Share your weird PM interview experiences?

Had a weird job interview experience a few days ago, for a pretty senior-ish PM position. This was the first round interview with the team after a basic recruiter round. Hiring manager joins the call on his phone with camera off. Sure no problem. He was presumably on AirPods with terrible sound quality, and his internet connection was terrible too. I could hear 2 out of 5 words. I pointed it out immediately, thinking that he would change his internet connection or something. But it continued throughout the interview. I kept telling him that I can't hear him to either repeat himself or point out that its his internet connection. This ended up breaking the flow of the conversation. He turned on video during the interview, I even told him to switch off his video to improve the quality. Barely improved even then. Still told him that I can't hear him. He even changed his room to see if it helped. Didn’t. He should've been embarrassed by now? He didn’t suggest an alternative — to move to a phone call or reschedule later, wondering whether I should have. I've never faced this before, so didn’t know what was appropriate. Then towards the end, puts on his video again and I see that he is eating something. 💀 I don’t know if this is normal??? If he was so busy, he could've possibly rescheduled instead of wasting both our time. He chose the time. I know it's an employer's market, but how bad is it?

Recently gave a PM interview with a b2c saas company. I was asked to do a take home assignment. The interviewer has no intention of conducting the interview. He was late and he looked like he just woke up from sleep. The questions were all over the place. And he didn’t even spent 5 minutes going through the case study I prepared. I don’t know why people take interviews when they are not interested in it. Such a waste of time!!!!

Does anyone else feel like the PM interview process is easily scammable? I feel like 80% of it is a vibe check and 20% is the actual content itself. Am a PM with 3 YoE and have been interviewing around recently. I have 0 preparation for any interview I walk into and have gotten offers from multiple startups. (Not bragging, I'm a good talker) You need to just break down any questions into understandable parts and explain it well enough. Maybe it's imposter syndrome or maybe I'm a little disillusioned with my job. TC : 31 base 4 performance bonus 10 ESOPs

Despite hiring being really shitty in general, I've found PM interviews to be quite random, particularly SMB segment, which is kind of expected as well but sometimes the lack of self-awareness and about the candidate is surprising. Some of them want to keep questions deliberately ambiguous and if you ask for clarity they'll judge you as someone who can't handle ambiguity. And the others will judge you if you don't ask the right questions. As someone with experience in PM I can't believe how bookish the hiring managers are sometimes. Everything is a "pain point " , "problem statement " or a " persona " . So pigeonholed in frameworks and data that they've lost the ability to think without those.

What are some intriguing problems/ puzzles you have been subjected to as part of the PM interview process. Format: Role –> Company –> Problem statement –> Outcome

What were some of the trickiest/toughest cases you've been asked in interviews and by which firm? I'm a 22 grad and wanted to get an idea regarding the spectrum of difficulty in interviews since most of mine have been pretty straightforward (guesstimate/ product design / metrics, etc)

What questions are asked for a product mgmt interview? How can one become a PM without tech background? I have product strategy background. In interviews i am able to ace product sense / product strategy questions but when it comes to tech, unable to show the required tech acumen (due to lack of actual exposure to it). Should I just stay put in product / business strategy roles or move into product mgmt? Reasons for moving into PM - want career and monetary growth, build tech stuff and not just strategise stuff. Have 6 yrs experience (2 yrs pre MBA data analytics+ 2 yrs business strategy + 2 yrs product strategy).

Hiring for a bunch of roles for an early stage startup. Salaries of people who have been laid off is through the roof 2-3 years experience asking for 30-40l and while we chose not to judge the experience and spoke to a few of them, most of them are not even worth half of the pay. Many are jobless since last 2-3 months and none of them are willing to take a paycut of even 5-6L and are willing to stay jobless ( probably have a ton of savings ) Market correction is necessary. Roles : PM, software engineers, generalists

I applied for the opening at JPL (Jio Pvt Ltd) in June of last year. Received the interview call on 4th July and concluded the entire process with the final HR round on 17th August (already painfully slow). This was followed by a period of complete silence from the HR's end, which finally broke on 30th September (after probably 30+ follow-ups) when they gave me a verbal offer and gave me confidence for the final offer release within a few days. Well, the final offer came on 27th December 2023, close to 3 months after the verbal offer (again, after probably 40+ follow-ups). Joined on 16th January 2024 (due to some emergency), and was treated to a GREAT campus in Navi Mumbai. --And this is probably where everything good with JPL ends. After spending 2 days, I understand that things are not what I expected from any Product organisation, and that I made the wrong decision. Gave myself 30 days to ensure the feelings were backed by more experiences, and I'm not acting impulsively. Day 31, I started interviewing with other organisations, and fortunately was able to get in touch with the HR from another organisation that I rejected for Jio, and they were kind enough to resend the offer letter. Dropped the bomb on 8th March 2024, startling everyone because people usually don't like leaving their comfortable lives at Jio. My L1 and L2 aligned on a 14 days notice period, but the "smartasses" in the HR department thought its a great idea for me to serve the entire notice period of 60 days, and thus I'm stuck here till 6th May 2024. Opening the forum for people with any amount of experience to ask questions about the hiring process, the culture, the turn-off, the decision to quit, ANYTHING.

Do hiring managers not go ahead with a candidate if they feel intimated or feel the candidate is better than them? You know you have answered most questions well but you get a rejection mail after 3 rounds of interview. Just curious.