The Google PM Interview Experience (2016)

Although tens of thousands of people go through the Google interview process, it’s amazing how interviewing at Google makes you a popular person and everyone wants to know your experience. I’ve interviewed twice at Google, the first in 2016 and the second in 2019. This is the account of my first experience in 2016. Although it is an account of 2016, the Google interview process has not changed from my first experience back then.

Google fascinates people. It has been described as the ‘Harvard of technology companies.’ As a result, I’ve been asked many times about how my experience went. It is such a frequent question, I’ve decided to write an article over it. This way, I can explain once and hopefully not grow weary of the topic.

Most people want to know because frankly, they want to work at Google, or heard it’s a hard process. Most people are curious. This article is specifically for this audience, i.e., from the perspective of someone interviewing for a Product Manager role, as this is the position I interviewed for. I’ll let others explain their own story for other positions.

As a note, I did sign a NDA for Google (as everyone does) after I passed the phone interviews, so I will be more vague to the process after that moment, unless it is information that can be found outside in the public domain, like Glassdoor, etc… Frankly, all the information in this article is also publicly available throughout the internet, therefore nothing here breeches my NDA.

Google Questions and Study Guides

Most reading this article want the interview ‘goods’. In other words, they want to know what was asked. While I can’t divulge my specific questions (even if I could remember them), I strongly recommend going to my own study guide that I created, Technical/Non-Technical PM Study Guide that includes study guides for Google, Amazon and Facebook. In these study guides are multitudes of questions that I have found posted elsewhere on the internet, mainly from Glassdoor. Again, not breeching my NDA, as all of this information is publicly available. I share these study guides and keep them open to the public and you can add your own experience and questions there that you find. Take what you need, and give what you have. Please, always follow the contracts that you sign, i.e., the NDA.

How you get an interview with Google

Let’s be honest. It’s hard to get into Google. I have yet to accomplish it. If you’re interested in applying and having a chance to get into Google you have to know thyself first and have deep reflection not only on your current ability, but the time you wish to invest in getting better and training specifically for the Google interview. There are not only product-oriented questions, but there are also deep technical questions. Google is an engineering-driven company and any applicant needs to be technical. If you can’t walk yourself through data structures and algorithms, you need to learn.

If after this self reflection and you still think you’re Google material, you need to have connections at Google. I do not recommend applying online. Rather, get an internal referral. I did. In fact, I got multiple references from within Google to submit my name. If you don’t have these references, network and get them first before you decide to apply. References are important at Google, because if you do pass your onsite, the hiring committee will review your references. They need to be excellent.

The Google Process

1. Apply / Get Referred
2. Recruiter Interview (Seeing if you’re a reasonable fit)
3. Phone Interview with a Product Manager ~45 min
4. Phone Interview with a Product Manager (Sometimes there is only 1) ~45 min
5. On-site interview (5 interviews [4 Product, 1 Technical], 30–45 minutes )
6. Hiring Committee Gives Recommendation
7. Executive Gives A Final Decision
8. Name and Position presented to all Google groups looking for Product Managers, and they will approach you to see if you’d like to work on their team.
9. You Interview with those teams
10. Offer is Extended
11. You accept a position

So the process starts at the beginning, and can end at any step along the way. The time between each step can take weeks, resulting in months worth of work and effort.

I reached out to my contacts working at Google for a referral on April 12, 2016. My onsite interview was June 3, 2016. I got the results June 13, 2016. So that should give you the estimated timeline.

How I studied

I spent a lot of time studying. First I researched all the questions people said Google asked them. These could be found on Glassdoor. (See the Study Guide I created) I ordered these questions by the type, Behavioral, Analytical, Product Design, and Technical. Then I focused on the questions that I expected to be asked during the phone interviews. In general the phone interviews have all types of questions except technical. However, that does not mean there cannot be technical interview questions in the phone interview. After the phone interviews, I focused mainly on studying the technical questions that would be asked on the onsite.

I read books, took online courses that talked about it, and created Product Manager Interview study groups where we would video chat with each other and practice the questions and interview strategies. These Mock Interviews are vital to doing well at the Google interview. Please, do not just wing-it and think you’re practiced enough.

I also wrote product design articles, strategy articles, and other articles, not only to attract other companies to my work, but also to keep my mental muscles working, honing my skills, talent, and communication.

Phone Interviews

The phone interviews covered the following topics:

• Behavioral Questions (actually only asked one, these are rare)
• Product Design Questions
• Estimation Questions
• Strategy Questions
• Case Questions

The first phone interview was with a PM for Google Cloud. I had a great time, we had fun chatting. I left that interview feeling like I nailed it.

