Filestage

Filestage Interviews

1. 3 Jun 2022

   Product Manager Interview

   Anonymous Employee in Tbilisi

   No Offer

   Negative Experience

   Average Interview

   Application

   I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Filestage (Tbilisi) in Jun 2022

   Interview

   The interview process is organized very well, on paper.
   
   But in fact, the company has you chasing them on all interview stages. They expect you to invest a week to prepare for two tasks, and then can't spare 30 minutes to actually properly review the submission.
   
   Here are the details if you need them:
   
   First stage is the general interview. Nobody showed up on the call and didn't warn me about it either, so I had to follow up myself.
   
   Well, stuff happens, we rescheduled. This time everything went according to expectations. We even met one more time after that to address questions that I still had unanswered which I appreciate.
   
   The next stage is a test assignment which actually includes two (!) tasks. Each requires a presentation and a video to be recorded.
   
   I invested a week to prepare the required content, and aimed to be very thorough with my approach with both tasks. I sent the completed assignment in time, and was promised to get feedback in a day.
   
   A week passed. I had to remind about myself. Only after that I got an answer.
   
   The feedback was: "You weren't concise enough for this kind of task, and experiments are lacking UX considerations".
   
   The problem is, nobody actually watched the video and the conclusions were clearly driven from the presentation which is only 50% of the content.
   
   How do I know?
   
   Because Product Managers are used to rely on analytics, that's how. The depth of view of my video is 17 seconds. Nobody from the team watched it.
   
   Otherwise they would know that I went over each experiment in 3 minutes on average, which is very concise in my opinion.
   
   In addition, I specifically addressed the risks in user experience associated with the experiment that I suggested, and explained why this wouldn't actually be a problem. I even proposed alternatives that would completely negate that.
   
   It'not clear to me why the team bothers requesting this type of assignment which is very time consuming from the applicant`s side, if they don't spare the effort to even open the video.
   
   If there are specific standards, they should be specified in the task upfront. Otherwise, I was left with the impression that they don't really care about the process or the candidate.
   

   Interview

   Why did I apply to Filestage?

   1 Answers