Really good interview, here some notes on the framework Celena used. 1. Mission & Strategy - Why makes sense to build this product 2. Define user segments and prioritize it 3. Brainstorm of potential pain points and needs, prioritize 4. Potential solutions, prioritize based on impact / effort and other key metrics 5. Pick one solution and define the MVP
She started really good, but after going through the strategy, she needed to define the goals and requirements while defining user segments, not jump directly into segments without knowing what she wanted to achieve. Also I didn’t hear about any benchmarking with industry orgs before finalizing the requirements and functionalities. Other than that, pretty good answer
@@sophiajin9649 I would first want to clarify the business goals. Eg. Is our goal to capture more of the global market, or to increase platform engagement across the existing user base? You could then factor this in to decision-making when prioritising user segments or pain points.
every time I have a PM interview , I definitely come here to get some ideas, and everytime I have some new insight or new learning from this video The video feels so natural and rare perfect interview
I'm so impressed by both people's intelligence as well as her clarify and ability to think on her feet. Definitely one of the best interview conversations I've seen.
im blown away by the quality of the interview and by Celena's ability to take leadership as she's guiding the interview into a what she thinks is important in Facebook Movies. Great Job Celena!
Something that really stood out the most for me is how knowledgeable of the product (Facebook) frontend and backend, she is dealing with. It is very obvious she knows most (if not all) the features the product she is dealing with. All aspect of the new feature that she needs to consider (AND SO QUICKLY). Also she is so convincing during each step along the way. As a user, I can visualized the concept she is projecting and be convince it could really be a real product. Really awesome and impressive!
One of the most interesting videos about product management I've seen not only from an interview aspect but design wise as well, the way Celena mapped out the entire product design process at the beginning and moving form one point to another shows the experience and expertise she has in the field. Seeing how she expanded on each idea and giving an "on-the-go" product design proposal without stuttering or losing focus is something I aim to achieve with time. Thanks for this!
For anyone that didn't catch it, they're skipping through the time while she's paused and jotting notes down. I've noticed through doing a few of these myself, there might be some anxiety around "taking too long" but I think that taking a minute or two isn't the worst thing. People quickly forget about idle time if you have something to show them after that time (chart, prioritization, thoughts, etc).
I agree with your point and it is a great ideology that taking a little time is not bad at all. in fact it shows one is thinking through and not jumping at conclusions. However, from a youtube video's perspective, showing that time would increase the length of the video and waste time of the viewer who is pressed for time while preparing for PM/other interviews :) Just a point of view from someone who makes youtube videos herself.
I went through these mock interview couple of times and went through your other videos as well including questions on your website. I was able to crack the interview and got an offer from a faang company . These are very helpful. Thanks again
Like @banksy said, one big miss was to articulate the WHY better. Strategically, is there something that makes FB better suited for long-form content? Something it can do that Hulu/Netflix/ cannot? Or is replicating a mini-Netflix going to bring in something (new users, greater engagement) that otherwise cannot be done? (I think she built her answer based on #2 being true, but it would have been better to be explicit about this) Otherwise, a stellar answer. Even with dealing with a quirky idea (collaborative movie-making online), she powered through with her clear thinking and strong articulation skills - kudos!
It's amazing how Celena, spoke about all the aspects of the product design. She carefully articulated all her points right from the design to the use cases to the pain points and the MVP as well. If you could just share how she would be jotting down her notes and how she represented it which helped her collect her thoughts, it would be great!
One of the best mock interviews from Exponent yet! I have seen most of your videos, and I felt like Celena was by far the best. It seemed like she did not force a framework anywhere. It seemed very logical, and at the end of it I felt like this is how a PM might actually think about launching a feature. I'd always take a quick peek at the LinkedIn profiles of the people who volunteer for a mock. One difference I saw between Celena and others was the fact that she has prior work experience. Bringing in someone who has actually worked in this role brings a whole new perspective. Would be great to see more videos with candidates who have worked as PMs in past!
Asking a question about Facebook product to a PM already working at Facebook would definitely give a richer answer. I love the structure and the way Celena answered. But I think the idea should be to ask about Microsoft getting into movies or google getting into events. It would at least guarantee the plain field when approaching something they are not fully aware of.
Adding this video to my playlist of fav pm resources. The interviewee was so clear and concise and this is one of the best mock interviews I've ever seen!
I swear to God, as soon as you asked movies in facebook, I had the second idea on my mind that we can make a movie about people and share it like friend anniversary videos!! This is my first time watching PM interview! I hope I get there soon.
@@tryexponent Likes the ideation and brainstorming process. Would have been happy if you pushed a bit on MVP user flow during the interview. the feedback you gave later.
This kind of interview is not about give the audience how would be the interview about, but as full time PM it also teach you to know their thinking process. Good job ! keep making videos like this!
Wow 🤩 Exponent, thank you for organising this share . Blown away by the value of this as Celena, in a good way, you just reduced me to an absolute beginner PM. I was in customer service, seconded to a Product Owner role for 2 years and am in a permanent Product Manager role now for the past year. You’ve totally schooled me (not that I’m a great PM or anything) and I am amped to strive forward to learn more on the frame work you channeled your interview response to here. Will have to watch this again and write down notes. Sooooo good! Thank you 🤩
I have started watching this channel and I cannot tell that I am in love with the videos. Have been watching all the videos from the start. This interview was really great from start to finish, very calm & composed as everybody is mentioning in the comment section. The way she approached the problem was commendable laying out the approach and everything. Exponent is already doing a great job. But a little ask from my end. - If you could ask how the news feed could be redesigned in facebook as I see that this question has been asked a lot.
