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Job search in Germany as a product manager and more. Part 5/5. Interviews. Test tasks. Life Hack Epilogue

Post cycle navigation: 1/5 , 2/5 , 3/5 , 4/5 , 5/5.

This post was supposed to be shorter than the previous ones, and that's why. Firstly, the number of interviews in which I took part is an order of magnitude less than the number of CVs sent. Accordingly, big data has not accumulated here. Secondly, the lively interaction between people is much more plastic. It becomes successful not because of, but contrary to formalization. Remember how Rusty (Brad Pitt) instructed Linus (Matt Damon) in Ocean's 11 about being a conformal, unforgettable character? In order to produce the opposite impression, such a briefing can no longer be.


Nevertheless, in the end, before the happy ending, I decided to add a section with life hacks, which I used when the measured flow for job search did not bring the proper results. Thanks to her, the final part became the most voluminous.

Before turning to the topic of interviews, let's look at the statistics of reviews and the funnel of passing the interview chain. Earlier, I called the following number of competitors:

200 (job reviews) -> 20 (screening) -> 15 (test task) -> 10 (interview with the hiring manager) -> 2 (lunch with the founder).

The number 200 is taken as the order of values ​​visible in the applicant’s premium account on LinkedIn. Based on such statistics, the likelihood that you will have to send hundreds of resumes to get a job does not look alarmist. At the same time, your documents should be competitive enough not to fall into automatic ATS screening along with most reviews.

But still, after some number of CVs have been sent to you (usually by mail) you will receive an invitation to your first telephone interview. The term for a positive recall can range from a couple of days to a month and a half, but on average it is a week or two. Failures can come within a few months, as the candidate base is cleaned. About a quarter of applications remain unanswered.

Screening


In half of the cases it is carried out by phone, in the rest - Skype, Zoom, Hangouts. It lasts half an hour. As I already wrote , the main task of the conversation is to understand that there is a living person behind the sent resume, he is able to communicate and, possibly, corresponds to the spirit of the company. It is important to understand that the interviewer recruiter does not actually make decisions. Rather, it is a speaking CAPTCHA that will weed you out for bad English or an obvious file like criticism from a previous employer.

In this regard, it is not surprising that during a video call the recruiter meets you in an extended T-shirt in his kitchen, and in the middle of a conversation starts scratching his armpit or poking around in his ear. I swear I've seen it at least twice. One of the reasons for such “company faces” is that screening is sometimes outsourced to recruiting companies, and they are already “gaining staff on the announcement,” fortunately, the work is simple.

This in no way means that you do not need to prepare for an interview. Read the company's website again, see the latest news on LinkedIn. If a company has a jobseeker blog, be sure to check it out.

In addition to answering general questions, I urge you to spend time exploring Amazon’s leadership principles. At one time, Jeff Bezos formulated 14 principles around which the culture of his company is built, and the questions related to them that are heard at the interviews cover the entire spectrum of possible topics that pop up on screenings. A good look at the principles and related questions can be found on this blog .

If you have doubts about the quality of your English / German, be sure to rehearse the answers to the questions aloud. Do not try to memorize them, but you can prepare a thesis clue.

Basically, it all comes down to two settings that need to be refreshed before each interview:

  • Remember your strengths and do not be shy.
  • Have prepared answers to complex questions such as "Tell us about your weak qualities."

Take care of the quality of the connection. I had terrible quality home Wi-Fi, and VoIP was blocked on the mobile tariff (common practice for German operators, tariffs without blocking are more expensive). Therefore, be prepared to offer a recruiter to turn off the video, switch to an alternative messenger or call a mobile number (I think that’s why regular calls are so common in recruiting).

In addition to your answers, be sure to think through your questions. This is somehow not accepted in our country, but in Germany it is believed that if a person does not ask questions at an interview, then he is not interested in vacancies. However, do not try to ask technical, marketing or product questions - the recruiter is not able to answer them. You can ask about the structure of the department or company, its history and, of course - what are the next steps?

Test


In case you weren’t dumb and generally showed signs of life at the screening, your resume with all the related materials is sent to the hiring manager (although this may be VP or CTO, it depends on your level and size of the company). In case your profile suits him, a test task is sent to you - a certain use case, sometimes supplemented by a number of behavioral questions.

Since I did not sign the NDA at the interviews, I think it will not be a crime to show here a few examples of test tasks (of course, impersonal).

