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Google APM Interview

Published July 30th, 2006 in Personal, Tech & VC

I recently wrapped finished Google’s three month long interview process. I applied for their Associate Product Manager (APM) position. Google’s hiring process is notoriously slow, and as a result they lose a lot of great people to other companies (not just my opinion, but the opinion of Google insiders, straight from the horse’s mouth), so that’s why it was three months. The process consisted of a total of twelve interviews, not counting phone screen and interviews with recruiters… needless to say, that’s a crushingly large number of people to impress, and that’s assuming you have the credentials to get your foot in the door. The breakdown of the twelve interviews is as follows: 7 with other APMs, 1 with a coder, 4 with more senior level people (for me it was 1 PM, 2 directors, and 1 VP).

The interviews focused on a few specific subjects, in the following order of importance: product design, technical skill, pricing, and your personal history. The product design questions were a piece of cake, and anyone with some imagination can rock them. The technical skill questions were very hard for me; some involved coding, others were brain teasers, some required knowledge of an SysAdmin’s job. The pricing questions were essentially math games; they require working your way to a sensible price for a product given a bit of information. It sounds easy, but it’s tough to do even basic division while under pressure. Finally, your own background and personal history makes it way into a few questions, but it seems pretty unimportant compared to the rest of the interview. It seems like personal history is more of a jumping off point for talking about the three other, more important subjects. I would guess that personal history is crucial to get your foot in the door and get the interview in the first place, so that’s probably why they don’t focus on it.

Feel free to contact me if you’re applying and want some advice (No, I won’t talk about specific questions, but I’ll be happy to discuss the process more generally). However, take my advice with a grain of salt as I am pretty sure I didn’t get the job.

I wanted to end this post with a video I found on digg.  It was a guy applying for an interviewing for the APM job at Google… it was absolutely ridiculous… but the video was stored on Google Video and now it’s gone, so I’m guessing that after the video was posted to digg, Google removed it either at the request of the kid or by their own choice.  Oh well. It anyone can find another copy of this video, please send me a link.

13 Responses to “Google APM Interview”  

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  1. 1 Cal Nov 10th, 2006 at 3:37 pm

    Hey,

    It’s Cal. Just had an interview with Google about APM as well.

    Did you make it onsite? What was your process like?

    Email me.

    Cal

  2. 2 Hiten Jan 18th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    I went through the same rodeo show, except my HR person would routinely lose my emails and claim I didn’t send any (from my GMAIL account no less!). Swung by recently for lunch–the place felt like Wilbur with the same people and soso food. At least I took a ton of naked juices……

  3. 3 Jeff Jan 23rd, 2007 at 10:13 pm

    Hi - I am about to go through the process - would love to chat with you!

  4. 4 Sidharth Feb 21st, 2007 at 7:34 pm

    Hi Andrew,
    I am going to interview with them onsite for the apm position soon. I wanted to know more about
    the technical skill questions. What kind of prep shud I have? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks,
    Sid.

  5. 5 Alexander Mar 14th, 2007 at 9:53 am

    Interesting info about the pricing questions. Would love if you could elaborate a bit more on this! (email?) Thanks!

  6. 6 DP Apr 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    Hey Andrew

    I have an APM interview coming up next week. Any tips on preparing for the technical part/pricing part?

    DP

  7. 7 Sam Jun 8th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    Andrew, thanks so much for your post. Really helps to get an idea of what to expect, so you don’t panic at the stupidest of questions. I am going to go through the same process in some time, can I please get in touch with you via email?

    Thank you in advance,
    Sam

  8. 8 Nani Jul 12th, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    Hi Andrew,

    Thanks for sharing your exprience.
    I shall be going through the interview process very soon. Can you kindly email me some tips on preparing for the technicalskills an pricing bits? Are there any books/ websites/ any material that I can use to brush my skills up?

    Thanks ,
    Regards,
    Nani

  9. 9 Vikram Aug 1st, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Hey,
    Good to see this information coming up. I would be happy if you could share some information about preparation for the interview esp. techie stuff and pricing strategy. Would like to elaborate on email.

    Thanks,
    Vikram

  10. 10 Vikram Aug 1st, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Hey,
    Good to see this information coming up. I would be happy if you could share some information about preparation for the interview esp. techie stuff and pricing strategy. Would like to elaborate on email.

    Thanks,
    Vikram

  11. 11 tammy Oct 9th, 2007 at 7:30 pm

    hello. i have an interview for the APM tomorrow. Wanted to see if u can please give some guidance to the technical questions being asked and how to prepare. thanks.

  12. 12 Ilya Blokh Apr 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 am

    Hey - same boat as everyone else here, two phone screens with APMs tomorrow. If you’re not tired of answering questions yet, shoot me an e-mail. Cheers.

  13. 13 UI Jul 10th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    Hey… I’m facing the first of many APM interviews soon. Please get in touch.. it would be great to chat.

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