Hey pankhuritrikha6889, thank you for the kind words! We appreciate your support. As for your ask, we actually do have questions and answers on our website pertaining to facebook's newsfeed here: www.tryexponent.com/questions?page=1&query=newsfeed Hope this helps!
Just wanna say thanks for sharing this video as it helps a lot! Got an offer from top-ranked tech unicorns and therefore I so wanna leave this comment to show how much I appreciate!
Watching mock up interview from top companies employees is the best way to know how to answer questions. I gathered lots of tips Life structuring and frame of answering beforehand to map it. I also want to see behavioural mock interview like real life case scenarios. Thanks for this. I think I should this multiple times.
Great interview. Everyone should note that she is writing down on a piece of paper but she is clearly looking off screen or at a second monitor where she has a cheat sheet or framework of some kind. This won't work for the in person interview so practice practice practice!
I really like her last idea/solution regarding allowing people to make movies together. Instead of thinking about it as making a big blast movie that takes a year, we can have users make it more often by tying it to events, for example, high school reunion, birthday party, house warming, etc. The personal/life story movie can also be put on each person's profile so as I want to learn about someone new, I can just watch their life story movie.
This was an excellent interview and she was obviously amazing but I’d bet my life savings that she had the question beforehand so probably spent days or even weeks planning her response. I don’t say this to belittle the purpose of this but to speak to reality when other Product people are watching this and feeling like they can’t compare to her (because yes you can).
Love the answers and thoroughness of your thoughts. The idea, everyone has their own movies, has merits, is exciting, and can see it already. My friends would post pictures that best capture their month at the end of each month. In a way, they’re creating this movie of their life.
Great interview. Adding my 2 cents - I think it was important to define what type of movie are they considering, short form or long form. Eventually the end result of the experience described is going to be similar, monotonous and uninteresting as a movie to watch. The return on investment is also going to extremely low for a user. How is this even better than what Apple automatically does on iPhone with auto-movie creation. Could have talked about potential competitors in this space and where we can leap-frog them. PM should be able to articulate the potential benefits into specific domains both from a user perspective and business perspective before deep-diving into a singular space.
She has done a good job of mapping out the design process and coming up with a solution but, I feel the first question to ask is why Facebook wants to do that? What are the strategic objectives the company wants to achieve by this product? I am not sure why that was not asked.
Excellent interview. I've been amazed by the imagination of Celena and her reasoning behind every section. Your questions, summarisation and improvement suggestions are also to the point. Since the product is surrounded by the term "Movies", I thought about Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. and excluded the movie creation part like RUclips, TikTok etc.
9 months ago, I was rejected for by FB for position with salary X (at that time my salary was only 0.8X)... Thankfully, now I am able to obtain similar salary in job that I like much better than the one I applied at FB... Indeed many roads can lead us to Rome....
Great analysis Kudos to her. 2 cents the General user segment has a big competitor with large installed base Tiktok and several country level players like them for native audience + RUclips + in china it. That competition angle of Netflix on professional segment does exist in individual segment much intense as scale is high but viewers will be low unless its a viral video concept
Very informative interview , I pickup very important notes , If You go for PO/PM certificate that will add more information to your knowledge to successfully deliver more quality product with more exposure to qualitative and quantitative measures
I think if you're a creator that relies on what other people think of what you're creating you're in the wrong business. That being said she is super-smart and eloquent.
The question was about developing a “movies” product within the Facebook platform. It’s fascinating to me that a young, well-educated PM would interpret that question as a product for individual content creators and not a direct competitor to Netflix that leverages the assets that Netflix doesn’t have: a thorough understanding of their users’ daily habits and interests as well as a detailed understanding of their social graph. Those assets could enable Facebook to revolutionize content discovery and provide premium content providers (primarily studios) with a new means to target individual users with their content the same way that advertisers micro target their ads. Netflix can’t do that. Netflix can use their usage data to determine what types of content they should license and create but they can’t push that content to the ideal audience the way that Facebook could. To me, that’s the future of entertainment: bring it to me. Don’t make me look for it. But for someone who grew up in the new world of social media, Instagram, etc, the brainstorming went straight to a premium RUclips-like product for individual content creators and the focus was on what the creator’s experience was like (the lonely experience). Fascinating! Makes me feel old. 😆
You would be hired, she would not. This is why the market is biased to people who have brought products to market and not people who have MBA courses under thier belt. The conversation should have been solely about Facebook dominating streaming against Netflix, Amazon and Disney for marketshare.
@@ihatejpmorgan That's actually terrible advice for a FB interview. She started at the top with FB's mission which isn't even aligned with any of the companies' you mentioned missions at all. FB is not a streaming company, why would this product mission be to compete with streaming companies? Sure, you can mention those companies as competition and explain through how you think it's worthwhile to compete with them if that's how you want to do it, but ultimately she explained herself well. It's ok that not everyone has the same answer, who wants to hire people who give you the same ideas as everyone else? The ability NOT to think in absolute terms about a right/wrong answer is way more important than any MBA will ever be.
Shouldn't make you feel old! Both are good answers as long as they turn a profit. It's weird that she went straight to the individual contributor but then I suppose those people are the pan - e - burro of some video sites, but then it depends on the video site. Your answer is probably similar to what I would have given but then that'd be if I asked, "What form of video are we talking?", for the answer to be, "Anything". Because although small indie contributors will make a lot for the company in ads == revenue to the contributor == more uploads == more time online, I think Netflix et. al. do need some fierce competition & they have massive holes in their game. That's just the kinda challenge i'm into tho'. But yeah i'm also old as fuck
Nice interview, however I missed the financial perspective when we consider a product or service. Typical question:"How can we make money with this product/service?"
good point, especially FB is here to make money :-). However, the main focus here was on user acquisition. Once you have a stable platform and a sizable user base, FB may focus on financial aspects. It may be hard for other startups to survive without money, but the fundamental assumption here is that FB is behind this idea. But I would agree, that it is better to make this point clear to the interviewer if we are keeping the financial angel outside the purview of the discussion.
