Park+

Role: Senior Product Manager

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: July 1, 2025

Interview Type: Not Specified

Result: Rejected (Ghosted)

Difficulty: Hard (due to unstructured questioning)

Rounds: 2 rounds mentioned

Topics Asked: Product Strategy, AOV (Average Order Value) growth, User Segmentation, Revenue Levers, Item Recommendation Engine, Credit Card Partnerships, Loyalty Programs, Pricing Strategy, Minimum Order Value, Onboarding Premium Restaurants, Micro-ideas vs. Structured Thinking

Experience:

The candidate had a "terrible interview experience" for a Senior Product Manager role. The first round went well.

Round 2 (with Head of Product): The interviewer asked: "How will you grow the AOV (Average Order Value) of Zomato by 25% in 2 quarters?". The candidate provided an extremely detailed and structured response, starting with clarifying questions (focus on food delivery, Blinkit, Zomato Gold, etc.), breaking down AOV components (quantity × avg item price + delivery fee + platform fee + packing charges + taxes, divided by number of orders), segmenting users, mapping use cases, and identifying high-impact personas. Clear guardrails were set (AOV up, order volume not down). Multiple levers were laid out: Item recommendation engine, credit card partnerships, loyalty/gamified programs, strategic fee increases, commission negotiation, minimum order value coupons, and onboarding high-end restaurants.

The interviewer maintained a poker face, with no engagement. He then stated, "You went too much in depth. What I was looking for was something like... people in UP like sweets after a meal, so we could get restaurants to make dessert combos for ₹50–₹100 and cross-sell them." The candidate found this approach to evaluation unprofessional, describing it as a "guessing game" and "Indian Lala company energy" (top-down, ego-driven, zero feedback). The candidate was rejected and ghosted by HR.