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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 🤩
@@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.
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!
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.
This wasn't good. I'm sorry - but I had to stop watching this in the middle (@15 min or so). Maybe that's how you get a job at Facebook, but frankly, I would have been far more impressed had she stopped a around minute 13 and said, "No, wait, this is a TERRIBLE idea, let me backtrack". She presents this awful idea with such confidence, that I wonder if she would do the same thing on the job. It's fine to have an idea and then renege. I admire someone much more for recognizing a bad set of ideas for what they are, and then coming up with better ideas then on someone who keeps pushing a terrible set of ideas because they have to. Screw the Outline in the beginning - so what? You changed your mind! Better than pursuing a failed idea. At minute 15 she is no longer even describing a Product, but just a user group. As a Product Manager, part of the job is to distinguish between coming up with a Product that is scalable and a 1-time Feature. She's amazingly articulate - which is what makes it worse, as people will then be convinced to go along with these bad ideas.... sort of like half the products at some companies?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
Not sure what someone ability to come up with a random idea and loosely describe it is supposed to prove. I think you at least need to motivate why FB should build it and explain some sort of strategy. I don't think it's the job of a PM to come up with new random ideas. It's rather to validate and execute on ideas that are coming from everywhere. This is just a chat you'd have with friends over drinks "wouldn't it be cool if...".
The goal of questions like these is to understand "how" you think about problems rather than the outcome. It shows your understanding of a business landscape and how the things you're working on fit into a big picture for the company. You're right that a PM's daily job will be around executing on projects and products already in the works. But knowing "how" to arrive at an answer will let you ask relevant/pointed questions on the job about why you're actually building something. Without critical thinking skills, you may start building a product that no one will actually use. Hope it helps!
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
Bunch of words. Didn’t really solve the problem. I would never want to watch a movie about my friends lives and the worst thing is to be distracted by comments while watching a movie. Didn’t mention anything about engineering challenges. Using words like super-interesting, super-helpful, super-cool doesn’t actually solve the problem. May be , probably, kind-of. A movie is all about the content,acting, story and a message. A better product would be to build around recommendations. Show you the movies your friends have watched. You could also have doordash, Uber eats integration, before the start of the movie so that your coke and popcorn get delivered to you and your friends and you could have small video bubbles of your friends on the corner of the real estate so that you can see their reactions when a scene comes.
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!
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
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..
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.
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.
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!
Really good interview, excellent presence and communication skills. Thanks Exponent for putting these videos out. These really helped me prepare & land my offers. Cheers!
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!
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
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
These responses are well crafted but such horse shit because there is nothing but fluff in these responses. No wonder TikTok has been crushing Facebook lately.
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!
Great mock interview... thanks Celena and Exponent. In the current situation, most interviews are being held online. Looks like Celena is writing on a notepad/piece of paper. Would you recommend using a virtual whiteboard (Mural) or a document while talking and explaining your thinking?
Thanks Ana! It really depends on what you're comfortable with. Many interviewees use pen and paper and that works well for them! Virtual whiteboards can help, but only if you know how to use the tool. Does that help?
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
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.
How is UX interview different from Product Mgr vs Product Owner ? ...as most companies use These titles interchangeably... Pls do a series for UX Designer Interview. Very useful pointers mentioned by her.
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!
Amazing! Still, “What is a movie” still kind of vogue. A movie can be anything; home video, TV, studio, independent, short, clips... She ended up with the idea of personal video chronicle is actually a “movie”. That could be explained with the lack of her domain expertise.
I am into sales(10 years) with a prior experience in digital marketing(2 years). Looking for ideas on how i can make a transition to a PM role and what factors do i need to consider, certifications or what not is needed. Any help is much appreciated.
Hey Nikhil! In general, no certifications are required. I'd recommend reading through our blog post with Sachin Rekhi at blog.tryexponent.com/break-into-product-management/ to learn about the paths to product management. Does that help?
@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?
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?
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....
Maybe I'm missing something but I think her choices show poor judgement. I've never seen a movie where there's only one actor on the screen at any one time, and I'm pretty certain nobody would enjoy something filmed that way
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
A couple reasons why she got hired at Meta : 1. She got BA at Harvard and MBA at Stanford. 2. She got years of experience in tech 3. She is good at presenting the info. 4. She is female and people of color. Have you ever wondered why product managers are usually female ? It is one way that tech companies can somewhat balance its gender imbalance.
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).
I have a question - how will you differentiate this movie product from Instagram creators? They are already creating interesting videos. Or would you include them as audience? Length of the videos as different but what kind and length of movies?