Really good interview, excellent presence and communication skills. Thanks Exponent for putting these videos out. These really helped me prepare & land my offers. Cheers!
This definitely was a moonshot idea. As an interviewer I would've really questioned the need to bring the social aspect to creation instead of consumption. When Celena was talking about how movies and cinema is a social experience and how that ties with Facebook's mission, I felt it was more to do with the movie consuming experience and not so much with the movie creation experience.
@@tryexponent Yeah like I said, I would look to merge the movie consuming experience with Facebook's strength which is its social graph. If you look at the competition today, the big players like Netflix, Prime, Hulu offer movies with great production value but have practically 0 social play. On the other hand apps like TikTok are extremely social but only offer small time individual creator content. There seems to be an opportunity in the good production movies + social space. RUclips Original seems to the only player in this space today but they seem to have very limited content produced by themselves. Like Celena said, I do believe there is a large social element to consuming movies. Sharing movie recommendations, watching a movie together, rating movies, discussing movie plots etc are great use cases that Facebook can start serving. Sort of IMDb + Netflix + House Party. Long term Facebook will have to start creating its own content since that seems to be the only financially viable option. But to start off, it can partner with a production house that is looking to venture into the movie streaming space since physical movie theatres are not expected to do well for a while now. Facebook has recently partnered with Reliance in India which has a huge movie production arm so that could actually be a realistic option. I just felt democratizing movie creation might be a very niche space. Most movie creators want the movie to be reflection of themselves so not sure a lot of them would sign up. Or maybe I'm not just thinking out of the box enough :)
@@msarosh This is a great direction! You're definitely right that democratizing movie creation isn't a clear path, but more of a moonshot - your ideas could make for an awesome interview answer, too! I'd be curious to hear more about the actual solution and how it might demonstrate your creativity.
@@tryexponent Yeah what I initially thought of was a separate Facebook movies app. It could have a feed to see posts about movies from your social circle, a movie catalog that has ratings and discussion boards, and the ability to host a watch party with friends (great for the Covid situation). The watch party solution could get a little out of the box and has scope to be creative. I'll be happy to talk to you. Is there a place I can reach out to you folks?
To make new product, 1 mission and strategy-why makes sense to build this product, 2. Define user segmentation and prioritize it. 3, brainstorming of potential pain Points and needs, prioritize 4, potential solutions, prioritize based on impact/effort and other key metrics Pick one solutions and define the MVP
she legitimately created a new idea... is that really a PM's job to come up with new ideas for the company or is a PM's job to manage OTHERS ideas objectively to create a new product??? either way she was amazing in her idea, thought process and delivery!
Not really. Contemporary product managers focus on data. Her germ of an idea could be tested. Her features would be derived from something like a design thinking exercise. An "as is" experience would be fully articulated and we'd look carefully at it to come up with many options to improve the process or innovate. Then we'd test each one, prioritize, cost out the projects, forecast outcomes, and only then start thinking about committing resources.
Amazing interview. Such smart ideas coming from Celena and presented in such a well thought out and structured way. Can you please do a mock interview for a Facebook data scientist role?
I know this is a mock .. but one thing I would also do is.. based on user's permission.. i would create a video library more on the lines of common creatives that creators can pull from and add to their movies and as a basic requirement keep a standard aspect ratio for these.. making the movie making process more streamlined..
Hello useful commenters, I've just started listening in on this channel and I'm definitely getting a lot of value from it. I noticed that not all interviewees are made equal and I am lucky to land on Celena's video first (I think she's great, well-structured, well thought-out, to name a few). I was wondering if you guys can point me to similar, structured, well thought-out interviewees in this channel? I want to learn properly and get the best practice of being a PM since I'm transitioning from a different field so I don't want to learn wrong things from the wrong people.
The problem I find with this "mock" interview is time. She had her responses already well crafted in advance. During the interview you don't have time to have thought out and refine your different thoughts yet. So this isn't realistic and makes the idea of these interviews flawed. It ends up being a case of if you're lucky to have chosen the right ideas and thoughts because there's not enough time. You have to gamble that your ideas and thoughts are down the path the interview thinks is right.
I totally agree - it definitely seems she had time to prepare, even simply by knowing what the topic was in advance in agreement to recording this video. None of these interview exercises are realistic to real life where you have days, maybe even weeks, to fully flesh out scope and solutions. It always seemed brutal to put interviewees through this...
@@TanRicky321 shes an incoming PM for Facebook, so shes already had this style of interview before, most likely more than once through many rounds. She's also friends with the interviewer which makes it much easier to develop your thought process.
It was an extraordinary interview. I loved the way she approached the question and brainstorming ideas. Just a thought, Did celena got a bit deviated when Stephen asked about Facebook movies. The vision she had initially for Facebook movie and where she completed . I thot it's for more for creator side comparing to the viewer side. I felt it's like a tiktok or yes RUclips.
Thanks Hari for your thoughts! These questions are typically open-ended and part of the appeal of Celena's answer is how she took it in a different direction than expected. That said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on creator-side brainstorms!
