Bijan Shahrokhi 
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Article Contents
Cracking a PM interview is possible but requires work: Google is no exception. In the second installment of our community success story series, we interviewed Sanchit Gupta, a PM Exercise Community member to learn about how they aced the interview at Google and got their dream PM job.
Read on to learn more! 
How did you prepare for your Google Interview?
I created an 80-page Google doc with my responses to practice questions I found on productmanagementexercises.com, as well as Cracking the PM Interview and Decode and Conquer books.
How Many Hours Did You Spend to Prepare for Your Google Interview?
I spent about 10 hours coming up with a summary of my career, spending 10 hours studying the backgrounds of Google PMs and what Google looks for, and ~100 hours practicing questions.
How Many Mock Interviews Do You Think You Practiced?
When it was all said and done, I probably did about 75-100 mock interviews before my interview at Google. Between these, I’d say I practiced about 75-100 questions in depth at about 30 minutes per question.
How Did You Find the Interview Questions and Answers on PM Exercises? How Did You Practice With Them?
I responded to them myself and then saw other people’s responses to see how they framed it and things they included that didn’t help me increase the breadth of variables to consider when answering a question.
How Much Did You Follow the Frameworks At PM Exercises?
Very much so. I initially thought they would be awkward to follow so blatantly, but as a PM interviewer in my last role at Redfin, I found myself impressed with when interviewees were very structured and found myself getting lost when interviewees weren’t.
Even though it’s a blatant copy of an existing structure, I found it very effective. I also caution newer PMs to have the flexibility to modify the frameworks as they see fit based on the question and what the interviewer wants me to focus on.
What Is Your Advice To People That Are Preparing For Their Product Manager Interviews?
Stay calm and treat them all as learning experiences. PM interviews are challenging and competitive, but as long as you keep focusing on your craft and interviewing skills, you will succeed eventually.
I think some of your doors open up at the 3-year mark and a lot more doors open up after the 5-year mark. Junior PM roles are incredibly competitive, but you will be in high demand once you’re a seasoned PM.
If you can, talk to someone (who doesn’t have to be PM or even in tech) when practicing your answers. Sometimes as PMs, we try to break things down so much –– we don’t pay enough attention to the bigger things we should be focusing on. In other words, we can incorrectly focus on breadth and not depth. I’ve found talking to other people is a good way for me sometimes to catch those.
Ready To Nail Your PM Interview?
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