How To Become a Tech Program Manager - w/ Pragya

how does somebody like that go about tailoring their resume to you know tell a coherent story but I had a backup plan which I feel everyone should have a backup plan to make that jump from analyst to program manager so how did you go about doing that having those conversations you understand what the expectations are and what are some strategies or things that you did that worked for you all of a sudden I have everything it feels like that Welcome to the Ready Set Do podcast where we discuss remarkable stories by regular people my guest for this episode is Pragya Sinha Pragya is a technical program manager at Amazon she's just started this position which means she managed to get hired despite the current tech job market in the US anybody who is currently applying for jobs or has been any time in this past

year knows what an unforgiving time it has been in the US for tech jobs this is perhaps even more so for international students with considerations around Visa sponsorship, etc. in addition to the actual job search the reason I requested Pragya to speak with me today is because she's proven that despite the extremely challenging times it is in fact possible to still get hired for your dream position we begin our discussion by what prompted Pragya to move to the US and how she was able to select the course that she studied internships are an extremely important way to kickstart your professional career in the US and so we go over some common pitfalls that most students in the US face we then discussed Pragya's remarkable journey since she graduated across three different positions finally culminating with her

ending up as a program manager for Amazon we deep dive into how to make that jump from analyst and associate positions to that of a manager we discuss tools strategies best practices pertaining to job applications interviews networking on LinkedIn and everything in between finally Pragya walks us through the grueling five-hour loop interview style process at Amazon for some of their tech management roles whether you are currently in the market looking for a job or are just somebody that's looking to make that switch to a tech management position I think this conversation will be extremely beneficial for you as always the podcast is timestamped both here and on Spotify for your ease of navigation to the section of your choice finally in keeping with the theme of learning from somebody that's just two steps ahead of

you instead of a full-blown expert our discussion is centered around the anecdotal data that demonstrably worked for Pragya that is not to say that a different approach is wrong or incorrect because indeed there are a lot of ways to in fact get a job my goal is to merely highlight how Pragya was able to get the job of her dreams and what you can potentially do to get yours so now without further ado my conversation with Pragya. Pragya, welcome and um thank you for joining me today for our listeners um Pragya and I were colleagues at PwC for a brief while before I left um the company and India to pursue my master's in the US shortly thereafter Pragya also followed a similar path in that she uh pursued her master's in Information Systems from Texas A&M University.

Pragya, did you want to kick us off by talking us through what made you want to pursue your master's from the US hi Naman thank you for having me here uh what made me decide to pursue MIS which is management information systems you are one of the reasons for that I mean when I joined PwC uh there were a lot of people around me you were one of them who was going for a master's and I was also planning to pursue a higher degree and I felt I wanted to experience what's the best the world has to offer and I wanted to explore uh the job that I was doing over there working as a consultant and uh I have a tech background I have an electrical and electronics engineering degree from VIT University well looking at my background and my interest while

working at PwC I thought the best way to go about it was to find a degree that's a mix of both business and tech management based on those criteria and you were you were going for an MEM degree right and I had seen what you were taking were looking at and stuff and I had then uh I went out went on LinkedIn networked with a few people and talking to them I decided that MIS is the right fit for me based on my background and my interest yeah got it so something a question that I get regularly from students over the years especially those in India that are you know just starting to consider a path that you know takes them to the US for their master's is that generally it seems to me that there's two ways that people think about it it's either the more tech-intensive courses versus you know the more tech management type

courses so do you have any thoughts on what somebody can think in terms of considerations that would make either of those two paths better suited for them so in your case you mentioned that um the tech management side of things it felt like it was more suited to your experience and what you wanted to get at so what are just some um questions that a student can ask themselves when they're trying to figure out which way might be better because it seems to me that there's a lot of um analysis paralysis that goes on with it just because there's all it seems like an infinite number of courses to you know choose from so do you have any thoughts on that I think it all comes down to where your interest lies there are a lot of people who love coding and they love writing code and working with all the new tech that's coming in and if