@@tryexponent Thanks for your response. Donot mind if it's not that interesting. For Facebook, It's strength is social network. I would personally want to have online joint movie watchers community where they can connect privately with video conferencing. From user perspective, I would like to categorise FB movies in to 4. Short films, feature films, Documentary & educational films . From creator side, For all these we can give specific tools like joint collaboration of movie makers and much more help. Short and feature films are purely for entertainment purpose, Documentary for historical records and I would like to specifically go for Education. For this we can give tools for making recording, graphics, animations etc. This is mainly for kids and in some time this will be a golden field like facebook kids. I believe these will be a game changer. Pls letme know your feedback as well. Thanks once again
Thank you very much for posting these videos, especially during the times we are living in! I find them to be super helpful so please keep going! I would find it really beneficial if you could please reply here or create a separate video on what the MVP process would've looked like for this case. What steps would we follow to create and discuss through a MVP? Would really appreciate that!
Hey Mahd, from my Pm experience, MVP is usually created by this process: 1. Competitor and market benchmarking to gauge what is happening in the space your MVP is being launched 2. Customer Research to identify user behavior, needs and pain points of potential target groups 3. Persona building and mapping responses 4. Selection of TG - Target Group persona 5. Feature listing to address pain points and needs of TG Persona 6. Prioritizing features based on various weighted factors 7. Scoping the MVP 8. T-shirt sizing effort and finalizing first version 9. Design 10. Tech build 11. Go to market strategy 12. Launch Hope it helps.
This is a great interview. What im curious about is that do PMs actually do this product design thinking before handing it off to actual product designers?
Thanks makotokino27! It really depends on the stage of the company and the product, but often, product managers will work alongside product designers in the initial phases of a product, where the product managers are the voice of the users and communicate potential technical constraints with the engineers.
Good interview overall. It can become a great interview if the interviewee provides more clarification on product definition (e.g., what is exactly the product), differentiation (e.g., how is Facebook uniquely positioned to do this), and economics (e.g., will the product be profitable and metrics around it?). These are core questions for product manager when exploring new ideas.
Great job guys! This is an awesome way to demonstrated product deisgn. I just thought maybe these two question was missing in terms of 1) how would Facebook would monetize the creative segments? Ie would it be through Ad revenue a click through or online ads during video viewings? 2) what is the monetary (other than social collaboration ) value for the creative segment to use Facebook over RUclips? I felt these question would be critical for a Facebook interview? Since it felt like we talked about the solution but not about the business case. It would be great to get your feedback
@tryexponent While she covered all the important frameworks and the flow was great. Am bit curious to understand what ever she suggested, how is it different from what already exist on FB ? When the problem statement was 'How will you design a product round movies with facebook' here the question is can FB be Netflix or Amazon Prime of its own kind? Making social movies or ordinary people making movies make it any additional valuable, isnt it already happening since its a social media platform? Am I missing something?
Don't leave your product management career to chance. Sign up for Exponent's Facebook PM interview course today: bit.ly/3wQFrNs
What is meaning of "around movies"?
Thanks
@@wellwisher4961a❤
Really good interview, here some notes on the framework Celena used.
1. Mission & Strategy - Why makes sense to build this product
2. Define user segments and prioritize it
3. Brainstorm of potential pain points and needs, prioritize
4. Potential solutions, prioritize based on impact / effort and other key metrics
5. Pick one solution and define the MVP
Thanks for summarizing, Franco!
Thanks for the framework!
She started really good, but after going through the strategy, she needed to define the goals and requirements while defining user segments, not jump directly into segments without knowing what she wanted to achieve. Also I didn’t hear about any benchmarking with industry orgs before finalizing the requirements and functionalities. Other than that, pretty good answer
@@raduwrx But wouldn't you first need to know who the users are, then by understanding the users, figure out their goals and requirements?
@@sophiajin9649 I would first want to clarify the business goals. Eg. Is our goal to capture more of the global market, or to increase platform engagement across the existing user base? You could then factor this in to decision-making when prioritising user segments or pain points.
every time I have a PM interview , I definitely come here to get some ideas, and everytime I have some new insight or new learning from this video
The video feels so natural and rare perfect interview
I'm so impressed by both people's intelligence as well as her clarify and ability to think on her feet. Definitely one of the best interview conversations I've seen.
She has terrific composure and that lets her ideas flow smoothly. Its actually relaxing to watch her talk.
im blown away by the quality of the interview and by Celena's ability to take leadership as she's guiding the interview into a what she thinks is important in Facebook Movies. Great Job Celena!
Something that really stood out the most for me is how knowledgeable of the product (Facebook) frontend and backend, she is dealing with. It is very obvious she knows most (if not all) the features the product she is dealing with. All aspect of the new feature that she needs to consider (AND SO QUICKLY).
Also she is so convincing during each step along the way. As a user, I can visualized the concept she is projecting and be convince it could really be a real product. Really awesome and impressive!
I just wanted to express how much I appreciate these videos as I am preparing for interviews. Thanks!
Thanks so much SeGe! Glad to hear our videos are valuable!
How did the interview go? Good luck!
I’ll certainly and definitely recommend www.tryexponent.com
Great sharing! check out this article for more insights... 10 Tools to Build a Formidable HR System > l.linklyhq.com/l/5sBZ
How did your interview go?
One of the most interesting videos about product management I've seen not only from an interview aspect but design wise as well, the way Celena mapped out the entire product design process at the beginning and moving form one point to another shows the experience and expertise she has in the field. Seeing how she expanded on each idea and giving an "on-the-go" product design proposal without stuttering or losing focus is something I aim to achieve with time. Thanks for this!
For anyone that didn't catch it, they're skipping through the time while she's paused and jotting notes down. I've noticed through doing a few of these myself, there might be some anxiety around "taking too long" but I think that taking a minute or two isn't the worst thing. People quickly forget about idle time if you have something to show them after that time (chart, prioritization, thoughts, etc).
nice catch, @Exponent yall should keep that in there to be realistic
@@Jc-do5xg agreed...it would at least be helpful to have the time-lapsed to reference.