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
Great interview there... great composure etc.. but why does it feel that she's really reading things out from a note stuck by the side of the screen? While she's noting things down in the paper below, she's often looking on to the left side of the screen. Does seem a bit odd. Not the real interview feel per say, is it?
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
If it's an existing product, I'd hang up the call. Too many companies do this to get free advice and/or ideas from asking these types of questions about a live product. Facebook is known for doing this. My neighbour works at Facebook before the fanboys start telling me I'm wrong.
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.
There should have been a cross question like what are the pain points you consider that your design is fulfilling which is not fulfilled by others obviously RUclips. There should have been better cross questions yeah.
Great interview. Can you please do some mock interviews focused on Execution questions? Things like metric change, metric definition, and prioritization questions
@@tryexponent Just signed up. Been practicing the articles and watching your vids for a week now, but yeah I guess it's time to get enrolled. I have a FB PM interview in two days... Can you please help to rush a coaching session? I'm in Singapore time
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.
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.
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
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
Clarity, composure and presence of mind - Celena definitely shines
Thanks!
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
Stanford undergrad & harvard MBA. No wonder she's extra good! Very clear & constructive approach.
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!
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?
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 has terrific composure and that lets her ideas flow smoothly. Its actually relaxing to watch her talk.
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 🤩
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.
These videos are gold std. content for somebody like me who's just exploring what is PM ! Thank you.
You're welcome!
This is the first video i'm watching of this channel and this feels almost like a real interview! Really good content!!!
Thanks Rohit :)!
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!
Imma a PM too and her thoughts are amazing! She’s so creative!
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.
She is so good that it makes me feel bad about my existence, lol. Thanks for sharing
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 wasn't good. I'm sorry - but I had to stop watching this in the middle (@15 min or so). Maybe that's how you get a job at Facebook, but frankly, I would have been far more impressed had she stopped a around minute 13 and said, "No, wait, this is a TERRIBLE idea, let me backtrack". She presents this awful idea with such confidence, that I wonder if she would do the same thing on the job. It's fine to have an idea and then renege. I admire someone much more for recognizing a bad set of ideas for what they are, and then coming up with better ideas then on someone who keeps pushing a terrible set of ideas because they have to. Screw the Outline in the beginning - so what? You changed your mind! Better than pursuing a failed idea.
At minute 15 she is no longer even describing a Product, but just a user group. As a Product Manager, part of the job is to distinguish between coming up with a Product that is scalable and a 1-time Feature.
She's amazingly articulate - which is what makes it worse, as people will then be convinced to go along with these bad ideas.... sort of like half the products at some companies?
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!
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
This is the best video I have seen for PM interview.
That means so much to us! Thank you :)!
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!
Not sure what someone ability to come up with a random idea and loosely describe it is supposed to prove. I think you at least need to motivate why FB should build it and explain some sort of strategy. I don't think it's the job of a PM to come up with new random ideas. It's rather to validate and execute on ideas that are coming from everywhere. This is just a chat you'd have with friends over drinks "wouldn't it be cool if...".
The goal of questions like these is to understand "how" you think about problems rather than the outcome. It shows your understanding of a business landscape and how the things you're working on fit into a big picture for the company.
You're right that a PM's daily job will be around executing on projects and products already in the works. But knowing "how" to arrive at an answer will let you ask relevant/pointed questions on the job about why you're actually building something. Without critical thinking skills, you may start building a product that no one will actually use.
Hope it helps!
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
For sure one of the best Exponent vids I’ve seen thus far.
Thanks Kristen
She deserves the damn job. Really good performance from her.
Bunch of words. Didn’t really solve the problem. I would never want to watch a movie about my friends lives and the worst thing is to be distracted by comments while watching a movie. Didn’t mention anything about engineering challenges. Using words like super-interesting, super-helpful, super-cool doesn’t actually solve the problem. May be , probably, kind-of.
A movie is all about the content,acting, story and a message. A better product would be to build around recommendations. Show you the movies your friends have watched. You could also have doordash, Uber eats integration, before the start of the movie so that your coke and popcorn get delivered to you and your friends and you could have small video bubbles of your friends on the corner of the real estate so that you can see their reactions when a scene comes.
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!
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
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..
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.
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.
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!
Thank you Exponent - this is priceless content!
We're glad you love it as much as we loved making it!
Very helpful. I have a PM interview coming up and it helped me prepare
Sounds like you just need to go to Stanford and learn to regurgitate the framework
And be good looking.
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!
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!
- 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
😆
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
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
These responses are well crafted but such horse shit because there is nothing but fluff in these responses. No wonder TikTok has been crushing Facebook lately.
Damn! glad I found this channel.
This is one of the best mock interview I have seen. Thanks for doing this.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Very impressive mock interview. Coming up with such great ideas on the spot is amazing.