you also have the background to support that if you come from a computer science background and you're actually interested in it it's an internal process I feel it's not an external thing because it's a degree that's going to stay with you and you're going to build a career out of it basically so it should be something that you're interested in not just because everyone is doing it but if you're actually interested in it that's the path you should move forward with I think it takes introspection: is tech where you want to be yeah that I think that makes sense to me because me personally yeah I also studied Engineering Management which I'm sure you know but for our listeners that's exactly what it sounds like it's just a course that teaches you to manage

other Engineers so yeah it sounds like um what you're saying is that really it's just a decision of whether you want to stay focused on Tech especially around software usually that's the way people go or if you want to um maybe take a step back and be involved with a higher bird's-eye view of things so that brings me to um I'm sure you apply to a few places and this is another point of contention that comes often which is that there's again an infinite number of colleges or universities to apply to so what was your process of um once you had determined that you wanted to study MIS um how did you go about I guess shortlisting or you know yeah so the first thing I did was went on the internet found a list of high-ranking courses. It started with, okay, I want to do my

master's then I decided okay what field I want to do my master's and once I had decided that the thing I did was to find the good colleges and uh good colleges and the uh courses that was offered by them then I had a list I had an Excel sheet for that I had what were the subjects they were offering the electives kind of academic courses that they offered also the electives whether they had any partnership with other uh like I was applying for MIS so many of these colleges had partnership with Deloitte and PwC and stuff like that so looking at those partnerships, and then also looking at what the alumni are doing currently and because once you're paying so much you want something in return right so that was

also one of the criteria so I think uh the criteria that I had was how well recognized the courses what academic courses they're offering if they aligned with what I was looking for the kind of uh faculties and professors they had and then ROI basically about alumni judging from what the current alumni are doing based on that finding what the ROI looks like got it yeah I think those are all super helpful factors and personally I feel like yeah I don't think my research was as detailed as yours was it sounds like but those are I think really good points to keep in mind when I guess somebody's you know trying to decide which university so from that I want to um I guess delve a little bit on what was your experience like in the you know as a student in the

US and I think it would make sense for us to look at it through three lenses the first being just academics second um any extracurricular activities and then third just social life in general what were some things that you know uh in retrospection stand out to you in terms of your experience as a master's student in the US okay uh okay so I feel my experience had been life-changing uh it's it's a big word I know but it has been life-changing uh coming to the US you are leaving all the comfort and you're here pursuing a degree. When you're back home in India you have so much support and all of a sudden all of that support is not there you have to build you're in a different completely different land you do not know the culture you do not know

how people even if you think you know it like back in India I used to feel like I know what's happening in the US right but when I landed here I was like oh my God there's so much to learn there it's not just the courses that you have to do you have to maintain your social life as well as have this uh even the personal chores that you have to do like you have to have your groceries you have to cook food for yourself you have to sustain yourself so first semester was really hectic for me I feel it's the phase where you are going through a lot of changes and you are adjusting to a new environment completely uh the course load seems heavy in the start because we are not conditioned to learn that way in India it's more about exams over here

it's more about assignments and doing case studies; it's more well-rounded classes over here which I was not used to so adjusting to those uh classes and then also this uh environment uh first semester I did not have a part-time as well because I was not actively looking for it and you mean a part-time student employment I'm assuming yes as a student employee I had received a scholarship for Texas A&M I had a scholarship so I came on a scholarship and I was not working for the first semester so I was so much involved in my coursework in the first semester that uh I did not venture out which I feel I should have done I mean I could have started working as a graduate assistant or some other student worker position from the start that's something I think about right now but then coming to the second semester I was

more I knew what was happening I was more aligned to everything. I applied to a few graduate assistant positions and I was able to receive one of them as well so that also uh helped me pay my bills uh and have a social life I see yeah uh is there a process for attaining a scholarship or is that just something you need to ask for separately um can you just walk us through how that whole thing works with the scholarship yeah uh at Texas A&M the scholarship process was you did not have to do anything other than that there was just a form where you mentioned that yes you're looking for a scholarship and the scholarship was awarded based on what you write in your essays and your GRE scores and everything basically your whole portfolio as a whole is considered and