The second phone interview was with another PM. The phone connection was horrible, almost inaudible. I didn’t catch a name, nor much of anything else. But I persevered and answered questions as best as I understood them. I had to ask the interviewer to restate the question many, many times. It was incredibly frustrating. I didn’t feel so confident in this interview because I could hardly understand anything, and couldn’t pick up in the voice of the interviewer on how he felt or thought of my answers. Interaction was tough. But apparently, I passed as I moved forward to the onsite. Secretly, I wonder if this wasn’t a Google strategy to see how I handle such a situation. But who knows. There are many such stories of the same problem on Glassdoor. You would think Google could fix such a connection problem. I mean, it’s Google. Shouldn’t their phone connections be crystal clear? This is why I think it might be a strategy. I have been told by others, it isn’t. You be the judge.

Onsite Overview

The onsite took place in Mountain View, California at Google’s HQ two weeks after my last phone interview. Because I live in Austin, Tx, they flew me in the day before, put me up at a hotel. I flew out the day after the interviews, so in total it took me 3 days of my time.

They sent me a lot of documentation and explained the process quite well. They also had me sign an NDA, so here on, I’ll be more vague about questions, and talk about my feelings more.

The onsite interview process was honestly really fun. Glassdoor stories made it sound like a horror, but I didn’t experience that. There were a few hiccups though.

I arrived at Google about 40 minutes early, parked, went to the indicated building, and signed in. Waiting in the lobby, I met many others being interviewed. One by one they were taken away by a recruiter, until finally someone came and called my name. So I went with them and we went searching for the conference room. Eventually we found it, the lady was very nice, and said she wanted me to relax. So we chatted, and I organized the room so I could reach the whiteboard. The whiteboard was the entire length of the rooms long wall, probably over 20ft in length. It was a large conference room, and someone had pushed all the chairs up against the wall of the whiteboard. It was a whiteboard PMs dream of. I love whiteboards.

I asked her if this would be my room for the day, she looked in her email, and said, for the morning, yes. I’d have 3 interviews there. Then, after I settled down, she said, “Ok, let’s get started, here’s the first question.” I was like, ummm… I thought you were the recruiter. But no, she was a PM. The recruiter had to do something else. This did not feel like it was the norm. Later, I learned that it was the norm. It is your first interviewer who meets you in the lobby and takes you to the room.

Her questions were actually fun, and I think I did well in the interview.

The next PMs came pretty quick, each only 30 minutes each. Frankly, I don’t remember so much, but I think they went pretty well.

I got along well with the second PM and had a good time. In fact on one of the questions I had a lot of zeros to multiply, big numbers, and when I got the result, I looked at it, and it didn’t seem right (like I was missing some 0’s). I asked him, does this look right? He looked back, laughed, and said, I don’t know, I’d use a calculator. Pretty funny actually. And yes, I was missing 1 zero.

The third PM seemed pretty stoic. Again, I wonder if this was a strategy. I couldn’t read him well, and he kept saying he was in a hurry. He seemed like a pretty impatient guy. He was not friendly at all. He would ask questions, and when I answered it, he would ask for more details, again and again in an aggressive manner. He wasn’t clear in his questions, so answering was difficult because he wouldn’t give more information. It didn’t fluster me, and I think I answered well, but it was strange. It was as though he was trying to create tension. Perhaps another strategy for Google to see how people deal with it. Perhaps not, and it was just the personality of the interviewer. But I had fun nonetheless. This PM also asked some technical questions, which I thought odd coming from a PM. I don’t think I did bad on this interview, but it was hard to read.

At lunchtime another PM came and picked me up. This was a non-interview. I got to ask a lot of good questions and enjoyed my time. He did tell me that 9 out of 10 of the people he knew who worked at Google, only got hired after their second time interviewing with Google, i.e., they interviewed and didn’t get accepted, and waited for over a year and interviewed again. He said Google works hard not to get false positives, and if there are any questions, they will not hire you, but invite you back after a year to try again. So this didn’t exactly make my odds seem probable.

Later, after my Google onsite, I learned that at lunch, you’re sometimes evaluated how you did in the morning. If you totally bombed it, you will be asked to go home after lunch. While I’ve not confirmed this is always the case, in my instance, I did proceed to the afternoon meetings.

After lunch I went to another building and waited for the next interviewer, who would be a Software Engineer. This was the dreaded Technical Interview. So I waited and while waiting talked with the recruiter who showed me the next room. We chatted and waited, waited and chatted, and it got late, very late. Apparently, the developer was across the Google campus and was riding a Google bicycle from another building and it broke down. He then started running to my building. Honestly, the image is rather funny. If you don’t know Google has a lot of buildings spread apart over a great distance. So he had a long way to run. He eventually got into the room, sweating as it was 100F outside (heatwave for the area). He immediately started asking questions, and I tried to calm him down and help him relax. He was far more stressed than I was. We had a good time and I think I did well on this interview. The technical interview is what scared me the most, and I think it went very well. The worst case scenario did not happen.

