👀 Google Associate Product Manager Intern: Application to Offer – iykyk

Pre-Med Track, Switzerland, & Google APM Intern

Hi there 👋 — Who are you and what’s your background?

Hi! I’m Cassandra Marshall, a fourth year Computer Science student at Georgia Tech and previous Google APM Intern. During my time at Google I worked in the YouTube Shopping Viewer Experience and Engagement team.

I originally was in a Pre-Med track and studied Biomedical Engineering. While I knew I wanted to make a positive impact on people, I slowly realized that I wanted to have more impact than I could on a pre-med track, and that was around the same time when I was taking my first couple CS classes. Computer Science seemed a lot more interesting, but I did feel a fair bit of imposter syndrome thinking of switching majors midway through college.

Eventually I decided to try it out and did a bit of research in the different areas within tech, and mass applied to a bunch of internships and landed a PM Internship at a mid-sized tech company. I didn't know that much about product management but it was an amazing experience, and from there I completed a couple other technical internships and leadership roles in various organizations where I cemented the idea in my head that I really enjoyed PM.

That led to my Google offer where I worked in Zurich, Switzerland as an associate product manager intern and now I’m back applying for new grad PM and APM roles!

Program Structure & Locations

For those who are unfamiliar, how is the program structured and run?

Yes, so for the Google APM internship, you have to be in your final year of school and there’s about 35 interns, with most of them based in the Bay Area. There’s also a lottery for three people to be sent to New York, which is always a very desired and competitive location. Most of the interns come from a technical background, namely CS, with strong leadership and business acumen.

There’s a separate application for London and Zurich (still part of the 35 total interns), and they ended up taking three people for London and three people for Zurich (these have been the numbers for the last couple years but I am not sure if this is set in stone each year). I applied to both the US and Zurich programs because I have work authorization for both as a US and German citizen, and I got interviews for both locations.

Throughout the program you stay on one team, and you can work on almost any product across Google. Some people work on flagship products like Cloud and Google Docs, and I ended up working in YouTube shopping, which was a lot more of a scrappy/new team which was what I had requested for in my preferences. There is a ton of leadership and development throughout the program. You also get paired with an APM buddy and an APM coordinator who help with any product management related questions and growth.

APM Intern Week!

Is there anything the program landing page doesn't tell us about the program?

Yes, something really cool about the APM internship is they have an APM intern week! This is where they fly everyone (who is not already in the Bay) out to the Bay Area for a week of events, leadership development, networking, and other various programming. It’s super fun and during my cohort we even got to meet the Vice President of Product Management for Pixel phones and accessories, Brian Rakowski, who was also the first APM Marissa Mayer hired at Google and now he runs the APM Program.

Interview Structure & Google’s Six Buckets

What did your interview structure look like and what will it look like for this year?

Overall, I had one first round interview, and then a take home assignment, and then 3 interviews back to back. Google has six ‘buckets’ they pull questions from for interviews (product insights, strategic insights, analytical, cross-functional collaboration, craft and execution, and [Full-time role only] Googleyness and Leadership) design, strategy, estimation, behavioral, technical, data analysis). For the first round, I expected more behavioral questions, but this ended up being about a strategy question along with a few others. The strategy question was roughly along the lines of a “Should Google offer a ___ competitor?”. I also had an analytical/estimation question in the first round.

I then had a take home case study with a very open-ended prompt about launching and building a product, and I did my best to outline a framework/strategy prior to doing it since you only get 4 hours to complete it. The goal with the case study seems to be to get a gauge for the sort of decisions you’d make if you were a full-fledged PM and how effectively and concisely you can communicate ideas and technical concepts.

Finally, there’s the super day. For me it was online, and this is where you can have anywhere from three to five interviews – I had three 45 minute back to back interviews with a 15 minute break between them. I had a cross-functional collaboration question, product insights question, and a few more. Luckily for me, I felt I really connected with my final interviewer beyond just answering the questions well, and I think that’s one of the things that helped me in this interview process.

Leadership & Passion for Product

What do you think made you stand out as an applicant and what recruitment strategies would you recommend to others?

One of the biggest things I’ve really realized about being an APM at Google is how important it is to have both a strong technical and leadership background. Being a product manager is kind of like being a micro-entrepreneur, and it’s important to be well rounded in order to do that successfully.

I also think having a good career story and actually being passionate about why you wanted to go into product management is really helpful. For me that meant being a first-gen college student, and wanting to build accessible products. Google really cares about diversity, and so embracing what makes you unique and relating it to PM is something that I think helped me.

You should also leverage all the experiences you’ve had, and do your best to position them in a way that they can showcase your PM skillset. For example, I’ve talked about experiences from a startup class I’m taking at Georgia Tech, to being a teaching assistant, along with my experiences at a smaller tech company in the past.

Learning Lessons, Future Plans, & APM

What’s your next play after graduating from this program? Has this program impacted your 5-10 year career plan?

So I learned a ton this past summer. It was honestly unbelievable, and the knowledge I gained about how products are built, shipped, and how decisions are made at Google was so fascinating and something I’m definitely going to be taking with me wherever I end up next.

As far as the next play goes, once I graduate from college this Spring I definitely want to end up in the PM world as an APM or within another product facing role, and somewhere down the line I think it’d also be really cool to have a ton of autonomy and be at a startup making all of the product decisions.

The job market’s definitely tough right now, but I'm doing my best in this job search to find a new-grad role!