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Worst PM interview experience

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!!!!

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imPatientGamer

Student

3 months ago

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Confessions on

by FreshRaita

Stealth

Most hiring managers can't handle the start, close or even manage the middle of an interview - even if their life depended on it.

There I said it. It sucks. The start is a joke - cause here's the plan - If you spend too much time on intros, and you wasting the so called "interview" time. And then you think I should save it for later, lets focus on the interview. so we move to the stinky middle - the interview part - a web of questions with the obvious non relevant ones in there - and for a fact you will still give a green light to folks by a measure of retention of knowledge, not by knowledge application - cause you give hints to solve the problem sparingly. Here's the fact about your measure of potential - Take away Google and ChatGPT from these managers, and more than half your team would crumble. Wouldn't they use it on everyday job? If yes, then why are you depriving them of it in the interview. You will ego battle them - Not answering most of their questions - cause you are not interviewing - you are an interviewer - and they are the interviewee.. or you will conveniently park the questions for later, until a hiring decision is formally made - so you save your time - I mean cmon! thats your game plan. And the closing: it’s usually a weak handshake or a sign off and a 'We’ll be in touch' OR 'HR will get back to you' CLASSIC. And yet.. you expect the job seekers to buy into their 'mission and vision' and become dedicated team member to "your" team. Seriously? CONVERSATION has a CON in it and you are doing it. + you cant hold it, even if your life depended on it. The only reason the job seeker turned up, and thanked you for your time after the interview - is cause they need a job and were polite. NOTHING ELSE. In a rare case - you really did a good job, and hence the "thank you" Podcast here - https://lnkd.in/gMe6v9hV

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Designers on

by Gintama

Stealth

Worst interview experience till date

I had an interview today with a service-based company. The first round was conducted by someone who used to be a content writer but is now a community lead with no design background. During the interview: Interviewer: Asked me to showcase my proudest work. Me: Presented a detailed walkthrough of a feature, explaining every design decision and inviting questions throughout. Interviewer: Expressed high praise for my work and asked about my design system. Me: Explained my design system approach, including the collaboration and cross-team communication it required. Interviewer: Continued to be impressed. Me: Thanked them. Interviewer: Inquired about my salary expectations. Me: Stated my expectation. *Now things gets mad* Interviewer: Criticized my design system as outdated and implied my work could be done by a beginner watching YouTube. Asked me to prove my worth was really upto the salary expectations. Me: Pointed out that I had already justified my value through my work during the past 50 minutes. It's disheartening that the interviewer discredited my soft skills and the experience I gained from two years of designing. They seemed to dismiss my achievements due to a lack of "full-time experience." It would have been more appropriate if they had asked follow-up questions about my portfolio. This experience felt like a waste of time, as the interviewer appeared immature and conducted the interview poorly, despite having over 8 years of experience. It's a disappointing and unprofessional approach to an interview.

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Product Managers on

by ImprobableBatman

Student

Weirdest interview experience at a startup for a senior PM role

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?

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Confessions on

by samosa

Stealth

Having some fun with the interviewers

So basically I don't hesitate in challenging the interviewer if I feel like they don't know how to interview a senior candidate so during many interviews, this is how I have caught them off guard: 1. The interviewer was asking me technical questions and expecting to explain properly throughout. So at the end i asked him about the tech stack they use, he said Azure. I asked him why they use Azure and not AWS, to which he said "it's cheaper", i didn't let it go, i asked him for a proper technical explanation, his red face was worth seeing. 2. The interview asked me a hard DSA question, and I wasn't able to solve it properly, he didn't even give me enough hints, just expected me to solve it. So halfway I asked him, would you like to solve a DSA if I ask you right now, he said no because it's not his interview. To which I asked, are you afraid that you won't be able to solve? If you are going to reject me for not solving this question, would you resign if you aren't able to solve the question. He ended the call. 3. One interviewer was asking me absurd technical detailed questions. I asked him why are you asking such questions, he said he needs to know my thought process because he will work with me. I started asking him similar questions, he said he won't answer because it's not his interview. I said I also need to know your thought process because we'll work together, so you should also answer these questions, he had no reply. 4. The interviewer asked me about a challenging project that I had done recently. I don't like this question at all. So I said there wasn't any challenging project because I'm good at what I do so it's always easy for me. He moved on to the next question. 5. HR asked me why I resigned without an offer? I asked if it's mandatory? No reply.