First had a phone screen with the recruiter, then she sent me a homework assignment consisting of 4 sections: Game Design, UX Design, System Design, Analytics, and Project Management. I'm listing it all in the questions section so that you can understand the process.
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See homework assignment/presentation questions in the question section
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A few things about the PocketGems recruitment process and "homework":
1. The first thing that the PocketGems recruiter wanted me to understand is that they pay below market for PMs, which doesn't inspire a great conversation, but I continued in the process regardless.
2. Before letting me speak to anyone in PocketGems product management, the recruiter gave me the assignment above — this is out of line — I know that candidate "homework" is a current trend in the tech industry, but this shouldn't come up until later on in the process. And at the minimum, instead of just sending in a presentation/homework, the candidate should be allowed to present their findings and field questions rather than be rejected by email after taking time to put together something for PocketGems.
3. For the above assignment, the Analytics section had no boundaries or problem they wanted to solve for — they just wanted insights on 35,000+ data records that were included in the file — that's fine (I guess?), but they then rejected me after I spent quite a bit of my personal time to put together a good-looking presentation for them.
4. The Project Management section, although I can understand what they were trying to learn about a candidate's project management skills, should have been a real world scenario related to product management, and not something completely unrelated in the magazine publishing world — for one, you have to do a little research to understand the inputs to magazine production (which ended up being a waste of time for me), but it's just not a real world example of something that you'd encounter — ever — this isn't Google, you shouldn't be asking Google questions in your interviews. There was no way to understand what they were looking for here, and because I didn't get to present my findings and take questions, there was no way to clarify any questions that PocketGems may have had about this section.
5. No usable feedback was provided upon rejection — I'm quite thoughtful in what I put together for PocketGems, but their rejection/response was curt and vague. So in the end, I sent them a detailed assignment, and they sent me back nothing helpful. Really wasted my time here. I'm not better off for having this experience.
