Google strategy and operations interviews—or business operations and strategy (BizOps) interviews—are very challenging. Not only is it tough to find resources on how to prepare for them, but the questions can be difficult, specific to Google, and cover a wide range of topics.
The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference and can help you land the job at Google (or Google Cloud).
To help you prepare strategically, we’ve created this guide. It includes insights from official Google sources, recent candidate reports, and ex-Google interviewers.
Here's an overview of what we'll cover:
Click here to practice with 1-to-1 with Google ex-interviewers
Curious to know what the general Google interview experience is like? Check out these real Google candidate reports and success stories.
1. Google Strategy and Operations Role and Salary ↑
Before we cover your Google strategy and operations interviews, let’s first look at the role itself.
Google strategy and operations roles are diverse, covering many different specific functions and areas, such as:
- Analytical Lead for Go-to-Market (GTM) Business Strategy Operations
- Product Activation Lead, GTM, YouTube
- Product Activation Manager, Trust and Safety, YouTube
- Incentives Strategy Manager, YouTube GTM Solutions
- GTM Strategy Lead, Google Cloud
- Business Partner, Extended Workforce Solutions Partner Engagement
1.1 What do Strategy and Operations people do at Google?
According to Google, strategy and operations people “make insightful recommendations and implement strategies that address complex business issues and achieve company goals.”
Google business operations and strategy teams play a significant role in defining and driving strategic, operational, and organizational improvements within Google’s many business teams. There are other strategy teams at Google, but BizOps has the broadest scope.
As a Strategy & Operations / BizOps personnel, you’d be part of a specific Google business unit’s ‘consulting arm’. You’ll help come up with strategic solutions to a unit’s pressing problems and propose ways to ensure that the solutions are implemented properly.
With a Strategy & Operations role, you essentially have a solid starting point for any career direction within the company. Senior leaders at Google are known to “internally poach” BizOps talent for their own teams and accelerate their career development.
What skills are required to be in Strategy and Operations at Google?
An analysis of current Google Careers posts for strategy and operations roles shows that the common minimum requirements are:
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience (although an MBA is preferred in some roles)
- Four to six years of experience in business/corporate strategy, sales operations, project management, management consulting, investment banking, venture capital, private equity, and corporate advisory
Google looks for critical thinking skills with attention to detail, investigative and structured problem-solving and decision-making skills, and strong communication and collaborative skills developed from a variety of projects and working with cross-functional teams
1.2 How much does the Strategy and Operations role pay at Google?
For the purpose of this guide, we’ll focus only on the Business Operations role to give you a sense of how much Google pays for strategy and operations roles.
Here is the breakdown of Google’s compensation packages for different Business Operations levels according to Levels.fyi data:
Ultimately, how you do in your interviews will help determine what you’ll be offered. That’s why hiring one of our ex-Google interview coaches can provide such a significant return on investment.
And remember, compensation packages are always negotiable, even at Google. So if you do get an offer, don’t be afraid to ask for more. Use this Google salary negotiation guide for practical tips. If you want to receive expert support, consider booking one of our salary negotiation coaches.
2. Google Strategy and Operations Interview Process and Timeline ↑
In this section, we'll walk you through a high-level overview of the typical stages you'll face during Google's interview process for the strategy and operations role. Once you have an idea of the sequence (and number) of interviews you'll face, then we'll dig into the typical interview format.
Let's get started!
2.1 Interview process and timeline
What's the interview process and timeline at Google for strategy and operations? The process typically has seven steps outlined below and takes four to eight weeks to complete. Note that the process at Google Cloud Platform follows a similar process.
Now, let's spend some time digging deeper into the interview process.
2.2 What steps to expect
First, it's important that you understand the different stages of your strategy and operations interview process with Google. In most cases, here are the steps you'll go through:
- Resume screening
- Phone screen with recruiter: one interview
- Phone screen with hiring manager or a BizOps manager: one to two interviews
- Onsite: four to six interviews
Every step of the way, Google is looking for four key attributes: general cognitive ability (GCA), leadership, role-related knowledge, and Googleyness.
To assess GCA, interviewers ask a mix of behavioral and hypothetical questions. To evaluate the rest of the attributes, they ask different types of questions which we’ll cover in detail in Section 3.
Resume screening
First, recruiters will look at your resume and assess if your experience matches the open position. This is the most competitive step in the process—we’ve found that ~90% of candidates don’t make it past this stage. So, to get an interview, you'll need your resume to really stand out.
To write or polish your resume, read our comprehensive Google resume guide (with six examples from successful Google candidates).
Increase your chances of success and get expert feedback on your resume from a Google ex-interviewer or recruiter. They will cover what achievements to focus on (or ignore), how to fine-tune your bullet points, and more.