I agree with your point and it is a great ideology that taking a little time is not bad at all. in fact it shows one is thinking through and not jumping at conclusions. However, from a youtube video's perspective, showing that time would increase the length of the video and waste time of the viewer who is pressed for time while preparing for PM/other interviews :) Just a point of view from someone who makes youtube videos herself.
I absolutely love love the fact how calm and collective she is. Signs of a composed human being who know what they are up to.
Thanks Salman! We loved Celena's calm composure too!
Excellent guide, thank you
I went through these mock interview couple of times and went through your other videos as well including questions on your website. I was able to crack the interview and got an offer from a faang company . These are very helpful. Thanks again
Like @banksy said, one big miss was to articulate the WHY better. Strategically, is there something that makes FB better suited for long-form content? Something it can do that Hulu/Netflix/ cannot? Or is replicating a mini-Netflix going to bring in something (new users, greater engagement) that otherwise cannot be done? (I think she built her answer based on #2 being true, but it would have been better to be explicit about this)
Otherwise, a stellar answer. Even with dealing with a quirky idea (collaborative movie-making online), she powered through with her clear thinking and strong articulation skills - kudos!
Clarity, composure and presence of mind - Celena definitely shines
Thanks!
Stanford undergrad & harvard MBA. No wonder she's extra good! Very clear & constructive approach.
It's amazing how Celena, spoke about all the aspects of the product design. She carefully articulated all her points right from the design to the use cases to the pain points and the MVP as well. If you could just share how she would be jotting down her notes and how she represented it which helped her collect her thoughts, it would be great!
One of the best mock interviews from Exponent yet! I have seen most of your videos, and I felt like Celena was by far the best. It seemed like she did not force a framework anywhere. It seemed very logical, and at the end of it I felt like this is how a PM might actually think about launching a feature. I'd always take a quick peek at the LinkedIn profiles of the people who volunteer for a mock. One difference I saw between Celena and others was the fact that she has prior work experience. Bringing in someone who has actually worked in this role brings a whole new perspective. Would be great to see more videos with candidates who have worked as PMs in past!
Glad you liked it Akshat! We agree that Celena did a great job, too :)!
disagree bit on what people put on LinkedIn if that person is working in a not known firm ..i mean ppl can fake seen it :)
She is so good it makes you feel bad about your mumbling self hahaha
We thought Celena was great too! But with practice, you can get as good as she is too!
It was so well structured, this is so helpful! Thanks Exponent!
True !! Lmfao
Bro she already knew and had prepared
Asking a question about Facebook product to a PM already working at Facebook would definitely give a richer answer. I love the structure and the way Celena answered. But I think the idea should be to ask about Microsoft getting into movies or google getting into events. It would at least guarantee the plain field when approaching something they are not fully aware of.
I agree
I would hire her on the spot! Amazing articulation. Thank you so much for sharing! These are TREMENDOUSLY helpful. Keep'em comin!!!
Wow, thank you! We really appreciate it!
Adding this video to my playlist of fav pm resources. The interviewee was so clear and concise and this is one of the best mock interviews I've ever seen!
Thanks!
For sure one of the best Exponent vids I’ve seen thus far.
Thanks Kristen
I swear to God, as soon as you asked movies in facebook, I had the second idea on my mind that we can make a movie about people and share it like friend anniversary videos!! This is my first time watching PM interview! I hope I get there soon.
She is awesome, good job! it's very clear that this topic wasn't given on the spot. Looks like she prepared for the whole process.
Unbelievably well executed interview, to come up with these ideas within 30 minutes and follow structure as well !!! Great job done by Celena !!
Thanks Samarth! What did you like best about the interview? Would love to make more videos like these.
@@tryexponent Likes the ideation and brainstorming process. Would have been happy if you pushed a bit on MVP user flow during the interview. the feedback you gave later.
This is the first video i'm watching of this channel and this feels almost like a real interview! Really good content!!!
Thanks Rohit :)!
This kind of interview is not about give the audience how would be the interview about, but as full time PM it also teach you to know their thinking process. Good job ! keep making videos like this!
Imma a PM too and her thoughts are amazing! She’s so creative!
Wow 🤩 Exponent, thank you for organising this share . Blown away by the value of this as Celena, in a good way, you just reduced me to an absolute beginner PM. I was in customer service, seconded to a Product Owner role for 2 years and am in a permanent Product Manager role now for the past year. You’ve totally schooled me (not that I’m a great PM or anything) and I am amped to strive forward to learn more on the frame work you channeled your interview response to here. Will have to watch this again and write down notes. Sooooo good! Thank you 🤩
These videos are gold std. content for somebody like me who's just exploring what is PM ! Thank you.
You're welcome!
She deserves the damn job. Really good performance from her.
I have started watching this channel and I cannot tell that I am in love with the videos. Have been watching all the videos from the start.
This interview was really great from start to finish, very calm & composed as everybody is mentioning in the comment section. The way she approached the problem was commendable laying out the approach and everything.
Exponent is already doing a great job. But a little ask from my end.
- If you could ask how the news feed could be redesigned in facebook as I see that this question has been asked a lot.
Hey pankhuritrikha6889, thank you for the kind words! We appreciate your support.
As for your ask, we actually do have questions and answers on our website pertaining to facebook's newsfeed here: www.tryexponent.com/questions?page=1&query=newsfeed
Hope this helps!
This is one of the best mock interview I have seen. Thanks for doing this.
Glad you enjoyed it!
She is so good that it makes me feel bad about my existence, lol. Thanks for sharing
Just wanna say thanks for sharing this video as it helps a lot! Got an offer from top-ranked tech unicorns and therefore I so wanna leave this comment to show how much I appreciate!