based on that, you are offered a scholarship yeah okay got it yeah okay, got it so awesome um and then I know you interned for a brief amount of time was it just a summer internship or was that longer but I guess my question was that um what were some things or what are some things that students that are just starting out their various courses especially Master's courses in the US should keep in mind while looking for internships because as somebody that did an internship myself mine was a co-op so mine actually lasted a whole year while I was in college but I know I definitely found or learned things much later that would have helped me a lot more had I known them in time and I'm assuming you likely had a similar experience so I'm curious to know um yeah what are some

pitfalls that are very commonly um prevalent but also those that can be avoided by somebody that you know is currently seeking out internships or you know trying to build their um I guess their career really in the US because an internship is really your first foot in the door when it comes to establishing a professional career in the US I agree yeah I agree totally agree with you I did intern it was a summer internship so it was a smaller internship I interned from June to August so it was a three-month internship I interned at Rexel as an IT analyst and uh yeah some of the pitfalls that I faced were I started applying really late so I I joined the course in August and I was eligible to do an internship in a year because I'm on F-1 and then you can work on CPT after you so no that's helpful context yeah totally yes

yeah so all the big companies like Microsoft all the FAANG companies they have their internship open in the very initial few months like by end of September Google closes all its internship positions because they decide way earlier what they want who they want to offer their positions to so I was I came here in August I landed in the US on 21st August 2021 and all the internships close for big companies by the end of September or October and by that time I was I wasn't applying to a lot of companies because I did not have my resume in place I was still figuring out how to apply. Basically, you just landed you don't know how to apply and how to approach different people. In India, it's all about companies coming to your college right you have to take all the actions you have to

basically be the person who's taking all the actions for yourself absolutely that was a change that I was not I was still adjusting to and I saw that a lot of internships had already closed by then so I feel whoever is planning to come to the US should have this mindset back in India that it's a war and you have to be prepared for it so come with that mindset that okay you have to apply early to get a good internship if you want to have a good internship apply early is the biggest advice I can give I see so going back to your point on how obviously it's such a huge transition period you've literally uprooted your life and find yourself in a new country trying to build that life from scratch would you say there's things that could be done while a student is

still in India like before they've even flown to the US that would help with you know fast-tracking their applications, maybe by starting to network on LinkedIn look at their resume get you know their internal house in order so to speak or or do you think all of that is mostly best suited to be done once they're already in the US I think now that I'm talking in retrospect I feel it can be done from India but I understand like I totally understand when you're working to get that visa to get that loan to get through, you're you're packing you're you're uprooting your life as you said I know it's it's easier said than done but if you have the time I feel you can do that from India you can definitely reach out to so many people and actually get a sense of what the market looks like how

you go about it and uh you can start working on your resume if you if you have that time and if you have the mental clarity from the start it's easier for you so if you are someone who's that proactive because I I know I wasn't because I wasn't aware I wasn't that aware yeah that's a very real problem honestly that is I know majority of the people out there are like me and people like me were so busy with so many other things that was happening at that time that we could not have thought about creating that resume and uh networking before you're here so but if you can do it I mean that's that's great absolutely that you know that it's funny you mention that because a story comes to mind when I first got here we had, from Purdue, it was I obviously um well not obviously but for our listeners I went to Purdue I studied Engineering