Phone screens
If your resume catches a recruiter’s eye, you’ll get a couple of phone screens, which may last 30 minutes each.
The first one will be with a recruiter, who’ll ask a few behavioral, Googleyness, and motivational fit questions. They want to confirm whether you’ve got a chance to get the role. Be prepared with a solid self-intro and a great answer to "Why Google?" and "Why this role?"
The next one will be with a hiring manager or a peer BizOps manager. Expect more behavioral, Googleyness, and leadership questions, but also prepare to jump straight into business cases and role-related knowledge questions (more on these in Section 3).
If Google is really excited about your profile, they might send you to onsite interviews straight away and skip this screening step.
Onsite interviews
Onsite interviews are the real test. You'll typically spend a full day at a Google office and do two interviews in the morning, lunch with a BizOps person, and do three interviews in the afternoon. Each interview will last 30 to 45 minutes.
Most of the interviewers you meet will be BizOps team members, but occasionally you might also interview with cross-functional teams. For example, you might get a session with an engineer who will assess your technical skills and ability to communicate with developers.
You may also complete the onsite interviews virtually, via Google Hangouts. In this case, you would follow the same process, except for the lunch meeting.
The interviews are very structured. Each of your interviewers will evaluate you on four main attributes: general cognitive ability, leadership, role-related knowledge, and Googleyness. They will take copious notes and file a detailed report.
The lunch interview is meant to be your time to ask your questions. Google won't be evaluating you during this time, but we recommend that you behave as if they were.
2.3 What happens behind the scenes?
If things go well at your on-site interviews, here is what the final steps of the process look like:
- Interviewers submit feedback. After your onsite interviews, your interviewers will all submit their feedback and grade your answers to their questions.
- Hiring committee recommendation. Their feedback will then be submitted to a hiring committee that will review the feedback along with your resume, internal referrals, and any past work you have submitted. Based on these, the committee should make a recommendation on whether Google should hire you or not.
- Senior leader review. The hiring committee's recommendation will then be reviewed and validated by a senior manager.
- Compensation committee recommendation. Once validated by a senior leader, your candidate packet will be sent to a compensation committee, which will decide how much money you’ll be offered.
- Final executive review. Finally, a senior Google executive will review a summary of your candidacy and compensation before the offer is sent to you.
- You get an offer!
3. Example Google Strategy and Operations Interview Questions ↑
We've previously analyzed the questions asked in Google's strategy and operations interviews using data from Glassdoor, as well as compared them with Google’s interview prep guide for business interviews.
We've organized these questions into three buckets. You'll find an overview of these three question types below:
3.1 Googleyness and leadership ↑
As in most interview processes, you'll also need to answer behavioral interview questions that focus on Googleyness and leadership.
“Googleyness” is a shorthand way of talking about the attitudes and character traits that Google wants its employees to have.
According to Google, Googleyness is:
- Being comfortable with ambiguity
- Being humble and valuing feedback
- Having a bias for action
- Doing the right thing
- Taking ownership
- Having high standards and dreaming big
- Thinking freely
- Enjoying fun
Christian (ex-Google Manager) explains that Google wants to make sure that the company is the right environment for you, as it also assesses your fitness within Google's culture. "These questions often focus on how you would react to certain situations based on your values and attitudes."
Let’s take a look at some examples of real questions.
Example Google Strategy and Operations interview questions: Googleyness and leadership
- Tell me about yourself.
- Why Google?
- Why this BizOps position?
- Why are you leaving your former position?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- What makes a good [job title]? What makes a bad [job title]?
- When did you have a conflicting personal situation, and how did you handle it?
- Do you believe in holding high ethical standards when conducting business or making decisions?
- How would you respond to competing priorities to deliver something on time but with a lack of ethics?
- Tell me about a time when you faced ambiguity.
- Tell me about a time that you received feedback from a senior leader. What was it, how did you respond, and what did you do about it?
- Describe an example of a project where you had to reconcile your point of view with that of another key stakeholder.
- Tell me about a challenge or conflict you faced at your past/current job. How did you handle it?
- Tell me about a time you had to change.
- Tell me about a time when you had to come up with a creative solution to solve a problem.
- Tell me about a time you created something from nothing.
- Tell me about your biggest achievements in your past work.
- Tell me about the last time you failed and what happened.
For more information, check out our articles on Googleyness and leadership interview questions, how to answer Google behavioral interview questions using the SPSIL method, and the "Why Google?" question.
3.2 Business case questions ↑
As a Google strategy & operations associate or manager, your task is to offer strategic solutions to pressing business problems within the context of a business unit and the company itself.