Example 1. Project manager in an e-commerce platform. 2 days to complete.
CompanyName is a web-based operating system that currently consists of apps, that are made to make commerce easier for businesses. Company wants to build a new app, your task is to create a full plan for making this new app within the Company’s operating system. The app is called 'Coupons', which will enable the user to generate, maintain and use the coupon across various channels with the platform.

Reminder: It is a coupon app that will be developed within the web-based platform. The coupons app is not a discount finder for nearby shops, but for the merchant to provide to customers.

Part 1 — Tasks


  1. Perform a market research on competitors to define the base features and common UX used for a coupons app. Make a draft for the designer in any tool of your preference, to explain your UI idea and its functionalities. It's important that your draft contains all details needed for implementing a working coupons app from a customer perspective.
  2. Create an UML diagram (example) that represents the technical implementation of the coupons app and its features. In addition investigate our apps and draft a context diagram (example) that shows the relations between coupons and the other apps within the Company’s operating system and how they are affected. Please motivate your diagrams with explanations for your decisions. The developer should be directly able to implement your solution.
  3. Describe the steps of how the coupons app should be built in detail. Do this by simulating a task description (can be done in JIRA or plain text), that answers the following information:
    • Why? – What is its goal
    • Who? – In case: users, merchants, business
    • What? – Describe the (technical) functionality & user journey
    • Acceptance criteria? — Minimal functionality to be accepted
  4. Divide the JIRA task (you don’t need to have JIRA itself, you can do it in a text file) based on the coupons app features into (smaller) frontend and backend tasks for the developers. Provide the decomposed tasks with a short description of what should be implemented.

Part 2 — Questions


  • How do you handle a team member who isn’t productive?
  • How do you ensure the team will estimate accurately and meet sprint deadline?
  • What general metrics do you use to determine if a project/sprint is progressing on track?
  • How to deal with critical bugs during a sprint?


Example 2. Product manager in an online store. Week to complete.

Task 1


We want to implement electronic gift vouchers on our website. How would you plan this on a strategic and operational level? Please work out a set of max. 12 slides in Power Point (.ppxt) or Google Slides (.gslides) and make sure to include all stakeholders involved. You have 10 minutes time to present you outcome. Afterwards we will have at least 10 minutes to discuss your results.

Task 2


Imagine you currently work on different projects. The projects you are managing run into some conflict issues regarding your timeline and other department’s capacity. Please provide 3 possible solutions to resolve the conflict. Feel free to choose the right format yourself.

Example 3. Product manager in a network of clinics. 3 hours to complete.

Context


One way our patients begin their aligner treatment is by visiting one of our clinics for an initial scan and assessment of their teeth. The appointment process is therefore an essential part of the patient journey and sets the tone for the customer’s experience. It starts when the customer first visits our website and ends when they visit the clinic. We are currently adding more and more cities to enlarge our clinic network and offer our services Germany-wide. We are also considering having more than one clinic per city.

Assignment


You are free to choose the format.

  1. Project setup Please check out the page companyname.de/location​. By adding more and more cities and even having several clinics in one city with different availabilities, how would you rethink this page in order to let the users find the best suitable clinic in terms of time and distance? How would you approach this project? Please come up with a MVP version and idea for a high-end version.
  2. User Story How would you break this MVP epic down into user stories? Please formulate three user stories with acceptance criteria.
  3. Measure success How would you measure if your feature is a success or not?

Example 4. Product lead in a marketing platform. 4 hours to complete.

4 Month – 1 App


You have 4 months to develop a mobile app. It is about your best mobile idea, which you had so far. The goal is not to develop the perfect product in a short time, but to build a kind of MVP that covers the most important functions and KPIs. Please also consider all monetary aspects.

  1. Describe your idea in the simplest possible way. Which statements are important?
  2. What are you concentrating on at the beginning?
  3. What resources do you need?
  4. What processes will you use?
  5. Sketch a prototype.
  6. Write 4 fundamental user stories for the product. Would you derive tickets from it? If yes, which?
  7. How do you measure success? (A detailed solution is necessary)
  8. What problems do you see in your product as well as in the first 4 months of implementation?

If you have no idea at all, you can choose an existing product and deal with the tasks.

Business Case


We assume your idea will work out after the test phase. Please sketch the business potential of your idea in a simple excel business case (essential assumptions, potential revenue, Costs, etc.).

