I think the biggest factor that differentiated me from other candidates was that I was willing to take a lot of risks in my interviews. I never felt like, "Oh my god, that's really hard." The questions tested how I think holistically about a problem, my ability to work with other stakeholders in the company, and also my analytical skills, and my technical skills. The interview questions were general product design questions - nothing was unexpected. It was a lengthy three-month interview process. Then, I had one more interview with an executive.
After that, I went on-site for about five interviews. The APM interview process took around three monthsĪfter a phone interview with a product manager, I was told to write a spec, short for "specification" - a detailed document or description that outlines the requirements, features, functionality, and design of a product. Landing an interview is like hitting a gold mine. Getting into the program is hard - it is estimated that 8,000 people apply to the APM program each year, and only 40-45 get accepted. I also had a dedicated alumni advisor to help me with any issues or questions. It takes new and recent grads across the US and teaches them to be better product managers - the program throws you onto a team and treats you like a full-time product manager.Īs an associate product manager in the program, I had a tight-knit community of roughly 45 people, and I got coaching every other week from a management coach. What fascinated me was that there are business, marketing, and design thinking skills that go into it, which is a lot more creative than coding.Īfter graduating, I chose Google over other companies because it offered a lot more support and resources: The Google APM program was proposed by former Google executive Marissa Mayer who started the program in 2002 to recruit fresh talents. That is how I got into product management. So I talked with my product manager who walked me through the whole road map and explained why we were doing something and how this would all lead to the big picture. While I was building a product, I got curious about the "why" behind it. I was a software engineer intern at Microsoft during college. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Insider has verified his income with documentation. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Arjun Lalwani, a 26-year-old product manager at YouTube.
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