Not landing any calls, just automated rejections. Will I ever get a Product Manager role?
My OPT dates are nearing, everyday just gets worse with more rejections. Makes me wonder where am I missing out? Will I remain jobless? My mental health is taking a huge toll :( 3 YOE, CMU Alumni. #product #productmanager #refer #referral #productmanagement #career #recruiters
The market is flooded
And I feel like I'm just drowning!
Same with an ivy. Just switch to SWE. You get paid more and can switch in a year or two. It's actual ridiculous how entryish level PM roles just hire any random business major without relevant experience instead of cross-functional people with a degree of technical experience.
What if SWE is something I don't want to pursue at all?
Suck it up for a year or two, tbh. I wasted a good bit after graduating being stubborn. Better to make 100k+ for a year and have an easy-in for PM roles than to waste a year applying and failing for PM roles.
I’m a PM and agree with everything above except for starting as SWE. SWE is not the ideal path to PM, as most of your skills won’t help. You need to find a way to highlight PM-like experiences, especially anything which could be considered entrepreneurial. There’s not enough unstructured ownership in most SWE roles. That said... if you don’t have a job, find ANY type of job which works with PMs and start networking internally to cross over (Project manager, Business analyst, dev, UX research, etc). Also start working on some personal projects to show entrepreneurial drive 3.5 yoe, 3 in product
Getting into PM is not easy. If you're on an unlucky strike with interviewing, take a break, you don't want to be on a no-hire list because you were not ready or not a good fit fort a company. Ask your CMU engineering alumni network for leads and only interview if you and the recruiter feel positive about the potential outcome. CMU is strong on ML/NLP, so you should have plenty alumni to poke.
I think the PM role is overrated. I tried it along the way and it’s baf compared to the intellectual rigor that goes into engineering a product. Find what you are passionate, not what sounds good on paper and never ever do something because the money is great.
Getting into a PM role is very difficult. Have you created a linkedin? highlighted your related work? called out projects and revenue?
I completely agree. It is very intense out there. Yes, I'm active on LinkedIn and updated my experiences.
Do you have a portfolio? any technical skills? (eg API knowledge, SDK, mobile apps, SQL, Tableau etc)