LinkedIn Product Manager interview review

http://jsonk.posterous.com/linkedin-product-manager-interview-review

by jsnk • 15 years ago

30 37 15 years ago

jsonk.posterous.com

jeffehobbs• 15 years ago

Interesting account, but:

I wouldn't write about this. I could see this being used against you.

teaspoon4• 15 years ago

Why work for a company that would "use" a dry, factual account of their interview process against you?

alttab2• 15 years ago

Why hire someone you can't trust to keep their mouth shut?

tricolon• 15 years ago

Because they might pay well?

stfu2• 15 years ago

"The interview wrapped up with him asking me to estimate the annual revenue of McDonalds."

Is stuff like this becoming the norm now? This looks a lot like the notorious "estimation" questions in consulting company interviews. Especially because it seems to be taken completely out of context and with very little relation to the actual job/company.

sk5t2• 15 years ago

This, and the old "tell us about one of your weaknesses," are strong indicators of a weak interview.

idoh• 15 years ago

I interviewed for a pm position there a while back - my experience wasn't anything like the blog post. So it's not even the norm (probably) at linked in.

zmitri• 15 years ago

Lots of companies will put you under an NDA if you interview with them. Be careful talking about explicit questions.

thwarted2• 15 years ago

This link has a target="_blank" on it. Is this some new option submitters have?

thwarted2• 15 years ago

Well, the downvotes got me to investigate further. It seems it was the Chrome extension JSON Inspector ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mfnjijpckfecpgchob... ) that was inserting the target="_blank" only on this page for the article's link.

sk5t2• 15 years ago

Interesting... college seniors, recent grads, and grad students have enough experience to be Product Managers at LNKD? Where do their junior analysts come from?

heyadayo• 15 years ago

Jason: Take this down. You will almost certainly not get the job if your interviewers find this, for almost any tech company of scale. Especially:

"If I am selected for more interviews, I will definitely write about them."

ecaron• 15 years ago

I really don't understand why Jason should take this down. I'd never look down on a candidate for blogging about the interview process with my company.

larrys• 15 years ago

Compare the upside of writing about his experience with the potential downside.

I don't think many companies are going to say "hey that's great that he did that" and it will help him land the job. But it is entirely likely that any number of companies that he might interview with would be turned off by it and it could cost him the job.

biot3• 15 years ago

Assuming names and other identifying details were omitted, would you think it's fine for a company to blog about every candidate they interviewed?

stfu2• 15 years ago

Maybe he just doesn't care/has already something else lined up.

A friend of mine goes to interviews quite frequently without being the slightest interested in changing his job. His idea is to just follows some practice-makes-perfect motto - almost like dating. But it has of cause its downsides and especially the scheduling seems often to be the ticky issue.

jsnk2• 15 years ago

Thank you for the caution.

I decided to contact the recruiter directly to discuss the matter honestly. If it is a problem for LinkedIn that the interview process is made known public, then the damage has been done already (I got over 1800 page views as of now). I should be responsible for my action and rightfully be exempt from further selection process.

angelbob2• 15 years ago

That's a very high-integrity way to handle this problem. Well done.

If LinkedIn responds poorly after you did this, write about that :-)

bvi• 15 years ago

I would still strongly suggest that you take the page down temporarily until you hear back from the recruiter. The damage has been done, but can still be minimized.

synnik2• 15 years ago

Even more so, I would not even interview Jason for our company after seeing this. It isn't like anything was said that is negative... it is just that the hiring process (or anything HR-related) is private. Posting it online shows a lack of professionalism that would make me go to other candidates.

jsnk2• 15 years ago

Interesting interviews from Google, Facebook, Microsoft gets reviewed and talked about frequently by my friends and colleagues. I did not know that interview process should remain confidential.

epoxyhockey• 15 years ago

Do you honestly think that the interview processes of tech companies are so secret that posting about them online means instant disqualification from consideration?

I mean, we already know about how Zuckerberg takes prospects on an enchanting walk through the forest. There was nothing negative or damning in Jason's report. Chill out.

tzs• 15 years ago

> After a brief greeting, the interviewer asked me what is the most interesting product that's out there right now on web. I made my first mistake here and answered, Facebook. I had prepared for interviewing about LinkedIn product and set myself up to be interviewed about Facebook for next 40 minutes.

That wasn't a mistake. The answer you think you should have given, "LinkedIn", would have been a mistake. That's probably the answer everybody else gave, and tells the interviewer "I'm here to say whatever I think will make you like me most, so let's start out with the improbable claim that your company is the most interesting thing on the web".

vicngtor• 15 years ago

Yeah I am pretty sure you are not allowed to post this because you would probably have signed an NDA before your interview.

You have to respect the people at LinkedIn who put in a lot of effort to design this interview process by not leaking it out.

rhizome3• 15 years ago

Does that really happen? I have never signed an NDA prior to a job interview.

deepGem• 15 years ago

Just a tip - How to answer the McD question:

McD are spread worldwide - so assume some figures for the leading consumer nations.

For ex - 70% of US population, 50% of Japanese population etc consume at least 1 McD burger/meal a day. Now compute the average price of a McD burger/meal. Multiply the two and you have average revenues per day.

Average price * no of burgers/meals sold per day = Average revenues.

Average revenues per day * 30 * 12 = annual revenues.

Follow the same formula for all product lines and add them up. Hope this helps.

csmt• 15 years ago

I am curious why would you blog about an interview. Most companies ask you to sign an NDA before the interview. Isn't posting a blog about the interview a violation of NDA?

LinkedIn Product Manager interview review

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