Breaking [in]to PM: 8 months and 100+ rejections later, I finally landed my dream APM offer
’Tis the season to be recruiting — but at least for me, it wasn’t jolly. As a junior in 2020, I went through an extremely tough and seemingly never-ending PM internship recruiting season. Worse yet, I really thought everyone else was having it all together.
Hence this series: I want to share my real, transparent behind-the-scenes of recruiting and open the dialogue on the ups and downs of recruiting.
A little bit about me: Born and raised in China, I graduated from Vanderbilt last May with a Computer Science & Political Science double major. After an awesome summer spent at LinkedIn as an intern, I am returning as a full-time Associate Product Manager this September.
Now, let’s start with storytime.
August 2020: Not a Consulting Bro, Clearly
Since consulting internships opened earlier than tech, and I was in a business fraternity surrounded by consulting bros, I went for it like everyone else. Because there were only three companies (McKinsey, Bain, BCG) that I could apply to as an international student and I didn’t spend time networking, I only landed one interview and got rejected soon after. 🤕
September — October 2020: Initial Push
PM positions started to open, so I made my “PM resume,” started networking, and applied for a couple of PM internships, mostly with referrals.
Got the first interview at Microsoft pretty early on (🤩!), sailed through the recruiter screen, and prepped intensively for 2 weeks for the onsite (since it was my first ever legit PM interview). After 4 back to back interviews, I thought I did decently well and really vibed with my interviewers. Especially with the last, highest-ranking interviewer, we had a really good discussion on a product I built and even started talking about vacations at the end (which I’ve been told is a good sign).
But, you know how it goes, after two and half weeks of excruciating wait, only to get a cold rejection with no feedback. All I could think about was that Microsoft was the only company that recruits PMs from my school consistently, and if I couldn’t get Microsoft, how would I get anything else? That’s dark moment #1.
November 2020: Fighting On 😤
Applied to ~60 jobs while only getting one other interview. It was a medium-sized company that recruits heavily from my school, so I did my due diligence, talked to a few alumni working there, and was ready to seize the opportunity.
The recruiter call went smoothly, and I could tell she was almost ready to talk about the next round, until the hardest question came, “just checking, do you require a work authorization or sponsorship?”
I instantly tried to search through my brain for any mention of “no sponsorship” on the job description, and there was none. I even looked up on myvisajobs.com to make sure they actually sponsor a decent number of people each year.
“I do. I’m on an F1 visa,” I answered, knowing that was the end of the conversation.
As expected, she said unfortunately they don’t sponsor, so I wouldn’t be able to move on. I even robotically said “no I understand” before hanging up.
Truth is, I didn’t understand. How hard is putting “no sponsorship” on their job description? Or even checking this before scheduling the interview, so I wouldn’t waste hours networking and researching the company, and worst of all, getting my hopes up? Despondent and honestly just tired, I had my dark moment #2.
December — January 2021: Pivoting to SWE
Over winter break, I re-strategized and decided to apply for some software engineering (SWE) internships as backups. Despite not having any SWE internships on my resume, I was able to land multiple interviews quickly and grinded LeetCode as much as I could (only a couple dozen questions).
Since I was in Asia over break, I woke up at 5 AM for my first coding interview, and that LeetCode medium question had me doubt this entire decision. Having only done a few practices and no technical mock interviews at all, I struggled to talk and think at the same time, and was honestly spending half of my energy trying to keep my nerves at bay. I still didn’t get to the efficient solution by half the time, and when I looked up again, there was my dark moment #3: my interviewer was playing on his phone!?
I was mad, but I couldn’t pretend half of the anger wasn’t toward myself. Of course, once I was able to look at the situation objectively, I knew the interviewer’s behavior was inappropriate and there was no excuse for treating candidates like that. But at the moment, the only thought is why I wasn’t smarter or studied harder.
February 2021: First Offer!
School started again and there were fewer programs open, but I was not about to give up.
Luckily, I met a super kind recruiter who initially reached out to me for SWE, but upon hearing about my interest in PM, agreed to fast-tracked me in another team’s PM interviews. Although I failed the onsite, he let me interview for the original SWE position again. This time I was more prepared on technicals and miraculously landed an offer!
March 2021: Crossing the Finish Line
Finally having an offer in hand made me so relieved. I was able to refocus on applying for PM positions at companies that I was genuinely interested in. I was able to land interviews at 3 companies almost back to back and made it to the final round at 2 of them.
LinkedIn was one of my top choices from the get-go, especially because of its mission to create economic opportunities for everyone and how that panned out in my life. I crafted my “why company” answer with personal stories of how I was able to use LinkedIn to forge connections and create opportunities in a foreign country. After successfully completing the take-home assignment, I started prepping for the onsite, which, of course, was in the same week with three midterms and a 10-page paper.
I did all the prep I could, took a few deep breaths, and told myself how lucky I was to even be in this place. Having met a few other candidates through mock interviews, I knew that every one of them was just as, if not more, competent than I. At this point, I just wanted to have good conversations with the interviewers, and whatever happens, happens.
I thought I did well at the onsite, but I’d fully conditioned myself to rid of any expectations. After all, “if you expect disappointment, then you can never really get disappointed,” right? So I sent out the thank you email and started studying for my algorithms exam the next day (which, did not go well, in case anyone wants to know).
A week later, I received two calls almost back to back from LinkedIn and another big tech!! Disbelief was the only way I can describe it. I was so shocked that it didn’t feel “safe” to be happy. When the DocuSign link arrived, I finally wrapped up my recruiting season 🍾
What’s next? I hope to share the lessons I learned from this process & my career journey in product. If you have any ideas or suggestions for what I should write about next, let me know in the comments! Best of luck to those of you going thru recruitment!