To test whether you have a head for such a big responsibility, interviewers give business case interviews. These interviews are designed to mimic the kinds of scenarios you will work on in strategy and operations roles, and they are often pulled directly from real-life experiences.
A business case typically consists of a single problem or situation faced by Google or a hypothetical business. It comes with its own set of desired outcomes, opportunities, obstacles, and risks. To tackle the challenge, candidates are given a set of data and a certain amount of time to analyze the case, design a solution, and deliver a presentation on that solution.
According to Valentina (ex-Google International Growth Strategist), there are three key things to do to perform well at a business case interview:
- You should be structured and use frameworks, but not overly structured. “Walking your interviewer through each step demonstrates both analytical agility and clear thinking—essential for Strategy and Ops roles.”
- You must be comfortable with mental math. “To stand out, you need to work on doing quick, live ‘back-pocket' calculations.”
- You need to practice for case interviews in advance.
The last piece of advice, especially, will help you avoid common pitfalls, like focusing on analysis without making a recommendation. “Even with incomplete data, you should synthesize your findings and propose a clear direction,” Valentina says.
For instance, you can say, 'Based on current data, I recommend Market X due to its growth potential, pending validation of supply chain feasibility.' A decisive conclusion shows you’re ready to drive impact.
Example Google Strategy and Operations interview questions: business case
- What is the size of the app promo market in SEA?
- How would you size the market for YouTube?
- If you were planning on opening a bakery, what would you need to plan and consider to make it a success?
- What is your favorite Google product, and how would you double its customer base?
- What is the benefit of using an Android instead of an iPhone for Google users?
- How does Google make money?
To learn more, check out our guides on the common case interview frameworks (and how to create your own) and case interview math. These guides were written for consulting interview candidates, but have useful information for strategy and operations candidates.
3.3 Role-related knowledge (RRK) questions ↑
Google RRK interviews typically last 45-60 minutes and are run by a hiring manager, a senior employee, or the manager of the team you’re applying to join.
RRK questions for the strategy & operations role include product improvement, product strategy, and go-to-market (GTM) strategy. In some cases, they’ll also include data analysis and technical knowledge, depending on the team.
Here is how Google describes the RRK interview: “We’re interested in how your individual strengths combine with your experience to drive impact. We don’t just look for how you can contribute today, but how you can grow into different roles—including ones that haven’t even been invented yet.”
Here are some important points to take away from this definition:
- Highlight your individual strengths: Be ready to show off the unique capabilities that make you perfect for the job and team that you’re applying for.
- Showcase how you drive impact: Carefully find examples from past roles where you’ve driven impact, and demonstrate through problem-solving how you’ll do the same in your target role.
- Prove your potential: Don’t forget to show some creativity and flexibility in your answers, which will allow you to adapt to evolving positions.
Let’s look into some examples of these types of questions based on interview reports by real Google candidates.
Example Google Strategy and Operations interview questions: RRK
- When did you launch a product, and how did it go?
- Which Google product would you improve and how? Explain how you would go about implementing this improvement change.
- What is the next big thing for Google in the region? How do you know?
- Are you familiar with the concept of Value Proposition Design and how it can be used to improve a company’s strategic position?
- Which wireless speed is faster, 802.11a or 802.11n? Explain.
- What Google products would you exit?
- What is your experience with data analysis? What examples can you provide?
To deep dive into the possible topics, check out the following PM guides: product improvement, product strategy, and technical questions for PM. Watch this video on Google’s product strategy interview.
4. Interview tips
You might be a fantastic strategist, but unfortunately, that’s not necessarily enough to ace your interviews at Google. Interviewing is a skill in itself that you need to learn.
Let’s look at some key tips to make sure you approach your interviews in the right way.
4.1 Make sure you understand the question before speaking
This applies best to business case questions, but may also apply to any other question you’ll get during a Google strategy & operations interview.
To ensure you understand the question, listen carefully and take notes while the interviewer presents the case. Take the time to gather your thoughts and ask clarifying questions.
This is what a strategy & operations person does: they sit down with the team, listen carefully to the problem, and ask questions before trying to solve the problem. They do this because it's impossible to solve a business problem you don't understand in detail. Therefore, you should follow a similar approach in your cases.
Additionally, if there are any concepts brought up that you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask for clarification. It’s also good practice to repeat the explanation in your own words so your interviewer can validate your understanding.
4.2 Talk through your thought process in a structured way
What Google wants to see in your interview is your approach to solving problems. They want to see how you think, so you’ll need to show them.
Google values structure over perfect answers. When solving a problem, you need to first clearly define the problem, prioritize stakeholders, and outline trade-offs in your solution.
