Two years of PM experience, 8 weeks of job search spree ended happily

After being laid off by a large company due to their financial constraints, I continuously kept applying at several big and small companies, desperately looking to get hired. Given my experience of about two years as a PM i got a few offers, and interestingly I had to withdraw my application from a company after being interviewed for 6th round :wink:
Well, all is well that ends well, have at last landed up with a decent package as a PM.

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Quite a slog of a search to be honest but likely par for the course in PM.

Any way you could go into detail about the withdrawn offer and the round 6th round rejection?

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Withdrawn offer:

The guy gave me an offer at the first stage, insisting I should resign right now and go work with him. Because what he thought was “we clicked instantly”

Told him to send a written offer with the contract, otherwise, I wouldn’t do anything. The guy told me yeah sure, next Monday the I called the guy and they told me they were looking for someone more experienced. The guy felt so guilty that he called me 5 more times to make sure that I wasn’t feeling bad, told the guy that I wouldn’t work for that kind of company regardless of what he has done from this point forward.

6th round rejection was dramatic. They went completely off-course of the hiring process, telling me that it is better for me if someone else from the team also makes an interview with me. This happened 4 times. At the end, they told me that I wasn’t a good fit because I was too “pushy”, no other significant feedback. 5th round guy made sounds with his teeth (also sticking a finger in his mouth while the cam is open), which made me hate the company, thus the following interview was a nightmare.

Hope that was clear!

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Yeah, that 6th round path caught my eye as well. Before I even came down here to the comments I was thinking to myself, “to hell with those guys” :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

6 rounds of interviews, Oh God! I’m not ready for this crap. Also what does too pushy mean? Were you pushing for higher salary? Hahaha…

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They told me I have expressed too much about how I liked the company, honestly, I told them they were the only ones who called me from this sector so that’s why I was interested. I went completely honest and they labeled me as “needy”.

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Most companies would love someone with that attitude, seems like a bad place to work. And what did they think it was? It’s not dating, eagerness is fine. Hell with them, am glad that you got a better place to work with.

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Also interested to hear how/why you decided to withdraw your application 8 times. What made you feel you weren’t interested in the company?

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I was most interested in growing startups, already at series A or maybe a tad more.

After receiving offers from companies that are within my scope, I was given quite limited time, about 2 days to respond to the offer. Told them that if they could vary the hiring procedure, I would gladly continue but didn’t actually push my chances. Commented on it is a tough market for searching jobs right now due to all COVID stuff, thus I must withdraw. Broken up all happy with them, some of them called me a couple of days forward to make me an offer but told them I am settled.

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Don’t know much about the career path, but why startups? If not startups, what are the best companies to work for?

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My current (soon to be previous I hope) work is also a startup. But rather a small one.

You get to be the go-to person for a handful of stuff and be responsible for almost everything. I did the product design, business, metrics, QA, handoff, and scrum master stuff. Going for a series-a startup I get to still keep many responsibilities and avoid becoming a corporate drone for a while.

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I’m at the two year mark as a PM as well. Have gotten zero responses on applications, Did you apply directly to companies? Or were a lot of these through referrals? Lastly, would you mind PM-ing your resume? Resume seems like an area I am falling short.

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I didn’t want to open the referral door, but I did for one of the withdrawn offers.

There were 4 other but I got rejected without interviews, so only 5 of the local applications were with referrals.

I played around a lot with my resume, including the numbers for how many people I worked with, how many projects, and the main responsibilities. I will PM you the resume by excluding personal information.

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I started my PM career earlier this year and having done many interviews, I’m stuck at the no-offer stage and perpetually doing more interviews. The feedback I’ve gotten is that I don’t have enough experience but I’ve tried getting more (doing pro bono work, side projects). Do you have any advice for me?

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@JuanAllo, how long has it been since you started working as a PM? Are you employed right now?

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I started earlier in the yr with a non-profit startup but I was only there for 3 months before they started restructuring the team and I had to leave. Since then, I’ve been building side projects, which is a big talking point in interviews but again, they always seem to choose someone else in the end :frowning:

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@Juan,I think at that point it is not CV related, it is more like your attitude and product knowledge.

Are you eliminated at the HR stage or product interview?

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I’ve made it to the final round a few times and I’ve also been rejected along the pipeline. I usually make it to meeting the Hiring Manager if I am selected for an interview though.

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What is your interview/application rate? I seriously believe your problem is not with your resume. What kind of questions do you struggle the most?

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I haven’t been keeping track but something like 1 interview/ 5 applications. I wouldn’t say I struggle with any questions par say but most hiring managers have told me that while they think I have great potential, they chose to go with someone else with more experience.

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I think that is a magnificent ratio. I think everything with your resume is perfect, but you need to work on your hiring manager skills.

I think those would be shaped around basic PM interview questions. Read the books! Watch mock PM interviews on YouTube by exponent, those also helped me a lot.

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