I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Google
Interview
I applied to Google through two referrals. It took a few days after I submitted my application to be contacted by a recruiter. Once I was contacted, it was fairly quick to get a 30-minute phone screen scheduled. The phone screen was with another PM at Google who asked an analytical/estimation question and a product strategy question. I'd prepared by practicing estimation questions and strategy case studies I found online and through Cracking the PM Interview and basically did everything by the book. I felt pretty confident with my interview - great conversation and worked with the interviewer through the problems. After over 2 weeks post phone interview, I finally heard back from the recruiter saying they would not be moving forward and he wanted tell me over the phone so he could offer me feedback. His feedback was to improve in strategy and analytical case studies (uh, duh) but no deeper than that. This could have been an email instead of having me wait two weeks.
I'd advise lots of practice on estimation and strategy questions but also, don't get your hopes up or bank on getting Google.
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.