“Demonstrating logical, data-driven thinking—rather than aiming for an ideal result—shows you’re ready to tackle ambiguity in the role,” says Valentina.
4.3 Don’t get stuck in a framework
While Google wants to see you approach problems in a structured way, what they don’t want is to see you force your answer to fit a standard framework.
Some of our successful candidates have mentioned that excessive reliance on frameworks may hinder your performance.
During the interview, trust your instinct, and don’t be afraid to deviate from the framework if needed. A framework is there to help you craft a better answer, not make you twist your answer to fit the framework.
4.4 Check in with your interviewer
Interviewers vary in their willingness to provide hints. Some may wait for you to ask for details about the customer or product, while others expect you to make assumptions on your own.
Gauge this by asking a direct question or specifying your assumptions. If the interviewer appears not to want to engage, minimize additional questions to showcase your ability to make decisions on your own, but continue to explain the thinking behind each assumption.
4.5 Center on the company’s core values
Google emphasizes the importance of culture or value fit when selecting applicants. You need to study the company’s values, core principles, and mission statement.
When answering behavioral questions, share stories from past experiences that align with Google’s core values. When proposing a solution or strategy, consider how your answer aligns with these values.
4.6 Treat the interview like a conversation
Remember that the interview is part of a mutual discovery process. The interviewer is there to determine if you’re a good fit for Google, while you’re also evaluating if the company aligns with your aspirations and preferences.
What’s a good approach? According to Yu-Sheng (Waymo/Google interview coach), “Try to pretend that the interviewer is your colleague.”
Treat the interview as if it were a conversation with a teammate, and focus on highlighting your Googleyness, in particular your communication and collaboration skills. This advice applies to both your RRK and behavioral interviews.
4.7 Save questions for your interviewer
At the end of the interview rounds, you’ll have a few minutes to ask questions to your interviewer. Coming without any questions may convey a lack of investment in the company or the job.
Think of thoughtful questions and avoid those that you could have easily searched online. You can ask about opportunities for career progression or qualities they consider ideal for the role.
5. Preparation plan ↑
Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on preparation.
Below, you’ll find links to free resources and four introductory steps to help you prepare for your Google strategy and operations interviews.
5.1 Deep dive into the product / organization
As you've probably figured out from the example questions listed above, it's important to be familiar with Google's products and its organization. You'll therefore need to do some homework before your interviews.
Here are some resources to help you get started:
- Alphabet annual reports and strategy presentations (by Alphabet)
- Google strategy teardown (by CB Insights)
- Google organizational culture and traits (by Panmore Institute)
- Life at Google (Inside Google blog)
5.2 Learn a consistent method for answering strategy and operations interview questions
As mentioned previously, Google will ask you questions that fall into certain categories, such as Googleyness and leadership, business case, and role-related knowledge/RRK questions.
Approaching each question with a predefined method will enable you to build strong interview habits. Then, when it comes time for your interviews, these habits will reduce your stress and help you to make a great impression.
If you’re just looking for a jumping-off point, you can start learning about the different question types you’ll need to master in the following blog articles:
- Google behavioral interview questions
- Googleyness and leadership interview questions
- Market sizing: the ultimate guide
- Common case interview frameworks
- Case interview maths
- Google RRK interviews
- General strategy and operations interview questions
Once you’re in command of the subject matter, you’ll want to practice answering questions. But by yourself, you can’t simulate thinking on your feet or the pressure of performing in front of a stranger. Plus, there are no unexpected follow-up questions and no feedback.
That’s why many candidates try to practice with friends or peers.
5.3 Practice with peers
If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, that's an option worth trying. It’s free, but be warned, you may come up against the following problems:
- It’s hard to know if the feedback you get is accurate
- They’re unlikely to have insider knowledge of interviews at your target company
- On peer platforms, people often waste your time by not showing up
For those reasons, many candidates skip peer mock interviews and go straight to mock interviews with an expert.
5.4 Practice with experienced interviewers
In our experience, practicing real interviews with experts who can give you company-specific feedback makes a huge difference.
Find a Google strategy and operations interview coach so you can:
- Test yourself under real interview conditions
- Get accurate feedback from a real expert
- Build your confidence
- Get company-specific insights
- Learn how to tell the right stories, better.
- Save time by focusing your preparation
Valentina shares, “Mock interviews with experienced coaches build confidence and executive presence. A trained leadership coach, for example, can help refine your communication style, uncover blind spots, and prepare you to step into the role with clarity and impact.”
Landing a job at a big tech company often results in a $50,000 per year or more increase in total compensation. In our experience, three or four coaching sessions worth ~$500 make a significant difference in your ability to land the job. That’s an ROI of 100x!
