Dollar General is a leading American chain of variety stores headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The company specializes in offering a wide selection of affordable goods, making household essentials accessible to everyone.

In the role of a Senior Product Manager at Dollar General, you'll be responsible for leading the development and execution of the media network’s self-service product strategy. You will work closely with cross-functional teams including engineering, G2M, and operations to develop, test, and launch new capabilities. Key responsibilities include prioritizing product roadmaps, monitoring industry trends, and translating strategic business needs into actionable product plans. Success in this role requires extensive experience in agile methodologies, product management, and retail media networks.

This guide by Interview Query will walk you through the interview process, common questions, and valuable tips to prepare you for the journey ahead at Dollar General.

Dollar General Product Manager Interview Process

Submitting Your Application

The first step is to submit a compelling application that reflects your technical skills and interest in joining Dollar General as a Product Manager. Whether you were contacted by a Dollar General recruiter or have taken the initiative yourself, carefully review the job description and tailor your CV according to the prerequisites.

Tailoring your CV may include identifying specific keywords that the hiring manager might use to filter resumes and crafting a targeted cover letter. Furthermore, don’t forget to highlight relevant skills and mention your work experiences.

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV happens to be among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from the Dollar General Talent Acquisition Team will make contact and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be a part of the screening process.

In some cases, the Dollar General Product Manager hiring manager stays present during the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the company itself. They may also indulge in surface-level technical and behavioral discussions.

The whole recruiter call should take about 30 minutes.

Technical Virtual Interview

Successfully navigating the recruiter round will present you with an invitation for the technical screening round. Technical screening for the Dollar General Product Manager role usually is conducted through virtual means, including video conference and screen sharing. Questions in this 1-hour long interview stage may revolve around product strategy, agile methodologies, project management, and technology.

In the case of product manager roles, take-home assignments regarding product vision, roadmapping, and requirement documentation are incorporated. Apart from these, your proficiency in stakeholder management, technical fluency, and regulatory knowledge may also be assessed during the round.

Depending on the seniority of the position, case studies and similar real-scenario problems may also be assigned.

Onsite Interview Rounds

Followed by a second recruiter call outlining the next stage, you’ll be invited to attend the onsite interview loop. Multiple interview rounds, varying with the role, will be conducted during your day at the Dollar General office. Your strategic and technical capabilities, including product prioritization and cross-functional collaboration, will be evaluated against the finalized candidates throughout these interviews.

If you were assigned take-home exercises, a presentation round may also await you during the onsite interview for the Product Manager role at Dollar General.

Quick Tips For Dollar General Product Manager Interviews

You should plan to brush up on any technical skills and try as many practice interview questions and mock interviews as possible. A few tips for acing your Dollar General interview include:

1. Understand Retail Media Networks: Be prepared to discuss the latest trends and regulatory changes in the retail media space. Showing that you are up-to-date with industry standards can set you apart.

2. Highlight Cross-Functional Collaboration: Dollar General values the ability to work with various teams. Demonstrate your experience in partnering with engineering, marketing, and operations teams to deliver successful projects.

3. Emphasize Product Management Methodologies: Showcase your expertise in agile methodologies, roadmapping, and prioritizing product features. Providing specific examples of how you have executed these in past roles can be very beneficial.

Typically, interviews at Dollar General vary by role and team, but commonly Product Manager interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

• Create a function recurring_char to find the first recurring character in a string. Given a string, write a function recurring_char to find its first recurring character. Return None if there is no recurring character. Treat upper and lower case letters as distinct characters. Assume the input string includes no spaces.

• Write a query to get the average order value by gender. Given three tables representing customer transactions and customer attributes, write a query to get the average order value by gender. Round your answer to two decimal places.

• Identify first-time and repeat purchases by product category. Analyze a user's purchases to identify which purchases represent the first time the user has bought a product from its category and which represent repeat purchases. Output a table including every purchase with a boolean column indicating if the category was previously purchased.

• Parse the most frequent words used in poems. Given a list of strings called sentences, return a dictionary of the frequency that words are used in the poem. Process all words as lowercase and ignore punctuation marks.

• Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. If more than one person shares the highest salary, select the next highest salary.

• What would you do if friend requests are down 10% on Facebook? A product manager at Facebook informs you that friend requests have decreased by 10%. How would you approach diagnosing and addressing this issue?

• How would you set up an A/B test for changes in a sign-up funnel? A team wants to A/B test changes in a sign-up funnel, such as changing a button from red to blue and/or moving it from the top to the bottom of the page. How would you design this test?

• What metrics would you use to determine the value of each marketing channel? Given all the different marketing channels and their respective costs at a company called Mode, which sells B2B analytics dashboards, what metrics would you use to assess the value of each channel?

• How would you measure the success of a banner ad strategy for an online media company? An online media company wants to experiment with adding web banners into the middle of its reading content to monetize effectively. How would you measure the success of this banner ad strategy?

• How would you investigate a drop in Facebook posts per user? The posting tool on Facebook composer drops from 3% posts per user last month to 2.5% posts per user today. How would you investigate this decline? If the drop is in photo posts, what would you investigate next?

• How would you interpret coefficients of logistic regression for categorical and boolean variables? Explain how to interpret the coefficients of logistic regression when dealing with categorical and boolean variables.

• What is the difference between covariance and correlation? Provide an example. Describe the difference between covariance and correlation, and provide an example to illustrate the distinction.

• What are time series models? Why do we need them when we have less complicated regression models? Explain what time series models are and why they are necessary despite the availability of simpler regression models.

• How would you determine if the difference between this month and the previous month in a time series dataset is significant? Given a time series dataset grouped monthly for the past five years, describe how you would assess if the difference between this month and the previous month is significant.

• How would you address a manager's complaint about a packet filling machine not functioning correctly? A manager reports that a machine designed to fill boxes with 25 packets is malfunctioning, resulting in incorrect packet counts. Describe how you would investigate and resolve this issue.

• How does random forest generate the forest and why use it over logistic regression? Explain the process of generating a forest in random forest and discuss the advantages of using random forest over logistic regression.

• How would you justify using a neural network model and explain its predictions to non-technical stakeholders? Describe how you would justify the complexity of a neural network model for solving a business problem and how you would explain its predictions to non-technical stakeholders.

• How would you interpret coefficients of logistic regression for categorical and boolean variables? Explain the interpretation of logistic regression coefficients for categorical and boolean variables.

• Which model would perform better for predicting Airbnb booking prices: linear regression or random forest regression? Compare the performance of linear regression and random forest regression for predicting booking prices on Airbnb and explain which model would likely perform better and why.

• What are the assumptions of linear regression? List and explain the key assumptions underlying linear regression.

Navigating the path to becoming a Senior Product Manager at Dollar General promises an engaging and impactful career, intertwining the nuances of financial and HR management with cutting-edge technology delivery. This role demands not only expertise in retail media, adtech, and agile methodologies but also a robust ability to translate business strategies into actionable product priorities. Your journey involves shaping product strategies, roadmaps, and leveraging cross-functional collaboration to drive and sustain technological advancements.

If you want more insights about the company, check out our main Dollar General Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. We’ve also created interview guides for other roles, such as software engineer and data analyst, where you can learn more about Dollar General’s interview process for different positions.

At Interview Query, we empower you to unlock your interview prowess with a comprehensive toolkit, equipping you with the knowledge, confidence, and strategic guidance to conquer every Dollar General product manager interview question and challenge.

You can check out all our company interview guides for better preparation, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Good luck with your interview!