
LinkedIn Product Manager interview review - jsnk
http://jsonk.posterous.com/linkedin-product-manager-interview-review
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heyadayo
Jason: Take this down. You will almost certainly not get the job if your
interviewers find this, for almost any tech company of scale. Especially:

"If I am selected for more interviews, I will definitely write about them."

~~~
ecaron
I really don't understand why Jason should take this down. I'd never look down
on a candidate for blogging about the interview process with my company.

~~~
larrys
Compare the upside of writing about his experience with the potential
downside.

I don't think many companies are going to say "hey that's great that he did
that" and it will _help him_ land the job. But it is entirely likely that any
number of companies that he might interview with would be turned off by it and
it could cost him the job.

~~~
teaspoon
For the author, weeding out employers with that culture might be an upside. It
depends what he's looking for.

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tzs
> After a brief greeting, the interviewer asked me what is the most
> interesting product that's out there right now on web. I made my first
> mistake here and answered, Facebook. I had prepared for interviewing about
> LinkedIn product and set myself up to be interviewed about Facebook for next
> 40 minutes.

That wasn't a mistake. The answer you think you should have given, "LinkedIn",
would have been a mistake. That's probably the answer everybody else gave, and
tells the interviewer "I'm here to say whatever I think will make you like me
most, so let's start out with the improbable claim that your company is the
most interesting thing on the web".

------
stfu
"The interview wrapped up with him asking me to estimate the annual revenue of
McDonalds."

Is stuff like this becoming the norm now? This looks a lot like the notorious
"estimation" questions in consulting company interviews. Especially because it
seems to be taken completely out of context and with very little relation to
the actual job/company.

~~~
idoh
I interviewed for a pm position there a while back - my experience wasn't
anything like the blog post. So it's not even the norm (probably) at linked
in.

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jeffehobbs
Interesting account, but:

I wouldn't write about this. I could see this being used against you.

~~~
teaspoon
Why work for a company that would "use" a dry, factual account of their
interview process against you?

~~~
alttab
Why hire someone you can't trust to keep their mouth shut?

~~~
teaspoon
I don't know where you're getting that LinkedIn asked Jason to keep his mouth
shut about anything.

~~~
biot
I wouldn't go on a date with a woman who blogged a review of every date. At
the same time, it'd be awkward if one had to ask their dates in advance not to
publish a detailed account online.

~~~
teaspoon
It would also be awkward if an interviewee wanted to come back to my apartment
for drinks. Interviewing and dating are two different social situations with
different codes of etiquette.

~~~
alttab
Posting to a blog about a first round of interviews while you are still going
through them can easily be viewed as premature, immature, and potentially
dangerous for the company (but moreso for the reputation of the poster).

Now, if he had been hired, worked hard for a couple of years and was promoted
from within the interview story could be considered relevant advice. However
it is too early for anyone including himself to glene any pro/cons out of it,
and instead the blog post looks like a kamikaze mission to the top of the hill
to let his buddies know where the enemies are hiding.

~~~
rhizome
_Posting to a blog about a first round of interviews while you are still going
through them can easily be viewed as premature, immature, and potentially
dangerous for the company_

I have read several version of this comment elsewhere in the story, is there
any basis for this attitude besides paranoia? Have you ever seen something
like this be "dangerous" for a company in real life, or is it completely
imaginary? You use the word "easily," so I'm just wondering if it's so common
that I just don't get out enough.

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sk5t
Interesting... college seniors, recent grads, and grad students have enough
experience to be Product Managers at LNKD? Where do their junior analysts come
from?

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vicngtor
Yeah I am pretty sure you are not allowed to post this because you would
probably have signed an NDA before your interview.

You have to respect the people at LinkedIn who put in a lot of effort to
design this interview process by not leaking it out.

~~~
rhizome
Does that really happen? I have never signed an NDA prior to a job interview.

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deepGem
Just a tip - How to answer the McD question:

McD are spread worldwide - so assume some figures for the leading consumer
nations.

For ex - 70% of US population, 50% of Japanese population etc consume at least
1 McD burger/meal a day. Now compute the average price of a McD burger/meal.
Multiply the two and you have average revenues per day.

Average price * no of burgers/meals sold per day = Average revenues.

Average revenues per day * 30 * 12 = annual revenues.

Follow the same formula for all product lines and add them up. Hope this
helps.

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csmt
I am curious why would you blog about an interview. Most companies ask you to
sign an NDA before the interview. Isn't posting a blog about the interview a
violation of NDA?

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zmitri
Lots of companies will put you under an NDA if you interview with them. Be
careful talking about explicit questions.

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thwarted
This link has a target="_blank" on it. Is this some new option submitters
have?

~~~
thwarted
Well, the downvotes got me to investigate further. It seems it was the Chrome
extension JSON Inspector (
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mfnjijpckfecpgchob...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mfnjijpckfecpgchobgcfndicenjldoe)
) that was inserting the target="_blank" _only_ on this page for the article's
link.

