company. This part of the recruitment process gave me an opportunity to look at the product and better understand the needs and challenges of the role. Having a task to do helped guide my initial discovery of the product and shed light on the common tasks users try to achieve with our tool, and the data needs they deal with.
I loved the fact that I could use any format I wanted for the exercise; that it was a timeboxed, but asynchronous exercise. I could prepare the exercise without asking for time off or staying up late. The day of the presentation I received a lot of good questions and feedback about my work and the presentation.”
#4 — Team fit
What’s the goal?
Once we reach this step, it usually means we’re all aligned on the fact that the candidate has the skills and background required to join the team successfully. The goal for this step is to confirm team and culture fit and help the candidate understand the broader context of the company.
This is important for us, and even if it’s quite rare that this step changes our hiring decision, we believe it’s key for the candidate to understand the team dynamics and help them make their decision, too. We want our new hires to find themselves happy in this role as well!
Who is in the room?
During this last step of the process, the candidate will usually have at least two 30-minute calls. One with one or more people from their squad (tech lead, designer, developers) and one with a business team member (ideally coming from another country — or continent).What can the candidate expect?
What can the candidate expect?
Here, one piece of advice I would give the candidate is, “Be yourself and ask any question you want.” Conversation can be around past experiences, team organization, collaboration between teams or HR habits! At the end, we want everyone to think, “I’m looking forward to working with them!”
Cristina’s feedback:
“I see it this way: the first interview helps both parties get in touch and agree to continue knowing each other, the second and third interviews were more about me, as a candidate, showing the team that I was a good fit, and during the last interview, which is still important, it is more about the company, Launchmetricsproving to me that it’s a great place to work.
In my case, these last conversations were what I needed to be sure of joining the team. I had a chance to meet two members from my current technical team, and quickly exchange thoughts about prioritization, technical debt and other topics. I also had a great chat with someone from our customer success team that has been at the company for a very long time. Hearing from someone that has seen Launchmetrics grow and transform over the years motivated me to accept the offer as soon as I received it. Cultural fit interviews are key in recruitment processes, and even if sometimes the processes are too long, I believe they are totally worth our time.”
Yes, this process can look a bit long but it has proven to give both Launchmetrics and candidates a very good view of what we can expect if we were to work together. For now, all people who joined following this process are still part of the (dream) team.
We’re always on the lookout for candidates to join our great Product team so feel free to send your application if you are interested!
👀 We are hiring at Launchmetrics — feel free to visit our Career Site to learn more about our job opportunities and company culture!