Problems over Problems — Prioritize the following tickets


Please decide for the prioritization of the following 5 tickets and justify:

  1. The Dashboard for the Daily KPIs analysis in the marketing department does not work properly
  2. A / B Testing the influence of a faster image loading function in the mobile app
  3. The mobile backend servers must be upgraded to support load peaks
  4. The email register function in the app does not work with Samsung mobile phones
  5. Head of Design wants to change the layout of the App to the new CI


Honestly, I don’t know what I could advise on the tests, because I always executed them on time and after their expulsion I always received an invitation to the next stage. No mistakes - no studies. Therefore, I will simply describe the methodology for working with them:

  • If the test is limited in time - start with planning. Determine what part of the work you will prepare in an hour, two, etc. Since this is not a mathematical problem - there is no only right solution, first make some MVP answer - if you have time, grind it.
  • Try to get a specialist to review your work. I asked to watch the tests before sending my former colleagues. Remember, your connections are part of your competence, and two heads are better than one.

I don’t know for sure whether there are such statistics in Germany, but, remembering from the employer's own experience that in Russia even moving up to the office for an interview is an impossible task for many, I suppose that completing the test task by the applicant is not such a universal practice and here.

Interview with a hiring manager / team


It lasts from an hour to half a day, can take place both online and in the office. The most responsible and difficult part of the entire interview chain is the abundance of pitfalls. It requires both hard and soft skills, self-PR, empathy and all-all-all that I wrote before.

The main mistake here is to assume that you have already been chosen and this is actually getting to know the team. NO. That is, yes, this is an acquaintance, but you are still at the threshold and with a high probability (90%, remember this) will remain there.

Despite this (and in fact, that is why) the main advice here is to just be yourself. You have danced all conventions before this meeting, it is time to talk with those people with whom you may have to work every day. Well, as for the self-PR ... You're cool, aren't you? Logged in 5% of the total number of respondents. So everything is fine.

It is assumed that the previously completed test task will be considered at the interview. In my practice, this happened in half the cases. Considering that it may take more than a month from the test to the meeting, return to the text before the interview and rehearse its presentation.

I met two types of interviews at this level: counseling and interrogationexam. The first is a discussion of working situations, questions are raised on both sides in approximately equal amounts, and detailed answers to them are also distributed. An exam is a stream of questions from the employer and uncomfortable pauses when answered, it seems that something is wrong. It is clear from what type of interview a positive result is expected to a lesser extent.

Interview with the founder


I dined with the founders a couple of times, and in both cases we discussed Putin. Thank you to the President of the Russian Federation for intercepting the topic of conversation at 30-degree frosts and bears in the streets. Seriously, this is a demonstration of your communication skills: tell, listen, argue, joke, adapt to the interlocutor. Work topics surfaced only in the context of "but there was such a case."

Trial


Once I also received an offer from one of the companies to work a couple of days in their office in test mode. This was preceded by three Skype interviews (including with CEO) and a voluminous test task. Of course, I agreed - it was interesting, and the path to this moment was considerable. Unlike the common “half day with a team” format (you are taken around the office, everyone shows and you tell) everything here was quite utilitarian: he came with his laptop, connected to corporate wifi, received a task, did it, received the following, etc. The tasks were combat, from writing TK on a new feature in the product to working out the integration of Pact with Jira. In general, two full days from call to call. I do not regret that this trial was not followed by an offer, but it was necessary to work on the errors and, perhaps, the main one I saw only a few months later.They expect more socialization from your presence in the office. Small talks at the cooler and lunch together. Later, in one of the companies in the kitchen, I saw a list of newcomers and old employees assigned to them who help carry out onboarding. This is an indispensable part of Western startup culture, and to brush here is to take points away.

In general, at any interview in the office you (possibly repeatedly) will be offered water, tea, coffee or soda. Fruits and beer in the kitchen, employees 'dogs bored under the tables are the same signs of a Berlin IT company as the white walls in local interiors and a defiant neglect of the developers' office wardrobe. The external informality of internal communications is postulated here in every way; be prepared for this and comply.

Epilogue breaking all the rules


The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience, as stated in the memorable talk about sunscreen . Everything written in these five chapters is an attempt to streamline your confused experience, including a description of its ordering as data becomes available and in the absence of positive dynamics. What did I do when I saw that something was going wrong?

  • I read the next batch of recommendations or descriptions of personal experience. In large quantities, such information is only confusing, so it is better to dose it, correlate it with your own experience and apply it incrementally. I have already mentioned all the sources that helped me.
  • . - — ? , ? LinkedIn .

