I feel “stuck” in my career. It’s quite odd to be in this state and saying this since I’ve really only been in full-time employment for less than 4 years. Let me explain why…
I want to say I have had decent success in my professional career and would hope that my capabilities alongside tremendous luck unlocked that success. I believe I’m quite ambitious and had begun my professional career during University. From my freshman year to senior year in school, I made sure I had some sort of internship experience every summer to prepare myself well for full-time.
My freshman year, I had absolutely no right, but had the luck to land an investment banking internship at a boutique real estate banking firm. My method to getting this internship was to submit as many applications as possible and just cross my fingers that I would get a response. Somehow, it worked.
My sophomore year, I decided banking was not for me but was still interested in the analytical and strategic nature of the role, so I landed an internship as a Corporate Dev & Strategy internship at a major healthcare company. I remember LinkedIn being my best friend and spending so much time looking up the title of the hiring manager. From there, I narrowed down to a few names and crafted an email and tested a bunch of email variations (first.last, first initial.last, etc.) until I didn’t get an error response back from the emails.
My junior year, I felt strongly about strategy and knew that I wanted to become a strategy consultant. I interviewed at a few mid-tier consulting firms as I didn’t attend a target for MBB. I also spent time interviewing at industry leaders for their corporate strategy teams as well. Although I received a few offers at the consulting firms, I ended up taking a corporate strategy role at a major automotive company since I would be working with McKinsey on a project during that summer! I thought it would be a great opportunity to prove myself and hopefully land a full-time with McKinsey. At the same time this was happening, the Dean of my business school recommended I speak to a friend of his who was the CMO at a fintech startup. Since it was my Dean, I agreed and ended up getting hooked by culture. I interviewed for strategy as well and told them that I had already accepted another internship. They agreed to let me start during the school year as a part-time internship!
I was totally ecstatic since I would be able to gain double the experience in my Junior-Senior years. As I spent time at the startup, the Head of Product approached me and mentioned she needed a product intern and felt that I may enjoy giving it a try. I had no idea what product management was at this time and decided to try because why not? I loved it. It provided me the ability to work at a high level and understand the business, but also at a deeper level and apply strategy to build a great product.
I was totally hooked by Product Management and knew I wanted to be a Product Manager when I graduated. At this time, I had already landed a few consulting full-times and was offered an Associate PM role at the startup. I could not make a decision. I was also in a long distance relationship at this time, and decided to also submit an application to some larger tech companies near her. The roles at these tech companies required 3 years of experience but I applied anyway. I heard back from two companies and one of them told me that I was too junior for the role. I had a long phone discussion with the recruiter and told her that I would appreciate any feedback on what I can work on so that when I do have experience, I can re-apply. She then asked me some technical questions around SQL and told me that she will need a week of time to figure out things, but that I should try to find other roles. Within a day, she told me that the team was willing to interview me and give it a try. I ended up making it through the entire interview loop and accepted the job offer!
I flew across the country after I graduated and learned so much at this company. I built the foundations of being a strong PM here. After about a year and a half, my girlfriend wanted to move to a new city so I had to find a new role. I wanted to switch industries as fintech seemed so serious, so I called up a connection and ended up moving into the entertainment industry as a Product Manager as well. Here, I was able to lead the mobile app teams and really take ownership. After a bit past one year, I landed a dream role at a gaming company.
Now, I’m currently at said gaming company! I’m quite happy here, but as you can see, my journey here required quite a good amount of luck. I either landed roles that I wasn’t qualified for, or had networked enough where I was able to land an interview that I wasn’t qualified for. I also have a mindset that within 6 months at a role, I like to begin interviewing just to make sure I don’t lose my interviewing chops..
I started to interview in the last few months… and I feel stuck. I have had 0 luck and although I believe I’ve really improved my skills and am applying to roles that I am qualified for, I am either being ghosted or rejected. This has really pushed me to appreciate the amount of luck that I have had..
I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I wanted to share my journey into the ether that is Medium and let job seekers know that it isn’t hard because you aren’t qualified, but it is hard for everyone! The job search process is not all skill, but it is a combination of luck, capability, and effort. Be persistent and realize that even if you’re not qualified, put in the effort and you might have some luck to land that job. I hope that my luck will turn so that I can feel confident in my abilities again too!
If you’re curious about any other parts of my journey, I am happy to share more! Please reach out :).