Wow, Jojo that's amazing news! I'm so glad to hear we helped you get an offer!
I like her, great use of the framework.
Showing the Facebook differentiation to be able to create a unique product against an strong compentece.
Watching mock up interview from top companies employees is the best way to know how to answer questions. I gathered lots of tips Life structuring and frame of answering beforehand to map it.
I also want to see behavioural mock interview like real life case scenarios. Thanks for this. I think I should this multiple times.
Glad you're enjoying our videos!
This is probably one of the best videos on this channel! ❤️
Thanks Subhojit!
Great interview. Everyone should note that she is writing down on a piece of paper but she is clearly looking off screen or at a second monitor where she has a cheat sheet or framework of some kind. This won't work for the in person interview so practice practice practice!
I really like her last idea/solution regarding allowing people to make movies together. Instead of thinking about it as making a big blast movie that takes a year, we can have users make it more often by tying it to events, for example, high school reunion, birthday party, house warming, etc. The personal/life story movie can also be put on each person's profile so as I want to learn about someone new, I can just watch their life story movie.
This was an excellent interview and she was obviously amazing but I’d bet my life savings that she had the question beforehand so probably spent days or even weeks planning her response. I don’t say this to belittle the purpose of this but to speak to reality when other Product people are watching this and feeling like they can’t compare to her (because yes you can).
Love the answers and thoroughness of your thoughts. The idea, everyone has their own movies, has merits, is exciting, and can see it already. My friends would post pictures that best capture their month at the end of each month. In a way, they’re creating this movie of their life.
Great interview. Adding my 2 cents - I think it was important to define what type of movie are they considering, short form or long form. Eventually the end result of the experience described is going to be similar, monotonous and uninteresting as a movie to watch. The return on investment is also going to extremely low for a user. How is this even better than what Apple automatically does on iPhone with auto-movie creation. Could have talked about potential competitors in this space and where we can leap-frog them. PM should be able to articulate the potential benefits into specific domains both from a user perspective and business perspective before deep-diving into a singular space.
She has done a good job of mapping out the design process and coming up with a solution but, I feel the first question to ask is why Facebook wants to do that? What are the strategic objectives the company wants to achieve by this product? I am not sure why that was not asked.
She later assumed the strategic decision based on the company's mission and objective
Seen a good interview demo after 3 months of search. Thank you
Thanks Santhosh!
Very impressive mock interview. Coming up with such great ideas on the spot is amazing.
Thanks Ritu!
Excellent interview. I've been amazed by the imagination of Celena and her reasoning behind every section. Your questions, summarisation and improvement suggestions are also to the point. Since the product is surrounded by the term "Movies", I thought about Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. and excluded the movie creation part like RUclips, TikTok etc.
Thanks Safique!
Stumbled across this channel and this is so so good! Please do a series for UX/User Researcher interviews also.
Thanks Anirudh! If you know any send 'em our way!
As far as ideas go, this one is very interesting. My first reflex was to see this product as an ideal platform for documentary film making
9 months ago, I was rejected for by FB for position with salary X (at that time my salary was only 0.8X)... Thankfully, now I am able to obtain similar salary in job that I like much better than the one I applied at FB... Indeed many roads can lead us to Rome....
best mock ever!!!! so structured.
Thanks Nusrat! What did you love most about this mock?
Great analysis Kudos to her. 2 cents the General user segment has a big competitor with large installed base Tiktok and several country level players like them for native audience + RUclips + in china it. That competition angle of Netflix on professional segment does exist in individual segment much intense as scale is high but viewers will be low unless its a viral video concept
I appreciate these videos so much! Thank you for taking the time to get the rest of us prepared for PM interviews
Our pleasure!
Thank you Exponent - this is priceless content!
We're glad you love it as much as we loved making it!
Been binge watching your videos. Awesome work!!
This is the best video I have seen for PM interview.
That means so much to us! Thank you :)!
Very informative interview , I pickup very important notes , If You go for PO/PM certificate that will add more information to your knowledge to successfully deliver more quality product with more exposure to qualitative and quantitative measures
I think if you're a creator that relies on what other people think of what you're creating you're in the wrong business. That being said she is super-smart and eloquent.
Damn! glad I found this channel.
Extremely thankful!
Super effective interview, thank you Exponent!
Our pleasure!
Amazing as always.!
Very helpful. I have a PM interview coming up and it helped me prepare
The question was about developing a “movies” product within the Facebook platform. It’s fascinating to me that a young, well-educated PM would interpret that question as a product for individual content creators and not a direct competitor to Netflix that leverages the assets that Netflix doesn’t have: a thorough understanding of their users’ daily habits and interests as well as a detailed understanding of their social graph. Those assets could enable Facebook to revolutionize content discovery and provide premium content providers (primarily studios) with a new means to target individual users with their content the same way that advertisers micro target their ads. Netflix can’t do that. Netflix can use their usage data to determine what types of content they should license and create but they can’t push that content to the ideal audience the way that Facebook could. To me, that’s the future of entertainment: bring it to me. Don’t make me look for it.
But for someone who grew up in the new world of social media, Instagram, etc, the brainstorming went straight to a premium RUclips-like product for individual content creators and the focus was on what the creator’s experience was like (the lonely experience). Fascinating!
Makes me feel old. 😆
You would be hired, she would not. This is why the market is biased to people who have brought products to market and not people who have MBA courses under thier belt. The conversation should have been solely about Facebook dominating streaming against Netflix, Amazon and Disney for marketshare.
