I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Google
Interview
Quick introductory call with the recruiter. The recruiter clearly outlined the role.
30-45 minute phone interview with a product manager. The interviewer was late. Didn't have much time to cover everything so the interviewer was switching gears like a formula one driver. The interviewer did not have much knowledge about the specific role. When asked about it, replied, "check with the recruiter".
Bottom line: One's experience, real-world knowledge is pretty much irrelevant. It's about how quickly can you provide a "structured" response. Moon shot, what have you? (remember, perhaps someone like you in an interview came up with "Google Plus" idea). Start with the user, identify pain points, propose 2 or 3 solutions and choose the best one and articulate why it's the best. Sounds familiar. But don't think outside of that. The interview response can be taught. Some candidates are good at it and some are not. You can hack into a role by only practicing a structured response. Many offer training (including current Google product managers) to ace the interview. I am wondering if Google is able to correlate between interview response and actual job performance. How many top interviewees went on to become stellar product gurus?
2nd phone interview: This time the interviewer was very focused on the specific role they were filling in (Cloud). Most questions were related to the Cloud platform. Neither the recruiter nor the candidate had any idea that the candidate will be tested on the Google cloud platform from a product perspective. In fact, the recruiter in the introductory call said: "it's not necessary to know anything about GCP but it's nice to know".
Go back and read the bottom line. If you know in advance you could prepare a structured response for how you would come up with a 3 or 5-year plan for GCP, for instance.
If you are a 20 something interested in a PM role at Google and have excellent analytic skills. Odds are in your favor. If you are older and have a lot of experience, look elsewhere. And if you think Enterprise business, perhaps, you should look at Microsoft or Amazon, particularly when it comes to Cloud PM role.
Both the interviewers were very professional. The recruiter was awesome but there is a clear disconnect between recruiters and interviewers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Nothing out of the world. General product questions. Once again, a structured response is what is expected. Practice and you'll do fine.
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.