A friend of mine spent ended up spending 9 months in the Google pipeline for a PM role. During the early phases of the cycle (1 month in) he received and accepted an offer at Capital One and joined as a PM. Spent 7 months at Capital One while still interviewing for Google, and then managed to get an offer and team placement.
Surprised it took that long, but he's happy he stuck w the Google process.
I'm sorry, someone must have spiked my coffee this morning.
Am I reading this right? Your friend spent 9 months interviewing for a single job?
And then he decided that the company that had been trying to hire him for a pregnancy's worth of time was somewhere that he wanted to work after already having a job that hired him in a month?
Is this 'normal' for the Goog? If so, why am I not shorting this company?
No really, what did they put in my java today?
EDIT: Actually, yeah, someone put in some sort of super caffeinated beans today. Sorry for the somewhat manic posting here.
Basically it takes ~2 weeks of initial phone screening and scheduling, then another ~4 weeks that will involve setting up the full day of interviews and collecting feedback and making a decision on whether or not to hire.
So basically after ~6 weeks from first being contacted by a recruiter, you know whether or not Google wants you. This is not unreasonable for a large company.
BUT -- this is just as "generic PM". Because then there needs to be a match made between you and a specific PM position.
And so this is where you basically wait around for a PM position to be open that is in a geographic location where you're willing to work and the team thinks you're a good fit. If you're willing to relocate anywhere in the world (or especially Mountain View) it's not going to take anywhere close to 9 months. But if you're only willing to work in Boston, for example, it may very well take that long. Over those 9 months, you might wind up having ~3-hour interviews with 5 different teams seeing if you're a good fit. Also remember that even if a team wants you, you might decide you don't like the team (e.g. you want to be a PM on something closer to Waymo than to Ads).
Also remember that PM jobs aren't nearly as fungible as software engineering jobs -- if it's an enterprise product they might want a PM with an enterprise background, if a consumer hardware product then a PM with consumer hardware experience.
But it's not like you're having a new interview every week for 9 months or anything. It simply can take 9 months to match up the right person for the right role when there are geographic constraints.
1. validate that you pass the minimum bar to work at Google as a PM. Whichever team ends up talking to you, they know you're at least minimally competent.
2. understand if you are a fit for the specific team and product. That might take a long time cause openings come and go, sometimes they get filled by internal candidates which are always a favorite cause learning how to function inside Google takes time.
It's annoying from the perspective of an external candidate but now that I work at Google I understand why it's done this way, especially considering that Google has a very weak internal training system and the chaos is so prevalent it takes at least 6 months to get the hang of things.
Turned down Google receuiters way too early to know if that's typical, but Facebook recruiters told me from the outset the process was 6 months and that they'd provide me with a reading list, and was then surprised when I told then I'd let them know if I was willing to consider that if they provided me with a compensation range. Days after, once they'd figured out the comp range, I told them I wasn't interested. This is London, and while their total comp was good, it was not SV good and not a big enough step up to be worth 6 months of interviews and a reading list.
if you know the history of Google's product launches (virtually all of them have failed/were killed, only successful products are search/ads and acquired products like youtube, maps, etc) - you will understand why they hire 9 mo for simple PM role
If a company had a 9-month-long hiring pipeline for me, I would worry their internal decision-making processes would make achieving anything of interest a Sisyphean task.
Balgair|3 years ago
Am I reading this right? Your friend spent 9 months interviewing for a single job?
And then he decided that the company that had been trying to hire him for a pregnancy's worth of time was somewhere that he wanted to work after already having a job that hired him in a month?
Is this 'normal' for the Goog? If so, why am I not shorting this company?
No really, what did they put in my java today?
EDIT: Actually, yeah, someone put in some sort of super caffeinated beans today. Sorry for the somewhat manic posting here.
crazygringo|3 years ago
Basically it takes ~2 weeks of initial phone screening and scheduling, then another ~4 weeks that will involve setting up the full day of interviews and collecting feedback and making a decision on whether or not to hire.
So basically after ~6 weeks from first being contacted by a recruiter, you know whether or not Google wants you. This is not unreasonable for a large company.
BUT -- this is just as "generic PM". Because then there needs to be a match made between you and a specific PM position.
And so this is where you basically wait around for a PM position to be open that is in a geographic location where you're willing to work and the team thinks you're a good fit. If you're willing to relocate anywhere in the world (or especially Mountain View) it's not going to take anywhere close to 9 months. But if you're only willing to work in Boston, for example, it may very well take that long. Over those 9 months, you might wind up having ~3-hour interviews with 5 different teams seeing if you're a good fit. Also remember that even if a team wants you, you might decide you don't like the team (e.g. you want to be a PM on something closer to Waymo than to Ads).
Also remember that PM jobs aren't nearly as fungible as software engineering jobs -- if it's an enterprise product they might want a PM with an enterprise background, if a consumer hardware product then a PM with consumer hardware experience.
But it's not like you're having a new interview every week for 9 months or anything. It simply can take 9 months to match up the right person for the right role when there are geographic constraints.
luckydata|3 years ago
1. validate that you pass the minimum bar to work at Google as a PM. Whichever team ends up talking to you, they know you're at least minimally competent.
2. understand if you are a fit for the specific team and product. That might take a long time cause openings come and go, sometimes they get filled by internal candidates which are always a favorite cause learning how to function inside Google takes time.
It's annoying from the perspective of an external candidate but now that I work at Google I understand why it's done this way, especially considering that Google has a very weak internal training system and the chaos is so prevalent it takes at least 6 months to get the hang of things.
vidarh|3 years ago
slt2021|3 years ago
michaelt|3 years ago
mattkrause|3 years ago