It’s so funny reading this comment because Celena did get hired as PM at Facebook and I actually met her during my internship 😂😂😂
4:20
@@ihatejpmorgan That's actually terrible advice for a FB interview. She started at the top with FB's mission which isn't even aligned with any of the companies' you mentioned missions at all. FB is not a streaming company, why would this product mission be to compete with streaming companies? Sure, you can mention those companies as competition and explain through how you think it's worthwhile to compete with them if that's how you want to do it, but ultimately she explained herself well. It's ok that not everyone has the same answer, who wants to hire people who give you the same ideas as everyone else? The ability NOT to think in absolute terms about a right/wrong answer is way more important than any MBA will ever be.
Shouldn't make you feel old! Both are good answers as long as they turn a profit. It's weird that she went straight to the individual contributor but then I suppose those people are the pan - e - burro of some video sites, but then it depends on the video site. Your answer is probably similar to what I would have given but then that'd be if I asked, "What form of video are we talking?", for the answer to be, "Anything". Because although small indie contributors will make a lot for the company in ads == revenue to the contributor == more uploads == more time online, I think Netflix et. al. do need some fierce competition & they have massive holes in their game. That's just the kinda challenge i'm into tho'.
But yeah i'm also old as fuck
- How would you treat a customer private data?
- I would sell it to companies and foreign politicians
- You are hired!
"But lets keep this between us"
Bhuhahaha
😆
If only HMs were as friendly and encouraging as this guy
Favorite video from this channel
Nice interview, however I missed the financial perspective when we consider a product or service. Typical question:"How can we make money with this product/service?"
good point, especially FB is here to make money :-). However, the main focus here was on user acquisition. Once you have a stable platform and a sizable user base, FB may focus on financial aspects. It may be hard for other startups to survive without money, but the fundamental assumption here is that FB is behind this idea.
But I would agree, that it is better to make this point clear to the interviewer if we are keeping the financial angel outside the purview of the discussion.
Really good interview, excellent presence and communication skills. Thanks Exponent for putting these videos out. These really helped me prepare & land my offers. Cheers!
Our pleasure!
This definitely was a moonshot idea. As an interviewer I would've really questioned the need to bring the social aspect to creation instead of consumption. When Celena was talking about how movies and cinema is a social experience and how that ties with Facebook's mission, I felt it was more to do with the movie consuming experience and not so much with the movie creation experience.
Hey Sarosh! That's a great point - how might you have taken this interview differently?
@@tryexponent Yeah like I said, I would look to merge the movie consuming experience with Facebook's strength which is its social graph. If you look at the competition today, the big players like Netflix, Prime, Hulu offer movies with great production value but have practically 0 social play. On the other hand apps like TikTok are extremely social but only offer small time individual creator content. There seems to be an opportunity in the good production movies + social space. RUclips Original seems to the only player in this space today but they seem to have very limited content produced by themselves. Like Celena said, I do believe there is a large social element to consuming movies. Sharing movie recommendations, watching a movie together, rating movies, discussing movie plots etc are great use cases that Facebook can start serving. Sort of IMDb + Netflix + House Party. Long term Facebook will have to start creating its own content since that seems to be the only financially viable option. But to start off, it can partner with a production house that is looking to venture into the movie streaming space since physical movie theatres are not expected to do well for a while now. Facebook has recently partnered with Reliance in India which has a huge movie production arm so that could actually be a realistic option.
I just felt democratizing movie creation might be a very niche space. Most movie creators want the movie to be reflection of themselves so not sure a lot of them would sign up. Or maybe I'm not just thinking out of the box enough :)
@@msarosh This is a great direction! You're definitely right that democratizing movie creation isn't a clear path, but more of a moonshot - your ideas could make for an awesome interview answer, too! I'd be curious to hear more about the actual solution and how it might demonstrate your creativity.
@@tryexponent Yeah what I initially thought of was a separate Facebook movies app. It could have a feed to see posts about movies from your social circle, a movie catalog that has ratings and discussion boards, and the ability to host a watch party with friends (great for the Covid situation). The watch party solution could get a little out of the box and has scope to be creative. I'll be happy to talk to you. Is there a place I can reach out to you folks?
To make new product, 1 mission and strategy-why makes sense to build this product,
2. Define user segmentation and prioritize it.
3, brainstorming of potential pain Points and needs, prioritize
4, potential solutions, prioritize based on impact/effort and other key metrics
Pick one solutions and define the MVP
she legitimately created a new idea... is that really a PM's job to come up with new ideas for the company or is a PM's job to manage OTHERS ideas objectively to create a new product??? either way she was amazing in her idea, thought process and delivery!
Not really. Contemporary product managers focus on data. Her germ of an idea could be tested. Her features would be derived from something like a design thinking exercise. An "as is" experience would be fully articulated and we'd look carefully at it to come up with many options to improve the process or innovate. Then we'd test each one, prioritize, cost out the projects, forecast outcomes, and only then start thinking about committing resources.
@@bobreb thank you very much!
Amazing interview. Such smart ideas coming from Celena and presented in such a well thought out and structured way.
Can you please do a mock interview for a Facebook data scientist role?
Thanks neversaynever22! You can browse our course for more data science-based interview question answers at tryexponent.com/courses!
I know this is a mock .. but one thing I would also do is.. based on user's permission.. i would create a video library more on the lines of common creatives that creators can pull from and add to their movies and as a basic requirement keep a standard aspect ratio for these.. making the movie making process more streamlined..
Loved this interview- also Boyhood is one of my favorites!
Great Video. @exponent: Could you please share the details on the prioritization framework she uses? Scale, Scope and Impact!!
Hello useful commenters, I've just started listening in on this channel and I'm definitely getting a lot of value from it. I noticed that not all interviewees are made equal and I am lucky to land on Celena's video first (I think she's great, well-structured, well thought-out, to name a few). I was wondering if you guys can point me to similar, structured, well thought-out interviewees in this channel? I want to learn properly and get the best practice of being a PM since I'm transitioning from a different field so I don't want to learn wrong things from the wrong people.
