LinkedIn morning dashboard: choosing the three daily metrics a PM checks first

Imagine you are a product manager at LinkedIn. Which three metrics would you look at first thing every morning? When you ask what the goal is, the interviewer hands it back to you: choosing the goal is part of the exercise, and the question is deliberately open-ended. ```hint Daily means fast-moving A number you check every morning should be one that can move within a day and that you would act on if it did. Think about which parts of LinkedIn's business would show trouble first. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Am I the product manager for LinkedIn as a whole, or for one area such as the feed, jobs or Premium? - Should the metrics cover members only, or also the recruiters and advertisers who pay? - Is the morning check meant to catch breakage and anomalies, or to track progress toward a longer-term goal? - Should I focus on one market or on LinkedIn globally? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - An explicit goal, chosen and justified, grounded in how LinkedIn creates value for members, hirers and advertisers. - Three metrics that each map to a different part of that value chain, are precisely defined, and are sensitive enough to move day to day. - Why these three beat obvious alternatives such as sign-ups, total members or raw page views. - How each number is read: comparison baseline, seasonality, segment cuts, guardrails, and the threshold that triggers action. - How the answer would change for a product manager who owns a single area. ### Follow-up Questions - This morning your engagement metric sits well below the same weekday last week, outside its normal range. What do you check first, and in what order? - How would your three metrics change if you owned LinkedIn's job-search product? - Which of your metrics could a growth team game, and what guardrail would catch it?