Indeed Product Manager interview questions

I very much appreciated comments left on Glassdoor by previous candidates when contemplating applying for the product manager position so I feel a duty to also contribute some of my own. Having read those slightly negative experiences I was of two minds whether I wanted to actually go through the process myself but since the role was a fairly good fit for my background I was pretty confident and decided to proceed. The first 3 interviews I had were all quite positive - the people I met were very capable individuals with an open/inclusive attitude so the interviews were quite interesting and enjoyable. This improved my impression of the company quite a bit. The last interview I had was a little different - a more formal, exclusive, “prove to me you have what it takes to be in this company” gatekeeper type experience - certainly not unusual by any means. All interviews were focussed primarily on seeing if I knew what metrics to measure, how I might interpret results and what subsequent actions I might take based on those results. When in the last interview I mentioned that the sample size of an A/B test I had run was small enough so as to raise my concerns about the statistical significance of the results I was asked to provide the actual formula for calculating statistical relevance - I knew it was called p-value which I have used in the past when analysing results but being unable to describe the actual mathematical formula in the interview seemed to be interpreted as a bit of a black mark - at which point I started to wonder if I was in the wrong meeting. And that’s what the last interview was mostly about - looking for negatives to eliminate the candidate as opposed to earlier interviews which, whilst obviously validating basic pre-requisites, also looked to understand what else I could bring to the company. Data analysis and data-driven business decision making aspects were heavily weighted in the interviews. I do not recall any questions that would elicit a better understanding of my job description aspects such as leadership, written communication skills, Japanese ability, start-up experience, web services technologies, product launch experience, competitor/market research - all of which I think I have a pretty solid track record on. For a company so devoted to data-driven decisions it seemed to me somewhat ironic that what was being measured didn’t really align well with the actual requirements. One would think that having conceived of, led, launched multiple products and built, growth-hacked my own B2C web startup in Japan this would lend some credibility to my ability to analyse and drive success but the feedback we received was that my data analysis experience was insufficient. Frankly, this is just nuts. It should have been obvious that I would have been deadly on the particular “Indeed way” of data analysis within a week of joining the company - the learning curve for such being far far less than other critical product manager skills like leadership, innovation, and Making Stuff Happen. My advice for potential candidates would be ignore most of the job description. Even if you have an exceptional product management track record, unless you have substantial experience designing and interpreting experiments on a *large* website I think there is a high probability you will be eliminated late in the interview cycle after you have already invested a lot of time and energy. Had I known this I would not have applied. Naturally both my recruiter and myself were very surprised with the outcome.

I had an overall negative experience but I think most of the fault goes to my recruiter. I wish I could have communicated with Indeed directly but that is not the way it works in Japan - most job searches and negotiations are done by middle men called recruiters. In any case, the whole interview process took about 2 months. I had a total of 5 interviews with 5 different product managers (1 on the Tokyo site, 4 via video) in Indeed and in the end I had to do a product design presentation in front of the product managers (on Tokyo site and via video). The interviews were centered around product design questions, how to make use of metric KPIs to improve Indeed's products, etc. There of course questions about my work experience and how my experience can contribute to the role that I am interviewing too. For the most part I enjoyed the interviews because even though the interviewers asked difficult questions they also guided you throughout the question if you are stuck to encourage innovative thinking. The interviewers would provide feedback after every interview via the recruiter and I thought it was great. Some interviewers were extremely friendly and easy to talk to, while others were really difficult. I actually got a red flag from one of the interviewer telling me that I was difficult to communicate to at first while I kept thinking him being difficult to communicate to during the interview lol. During the design presentation I was given an assignment to design a new product (they'd tell you what kind of product it is) and you are suppose to present the minimum viable version, the important metric KPIs, the scopes, and answer a lot of questions in the end. I had some trouble understanding questions over video even though I was able to answer in the end through help with the interviewer on-site with me but I think I got some minus points for that. Apparently right after the presentation my recruiter was told that Indeed would not give me an offer. But I was notified more than a week later. My overall experience was negative because my recruiter kept telling me that after I pass my interview with the 3rd interviewer Indeed would probably give me an offer. But it never happened and I was told to pass another round of interviews with 2 other interviewers for an offer which I had to wake up at 5am for due to the time difference. After I passed that I again did not receive an offer and was told to do the design presentation. And as described above I ended up not getting an offer. Disappointments asides I really hope this whole thing was communicated in a better way because it turned out to be a emotional roller coaster and I ended up not getting the job that I wanted even though I spent hours and hours preparing for the interviews and accommodating any kind of interview times. Again I think most of the problem lies in my recruiter, but it could be due to communication issues from Indeed as well. I do not really know the cause of the problem and I have no ways of finding out. But I respect the overall Indeed culture and believe it is a culture that will drive success. I wish all other candidates good luck.