The final interview was in the same room, but it was a video conference with a PM in San Francisco. The interviewer’s screen was blurry, almost like they were hiding his identity. I commented on the difficulty to see and hear him, but no one said anything about fixing it, so we continued. This didn’t phase me, and I had a great time. I enjoyed my time and I think this interview went well.

After the final interview, I was walked to the lobby by the recruiter, and went on my merry way.

Overall, I interviewed with 4 PMs, from various departments, but most of them were Google Cloud, one was Google Chrome. There might have been one from another department, but I don’t recall. Not all of the interviewers introduce themselves, and frankly, because of nervousness, I may have forgotten. The Software Engineer I interviewed with was also Google Cloud.

Final Thoughts on the Onsite

So how did I do? I have no clue. That’s up to Google to decide. But I did have fun, and it didn’t feel overly difficult. I had practiced much harder questions. Google told me they will let me know my results in 5–10 days. So we will see.

The Results

Well, it was 11 days later when Google finally contacted me. Pulling the band-aide off, the answer was no. The recruiter was nice enough and I asked what in particular could have been improved. The recruiter said that Google looks at three things:

• Technical
• Analytical
• Product Skills

The recruiter had a call with me and actually gave me some feedback in each area they looked for. Google isn’t known for giving any feedback, so I really appreciated hearing how I could improve. It’s interesting information for the future of my job hunt. Though I don’t think it’s enough information to completely change anything I was doing. It should be noted, out of those three, Technical and Analytical were the sections I was most worried about, and studied the most and the feedback was I did best on those. They said I did great on those. Alternatively, I thought my product skills were the most solid, and they said those were good. So this does give me something to chew on. Perhaps, on reflection, I should have practiced more on Product Design.

At the end of the call, the recruiter said, try again next year.

NOTE: In late 2017, over one year later, I applied to Google again through a referral of mine. Interestingly, at the resume submission level they dinged me. So it just goes to say, you never know what the Google recruiters are thinking. Then, again in summer 2018, Google reached out to me and I said no as I had just started working at a start-up. Towards the end of 2018, they reached out again, and I said yes as I had decided leave the start-up I was at. They advanced me directly to an onsite in early 2019, skipping the phone interviews, but that’s another story.

If I had to guess, if I received a less than perfect review, it was from the third stoic interviewer. He was the only one who did not seem completely satisfied with my answers. I kept answering him and asking if that answered his question, and he would say, give me more, again and again. I found it funny and just figured it was his interview style. Perhaps he actually did want more.

It is important to know, Google is terrified of false positives. Their whole interview process is to remove people, not to advance good talent. If there is any question at all in the interviewer’s mind, you will be dinged. Google much rather not hire great talent than to accidentally hire substandard talent. Keep this in mind. Even if you’re an amazing PM, that doesn’t mean you will make it through the interview process.

The Odds Were Clear

I knew going into this thing only 1 out of 7 people get an offer at an onsite. I also learned that 9/10 people who work at Google did not get in on their first try. So by these unsubstantiated numbers, ~1/100 people who interview with Google onsite for the first time get an offer. These are all smart people. Yet, it is still unlikely they will succeed. So my result isn’t something to be too ashamed of. I just like to beat the odds, that’s all. Google likes to interview people multiple times to avoid false positives. I.e. people who interview well, but can’t do the job. This means Google loses a lot of good talent, but they do tend to keep bad talent out. I’m hoping, and I think, I was that good talent. I spoke to my friends who work at Google after the interview and surprised to hear that most did not get the job offer until their 4th or 5th try.

Reflections

So it was a long process. It took a lot of time and energy to pour into this one interview. Granted, it helped me be a better interviewee, but exhausting. So, while I gather my thoughts, already I’m looking at what’s next. Checking out other companies, pulling favors, introductions, and moving forward. Thank you Google for the time, you certainly got mine for a while. Maybe we shall meet again, in the future.

Recommendations to Succeed

• Study the Google Interview style, it’s not a normal interview process.
• Start 6 months before the interview and practice.
• Practice, practice, practice, do mock interviews, a lot.
• Start practicing technical early.
• Be the master of the whiteboard.
• Spend time learning to communicate clearly, concisely, and well.
• Go in knowing it’s unlikely you will succeed, so have FUN!

Resources

• ProductHired.com — The largest Product Management career site to find product management jobs, articles on interviewing, hiring and study guides.
• Technical/Non-Technical Study Guide

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