Block Program Manager Interview Questions
& Process

Recruiter reached out to me and scheduled a 30min chat with the Hiring Manager. The HM was receptive to my past experience but eventually, I got rejected. Below are the red flags from the interview: First, I felt it all came down to having experience in a domain that was not even on the job posting. Second, the HM asked in what areas of the job do I consider myself an EXPERT. I consider myself a growth oriented person and there are always new things to learn on a day to day basis. My hunch is they wanted a PM who could come in start firefighting from day 1, which is a sign of poor team culture.

I really liked chatting with the recruiter and getting to know me as a person while learning about my background, experience and how I could be an asset to Square. The recruiter was super helpful and overall, it was a really positive experience. At the time of my interview, they had already made an offer to a candidate, but they wanted to meet with me. While the candidate accepted the offer, I continued to communicate with the recruiter in the event another role opened that aligned with my experience.

Started with an HR screening call to go over the interview process, salary expectations, and for me to ask questions. They told me their salary offer would be 20% less than my expectations, but they'd reconsider it because they knew their offers were below market. So I agreed to continue. The interviews had 3 rounds with 6 people in total, and they were all really nice and knew their stuff. The Melbourne office seemed supportive and inclusive, which was good to see, so I kept going. After the interviews, I had a final chat with HR to get feedback and confirm if I'd accept an offer if one was made. I said yes. Then HR told me the salary, which was even lower than they initially said. I pointed out my stated expectations, and HR said, 'We don't negotiate.' They totally misled me from the beginning, and I wasted over 4 hours of interview time, plus more time setting it up over a month with an HR person who didn't seem to care. HR seems out of touch with the whole process and has probably wasted many candidates' and internal people's time. After all that, I got a generic rejection email with no explanation. I asked for feedback to improve, but again, just a generic response saying they found a more suitable candidate. So, my advice: only proceed if everything looks good from the start, otherwise, don't waste your time and effort.