Thanks Ritu!
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 :)
People should consider working someplace that isn't evil.
Great mock interview... thanks Celena and Exponent. In the current situation, most interviews are being held online. Looks like Celena is writing on a notepad/piece of paper. Would you recommend using a virtual whiteboard (Mural) or a document while talking and explaining your thinking?
Thanks Ana! It really depends on what you're comfortable with. Many interviewees use pen and paper and that works well for them! Virtual whiteboards can help, but only if you know how to use the tool. Does that help?
It would actually be awesome to get a transcript of this! Great job!
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
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.
After watching this interview, it feels like you just need degree from
prestigious university and you just need communication skills
How is UX interview different from Product Mgr vs Product Owner ? ...as most companies use These titles interchangeably...
Pls do a series for UX Designer Interview. Very useful pointers mentioned by her.
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!
Amazing! Still, “What is a movie” still kind of vogue. A movie can be anything; home video, TV, studio, independent, short, clips... She ended up with the idea of personal video chronicle is actually a “movie”. That could be explained with the lack of her domain expertise.
Great point! How might you have interpreted the question?
Very true.. defining what a movie is, in the beginning of the interview is important
Favorite video from this channel
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!
Are there any product design interviews for Software Engineers?
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!
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
I am into sales(10 years) with a prior experience in digital marketing(2 years). Looking for ideas on how i can make a transition to a PM role and what factors do i need to consider, certifications or what not is needed. Any help is much appreciated.
Hey Nikhil! In general, no certifications are required. I'd recommend reading through our blog post with Sachin Rekhi at blog.tryexponent.com/break-into-product-management/ to learn about the paths to product management. Does that help?
@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?
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!
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....
This is probably one of the best videos on this channel! ❤️
Thanks Subhojit!
Maybe I'm missing something but I think her choices show poor judgement. I've never seen a movie where there's only one actor on the screen at any one time, and I'm pretty certain nobody would enjoy something filmed that way
*Tom Hank's Cast Away has entered the chat*
In all seriousness, you've got a point there. Thanks for the feedback! 🙏
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
A couple reasons why she got hired at Meta :
1. She got BA at Harvard and MBA at Stanford.
2. She got years of experience in tech
3. She is good at presenting the info.
4. She is female and people of color. Have you ever wondered why product managers are usually female ? It is one way that tech companies can somewhat balance its gender imbalance.
I thought you don’t mock-up a product that’s in the company you’re interviewing for. That’s free work.
?
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).
Great content and congrats you just pitched "hit records" platform ;)
Thanks Olivier :)
I have a question - how will you differentiate this movie product from Instagram creators? They are already creating interesting videos. Or would you include them as audience? Length of the videos as different but what kind and length of movies?
Have they done one of these mock interviews where they go into how the candidate should best frame their previous experience?
This video is relevant! ruclips.net/video/zfYHTeoyZHU/видео.html
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
why on god's green earth would you aspire to work for these big tech fascists.. guess you're easily bought
can you do ux content
Great interview there... great composure etc.. but why does it feel that she's really reading things out from a note stuck by the side of the screen? While she's noting things down in the paper below, she's often looking on to the left side of the screen. Does seem a bit odd. Not the real interview feel per say, is it?
This is how consultants speak
agreed
Thanks for filming this
so this is what beauty and intelligence looks like ❤
Great content. However, the second customer segment (viewers) was completely skipped. This is the one segment that will define success or failure.
A fun fact question… is she a libra? She is soooo balanced in her critical thinking!!
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
If it's an existing product, I'd hang up the call. Too many companies do this to get free advice and/or ideas from asking these types of questions about a live product. Facebook is known for doing this. My neighbour works at Facebook before the fanboys start telling me I'm wrong.
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.
Youu just got one reference user with this video:))
Thanks Addison!
There should have been a cross question like what are the pain points you consider that your design is fulfilling which is not fulfilled by others obviously RUclips.
There should have been better cross questions yeah.
Seen a good interview demo after 3 months of search. Thank you
Thanks Santhosh!
Been binge watching your videos. Awesome work!!
Great interview. Can you please do some mock interviews focused on Execution questions? Things like metric change, metric definition, and prioritization questions
Hey Andrew! Here's a mock interview of an execution question in our course: www.tryexponent.com/courses/pm/mock-interview-execution-lyft
@@tryexponent Just signed up. Been practicing the articles and watching your vids for a week now, but yeah I guess it's time to get enrolled. I have a FB PM interview in two days... Can you please help to rush a coaching session? I'm in Singapore time
@@andrewoh93 Please email us at support@tryexponent.com
@@tryexponent Done! Just sent. Thank you so much