Cro Metrics Product Manager Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process at Cro's was pretty solid. You get to use their internal tools, like Slack, and chat with current employees. For about two weeks, you do tasks that are like the actual job, and they compensate you for it. This setup is really fair and transparent. My issue arose after I spent two weeks really giving my all on these tasks, putting together detailed presentations with creative ideas to show my strong interest. Despite all that, I was rejected after the final video call. All the effort, ideas, team collaboration, and enthusiasm I put in over two weeks were apparently outweighed by a 10-minute video call where I apparently didn't make the right impression. I think Cro Metrics should find a way to identify unsuitable candidates earlier. I think I know what went wrong on the mock client call, and those kinds of mistakes could have been easily fixed within a week of starting the job. It's a shame they didn't have more faith in training someone who is 90% ready and enthusiastic, rather than passing on them because they weren't 100% aligned with the company's client philosophy. You can teach someone about client philosophy and approach, but you can't teach creativity or enthusiasm for UX/CRO. For example, Optimizely repeatedly emphasizes not stopping a test mid-run without stat sig data. During the mock client call, the Cro employees posing as clients wanted to 'stop a test' because the branding wasn't right. Pushing back on that didn't go over well. They offer two previous mock client calls (1 hour each) to watch – one from a candidate who got hired, one who didn't. I tried to learn from these videos, but it didn't seem to help. I'd suggest removing these videos (from Quip?) since they're about 3 years old. Overall, it was a good experience, but by the final stage, I really thought I had the job. It was a huge disappointment because I loved the company, their mission, and I have 15 years of experience managing clients and websites.

Went through a couple of interviews with HR people, then there was this Paid Interview which is like an assignment taking about 10 hours. The last step was a "mock client call." They also mentioned potentially asking for references and having them do another mock interview. They pay you for your time, and the process is well-documented and they seem proud of it. It feels like it keeps current employees on their toes, seeing new people on Slack weekly. Otherwise, it seems like a serious place with no joking around.

My interview process began with a brief 15-minute call with the hiring manager. The main purpose of this initial call was for me to ask questions, after I had reviewed the job description and the company's website. Following that, I was given a take-home assignment that involved reading various articles and completing five tasks designed to evaluate my skills. They estimated the tasks would take about 10 to 15 hours to complete and compensated me for my time.