Hey Dan! We'd recommend starting with our playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLrtCHHeadkHr8ro-vTg1CAdDuwrVmXS4y
This woman is a rockstar
It would actually be awesome to get a transcript of this! Great job!
The problem I find with this "mock" interview is time. She had her responses already well crafted in advance. During the interview you don't have time to have thought out and refine your different thoughts yet. So this isn't realistic and makes the idea of these interviews flawed. It ends up being a case of if you're lucky to have chosen the right ideas and thoughts because there's not enough time. You have to gamble that your ideas and thoughts are down the path the interview thinks is right.
Wait, she already knew what she was going to be asked?
I totally agree - it definitely seems she had time to prepare, even simply by knowing what the topic was in advance in agreement to recording this video. None of these interview exercises are realistic to real life where you have days, maybe even weeks, to fully flesh out scope and solutions. It always seemed brutal to put interviewees through this...
@@TanRicky321 shes an incoming PM for Facebook, so shes already had this style of interview before, most likely more than once through many rounds. She's also friends with the interviewer which makes it much easier to develop your thought process.
Yepp, also in real world the interviewer wouldn't be so friendly. But still this was a good interview, though quite a bit on the soft skills side.
It was an extraordinary interview. I loved the way she approached the question and brainstorming ideas. Just a thought, Did celena got a bit deviated when Stephen asked about Facebook movies. The vision she had initially for Facebook movie and where she completed . I thot it's for more for creator side comparing to the viewer side. I felt it's like a tiktok or yes RUclips.
Thanks Hari for your thoughts! These questions are typically open-ended and part of the appeal of Celena's answer is how she took it in a different direction than expected. That said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on creator-side brainstorms!
@@tryexponent Thanks for your response. Donot mind if it's not that interesting. For Facebook, It's strength is social network. I would personally want to have online joint movie watchers community where they can connect privately with video conferencing. From user perspective, I would like to categorise FB movies in to 4. Short films, feature films, Documentary & educational films . From creator side, For all these we can give specific tools like joint collaboration of movie makers and much more help. Short and feature films are purely for entertainment purpose, Documentary for historical records and I would like to specifically go for Education. For this we can give tools for making recording, graphics, animations etc. This is mainly for kids and in some time this will be a golden field like facebook kids. I believe these will be a game changer.
Pls letme know your feedback as well. Thanks once again
Thank you very much for posting these videos, especially during the times we are living in! I find them to be super helpful so please keep going! I would find it really beneficial if you could please reply here or create a separate video on what the MVP process would've looked like for this case. What steps would we follow to create and discuss through a MVP? Would really appreciate that!
Hey Mahd, from my Pm experience, MVP is usually created by this process:
1. Competitor and market benchmarking to gauge what is happening in the space your MVP is being launched
2. Customer Research to identify user behavior, needs and pain points of potential target groups
3. Persona building and mapping responses
4. Selection of TG - Target Group persona
5. Feature listing to address pain points and needs of TG Persona
6. Prioritizing features based on various weighted factors
7. Scoping the MVP
8. T-shirt sizing effort and finalizing first version
9. Design
10. Tech build
11. Go to market strategy
12. Launch
Hope it helps.
This is so informative not sure why it has 22 dislikes? #EngagementAnalysis
They're expecting something else from this video
Or they didn't like her approach
Or some other reason
Are there any product design interviews for Software Engineers?
Thanks for filming this
This is a great interview. What im curious about is that do PMs actually do this product design thinking before handing it off to actual product designers?
Thanks makotokino27! It really depends on the stage of the company and the product, but often, product managers will work alongside product designers in the initial phases of a product, where the product managers are the voice of the users and communicate potential technical constraints with the engineers.
♥️♥️Thanks a lott
Thanks for watching! :)
so this is what beauty and intelligence looks like ❤
Good interview overall. It can become a great interview if the interviewee provides more clarification on product definition (e.g., what is exactly the product), differentiation (e.g., how is Facebook uniquely positioned to do this), and economics (e.g., will the product be profitable and metrics around it?). These are core questions for product manager when exploring new ideas.
Would love to see what she's jotting down and how she's doing it.
Like a screen at the corner of the video showing all that.
Yes, agreed!
Great job guys! This is an awesome way to demonstrated product deisgn. I just thought maybe these two question was missing in terms of
1) how would Facebook would monetize the creative segments? Ie would it be through Ad revenue a click through or online ads during video viewings?
2) what is the monetary (other than social collaboration ) value for the creative segment to use Facebook over RUclips?
I felt these question would be critical for a Facebook interview? Since it felt like we talked about the solution but not about the business case. It would be great to get your feedback
Great content. However, the second customer segment (viewers) was completely skipped. This is the one segment that will define success or failure.
Great content and congrats you just pitched "hit records" platform ;)
Thanks Olivier :)
Thanks guys!
Youu just got one reference user with this video:))
Thanks Addison!
16:12 to collect…memories 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
@tryexponent While she covered all the important frameworks and the flow was great. Am bit curious to understand what ever she suggested, how is it different from what already exist on FB ? When the problem statement was 'How will you design a product round movies with facebook' here the question is can FB be Netflix or Amazon Prime of its own kind? Making social movies or ordinary people making movies make it any additional valuable, isnt it already happening since its a social media platform? Am I missing something?
Won’t fly without recommendations!!!
After watching this interview, it feels like you just need degree from
prestigious university and you just need communication skills
Probably wouldn't have gone down the creator route. Regardless, the problem was handled with great clarity and structure. This is great content!