In 2017, I applied to 1176 jobs and did a total of 150 rounds of interviews to get a Product Manager tech job in NYC.

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but in the end, I received 2 offers, worked at a job that turned out to be my dream job, and I've learned big lessons in life that I now bring to my life as an entrepreneur, educator, and coach.

This is the how and why I did it and the lessons I've learned:

When I first started my job search, I was pretty confident about my ability to land a job. At that point, I had already had two years of PM experience under my belt and had recently completed a course on learning the fundamentals of Product Management.

The reality quickly sank in when I got my first rejection from an interview for a Junior PM job at Makerbot. I had made it to the final round but they picked another candidate over me.

I was devastated. I felt like I did everything correctly.

I learned about this job from a networking event, got the business card from one of the team members there, followed up with an email, met him for an intro call, and even consulted him about what I should prepare for in the interview. But somehow I still couldn't reach the finish line.

I realized quickly that for me to compete against a pool of talented candidates in a big city like NYC, I needed to change it up.

I had to shift my mentality

I needed to be more comfortable with rejections. Even as an ex-salesman who has done my fair share of cold calls and had knocked on hundreds of doors to sell, it was still incredibly difficult to process that rejection.

I had equated that "no" as an attack on my perception of my self-worth, and I needed to learn to separate the two and not take it so personally.

I had to believe in my self-worth and value

I realized that I still had a lot of imposter syndrome that I had to overcome.

I was only looking at Junior or Associate PM jobs because I had only been a PM at small companies and teams, so I didn't feel like I had the experience or skillsets of a "real" PM.

But deep down I knew it wasn't true, that even though I hadn't worked at a FAANG company before, I did know what it takes to do the job well. Most importantly, I trusted my ability to figure anything out as long as I had curiosity, resilience, and perseverance.

I had to learn to be better at interviewing

Once I was able to establish that trust in my abilities, I realized the task of interviewing for a PM job was different from actually doing the job.

What I struggled with was the former, and the only way to do that was to have more practice

I had to apply for more jobs

And for me to have more practice shots at the goal, I needed to apply for more jobs.

To be able to apply to more jobs, I had to reevaluate my entire job-searching process and come up with new strategies.

This is an entire list of things I end up doing:

For job applications

• I reviewed at least 20 different PM job listings to look at the job descriptions and the bullet point lists of criteria they were looking for to get a better sense of the terminology, keywords, and skillsets they were looking for.

• I did a complete revamp of my resume based on that research so that it was clear to anyone looking at my resume that it was tailored specifically for that particular job position.

• Instead of spending hours trying to create personalized cover letters for each job application, I made a template where I could still fill in the blanks of the company I was applying to and what their product did.

• I submitted at least 40 job applications every single day. I even started with cities that I didn't live in like LA and Seattle so that I could line up more practice interviews before applying to jobs in my city.

For interviews

• It was very common for questions like "So, tell me about yourself" or "What's your story?" to come up during the first few rounds of the interview so that was one answer that I always anticipated. So I spent hours upon hours practicing my "pitch" until I was completely confident in delivering it.

• The job interviewing process was notorious for not having a lot of feedback loops to give you actionable feedback or suggestions to help you identify areas where you can improve on, so I created my own. I would record all my phone interviews (zoom interviews weren't a thing yet, so I recorded phone calls using this tool) so that I could listen to them afterward to study what areas I could improve on

• After each interview, I would collect all the behavior, technical, or estimation questions in one document so that I have a go-to list of questions that I can reference back to and practice with.

And as a result I...

• Applied to a total of 1176 jobs, across 14 states.

• Received 176 rejections

• Went through 150 rounds of interviews: 98 first rounds, 40 second rounds, and 12 third rounds.

• I started my new job application process on 08/02/17 and accepted my offer on 10/25/17. The entire process took me 84 days.

Here are the 3 biggest lessons I've learned from that experience that I still apply to everything I'm doing today:

1. Be comfortable with your voice

And I mean this both figuratively and literally.

When I first listened to a recording of my phone interview, it was very hard not to cringe at it.

I hated how I sounded and I just wanted to turn it off. There is a scientific reason why it's very common for anyone to dislike the way they sound on a voice recording.

I remember saying to myself: "If I cannot find a way to enjoy the way I sound on a voice recording, how can I feel confident that someone else, like an interviewer, would enjoy speaking with me on the phone and therefore be willing to offer me a job?"

It was from listening to those recordings that motivated me to practice more. I would record myself giving mock interview answers and listen to them to know where to improve.

And I didn't stop until I felt like I had given an Oscar-worthy performance of interview answers.

2. Focus on all the inputs that you can control and not the outcomes that you can't

I realized that there were so many potential reasons why I would get ghosted or rejected during the job application process, and the only way to be comfortable with all the unexpected variables was to focus only on the inputs that I could control.

Because I was submitting so many applications each day and going through so many rounds of interviews in a typical week, I realized that I was no longer making a habit of overthinking reasons why I didn't get a response or why I was rejected.

I also wasn't fazed when the same company sent me a rejection email one week but also sent me another one a few weeks later asking me for an interview. These things just happen.

I didn't analyze too much the fact the same resume and cover letter template + my interviewing skills had gotten me to the final round of an interview at Google, but couldn't even get a first round at companies I was more excited to work at.

3. Enjoy and trust the process. Make a game of it, then transcend it.

I initially hated the process of finding a job because I took the loss too seriously.

But after becoming more comfortable in my voice, and started focusing on all the inputs that I could control and not on the outcomes that I couldn't, I started feeling lighter and finding enjoyment in the process.

I started understanding that interviewing was a game and that there were some rules I needed to understand first, but once I was able to see the big picture, it just became having resilience and perseverance.

Soon, I wasn't even really keeping track of the number of interviews each week or how many applications I was sending, I was just understanding it as part of my journey, trusting that it will lead me wherever I need to, and I just need to keep going.

Shoutouts and Sponsors

ApplyAll

• This is a tool I wished I had when I was going through the whole odyssey of finding a job. It allows you to apply for up to 200 relevant jobs in just 30 seconds. Check it out here.

How can I help you?

If you are interested in working more closely with me, here are 2 ways I can help you:

1. Apply for a free 1-hour coaching call with me to get personalized guidance on building digital products, without using a line of code. I help aspiring and non-technical founders find purpose, joy, and creativity by empowering them to build out their ideas using no-code tools 💡🚀

2. If you have a business you want to promote, feel free to reply to this email or DM me on Twitter.

And that's it for now! ✨

Thank you for reading this edition all the way to the end. I appreciate you 🙏

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