I had a very disappointing interview experience for a Product Manager role at ING. The interview with the hiring manager lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, which is unusually long. Throughout the conversation, I was consistently praised and given strong positive signals about my background and experience. However, what stood out was the complete absence of actual product management discussion. Not a single meaningful product question was asked — no exploration of product thinking, strategy, discovery, metrics, or delivery. It became clear that the hiring manager did not have a solid understanding of product management as a discipline. Despite the positive tone during the interview, I later received negative feedback questioning my experience — which is difficult to take seriously given that no product-related questions were asked in the first place. Additionally, salary expectations were clearly communicated to HR during the first interview. Despite this, I was moved forward in the process, only to later be told that my expectations were too high. This creates unnecessary friction and signals poor alignment internally. Overall, the process felt unstructured, inconsistent, and not respectful of the candidate’s time.

Nice, casual interview with lots of jokes, but I was surprised to learn that one of the interviewers had no idea how to explain her work, I felt that I knew more about her job than she did