The information received should be enough for a significant improvement that applies to the entire pool of vacancies for the next week or two - in order to make another measurement of the effectiveness of your efforts. In my case, the convergence of reviews on CV ranged from 1:40 (Christmas season) to 1: 4 (last week of sending a resume before receiving an offer).

Another way to improve the conversion situation is to change your search methods and criteria. I will give an example from another opera. In Germany (and especially, by the way, Berlin), rental housing is an absolutely puzzling task. Supply and demand ratios - many dozens of applicants for one apartment. Housing search channels are more or less centralized: this is a popular portal , local eBayand groups on social networks. So, in order to find an apartment outside the general market, I read advice to look for rental advertisements in ... paper newspapers. There is little overlap between online and offline audiences, so here you can find an offer that few people will see besides you. I’ll tell you about such life hacks in the end.

Job fairs


It is strange to talk about them as non-obvious ways to find work. But! Compare the audience of offline fairs (several thousand applicants) and the potential audience on the same Linkedin. At the fair, you have the opportunity to meet with team members, chat, impress and be remembered even if the position you are interested in at the company is not currently open.

I will give an example from my practice. At Tech Jobs FairI talked with the product manager of a Berlin legaltech startup. We talked for a few minutes, they did not have managerial vacancies at that time. But after a couple of months the position was opened and, having succumbed and received an invitation to screening, in the first interview I mentioned this conversation, thus highlighting myself in a series of applicants. When I got to the interview with the team and the manager, at the end of the interview I asked him if he remembers that conversation? He did not remember. Conclusion? You can talk about being at such a party and talking there with such a person, even if you were not there. The main thing is to make sure that he was there :)

Conferences


Another reason for the dilemma is “visit or stay home, send a couple more resumes.” Of course, it all depends on the profile. If you see among the participants many representatives of potential employers - go without hesitation. More precisely, thinking about how to spend time with benefit:

  1. First of all, go over the stands, there are often We are hiring posters. Rushing to fill out questionnaires doesn’t make much sense - it can be done on the company’s website, but to talk with employees, get in touch and, ideally, sincere willingness to send your CV to the addressee is a worthy goal.
  2. A good place for networking is cafeterias and food outlets on the territory of the exhibition. There are a lot of people from the industry and they are ready to chat! Cherry on the cake - badges with the name and the name of the company are attached to them. Perfect.
  3. After an interesting speaker speaks, it’s usually easy to approach him, express admiration for the speech and exchange contacts.
  4. In extreme cases, do not forget about life hacking from the example of job fairs.

A significant part of the crowded conferences has the option of free admission (which is why it is crowded there), or discounts on early bird, so watch out, register in advance.

It also makes sense to visit thematic mitaps, but I already mentioned this in the very first post .

Custom Search Criteria


The final piece of advice in this article is designed to help you identify blind spots in search results for jobboards. On the one hand, each of the known boards has its own (sometimes unique) search filters. On the other hand, a search for other complex criteria is not obvious. This drives all applicants to one array of vacancies, while others remain less noticeable. In turn, this gives an advantage to those who discover them and thus find themselves in a less competitive environment.

For example, 90% of all job openings for product managers are in Germany in Berlin, 5% come from Hamburg, and the remainder is divided in half between Munich and the rest of Germany. We can see vacancies for any of these large cities, but most jobboards will not allow you to separately see the “other” vacancies. This can be done, for example, in Google, but how many applicants do this?

Or, for example, add qualifying keywords to the main query. For example, all who read this article have a strong Russian language skill. Why not search for product owner russian? Oddly enough, from five of these jobs in Germany typed. Companies outsource development in Russian-speaking countries, so such specialists are also needed.

It was such an atypical search that brought me to a job as a scrum master at a small financial and logistics startup in Lower Saxony, which eventually turned into a contract. However, in this case everything was atypical. Firstly, the company did not use ATS. Applications were accepted by email. Secondly, applications were reviewed directly by CTO. Thirdly, the very first interview (with CTO) was in-person, not telephone. Fourth, there was no test task ... In general, from this angle, most of the acquired knowledge and skills aimed at overcoming conventions for reaching decision-makers were not needed.

It is logical to end my story on this. It took me 10 months to work out and implement the plan. Even taking into account that for a number of reasons I was not in a hurry - this is a lot. I hope that the tips gathered in this series of articles will help you achieve your goal much faster. However, given the current global situation (the article was written in April 2020, in the midst of coronavirus quarantine), it is possible that the time frame for finding a job and obtaining a visa will undergo maximum changes.

Thank you for your attention and be healthy!

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