Management and our in our first month there we had a um industry industry resume review session essentially where they got in um you know a couple managers from a few different companies on campus to just review and look at resumes and offer you know advice and I'll never forget um going showing up to that event with the resume I had at the time and um suffice to say I don't think I felt more embarrassed ever in my life again it's almost being shown um a mirror that's you know just a really rude reflection of yourself and yeah I'll never forget when the person just kind of just looked at me and he was he honestly felt confused and I don't blame him because yeah my resume wasn't structured properly I did not use any power verbs none of it was you know now knowing the things that I know and the knowing the things that you know now um

yeah it was definitely a huge climb up for me but having said that I do realize that if I had been given access to you know that expertise or just have somebody tell me that yeah this is really not going to cut it you need to do better and here's how you can do better I feel like I would have benefited um immensely from that so I think I yeah I I kind of agree with your point that while it can be hard it is definitely doable or at least it makes sense to start thinking about those things in terms of yeah what changes can I make to my resume who can I connect with what is something that I can do right now that might benefit me you know 6 months or one year down the line so that's awesome so with that do you kind of want to walk us through because I know when we were connecting offline I was very shocked to hear how things spun out

for you post-graduation with your job search and it yeah it sounds like I'm very interested for you to kind of go over yeah just the wild set of events that unfolded for you personally it has been a ride, and I totally agree with your resume comment as well if you see my first resume and the resume that I have right now oh my God the first resume will not make it anywhere yeah it's tough though. Yeah, coming to the second part yeah it has been a while right so I graduated with my master's degree in May 2023 okay so just this past year, yes so the market wasn't great. My internship did not convert into a full-time and uh I was still looking for a full-time job so yeah uh as a student on an F-1 visa we have to apply for an EAD and there has been a change in the EAD process so my EAD also took a really

long time to come so I was not eligible to work until August because I received my EAD, I believe on 20th August so I had those three months to find a job and I was applying to a lot of places. I was not getting the right response I mean first, I think I needed to understand that it's not just about getting your resume shortlisted but also clearing that interview because I I focused so much on building that resume and getting that interview and I had not prepared well enough for the interviews so I was not able to clear those so there was a gap between those two factors but I had a backup plan which I which I feel had a backup plan which I feel everyone should have a backup plan

you everyone should have a backup plan okay I worked as a research analyst with one of the professors at my University Was it directly aligned with what I the kind of role I was looking for it was uh in the business corporate strategy domain so the research work was actually helping me build my profile so that is one of the backup plans that I had and while working as a research analyst I was also looking for jobs actively right then I was able to find a program manager position at Texas A&M University it was a full-time position and uh in October I had that opportunity so is that the same as an RA position or is there a difference between what you were doing before versus this new position that you referenced it was a different position uh the RA was under a professor and this program manager position was a

was under the university under the was under the university yeah it was under the Commercial Banking program offered by business school so and can I ask how you found that was it just via networking or a friend told you or how did you come across that position so uh at Texas A&M you have this internal Workday where you can apply for different jobs and as I was looking for a job as a full-time job at that point I applied through Workday as an internal applicant and I was able to get the interview then I met the person and gave that interview in person so I went and met my manager and I was able to get that job so that's how we went about that, but at the same time when I was applying for this job I got an interview call from Amazon as well

and it was yeah it was early October and Amazon has a very rigorous interview process so they start with an assessment, then an HR interview, then an interview with the hiring manager and then there are like five different interviews a loop interview which is with the team and a Bar Raiser so I applied for a program manager position at Amazon as well so I'm talking about specifically about the position that I applied for which was the PM position at Amazon uh I was I interviewed, and the process took me around a month for Amazon I started interviewing in October uh I was done with all my interviews by the end of October uh then I received a call that

they have filled the position and uh I know they had some yeah but they were really impressed with my interview and they said they would love to consider me for a position that opens up in the future I was more than interested in it and I had actually started working at Texas A&M at this time and then these big companies they uh there was no communication from Amazon for a month so I lost hope I was not expecting that understandably I was not expecting Amazon to reach out again because they said they would and they did not, so there was a one-month ghosting for me so I was like all right and I started applying for other positions as well uh fortunately I was

able to get that job I applied for a project manager position at a company in Houston I was all set to join that company I got that offer I was all set I was mentally prepared to move to Houston work for that company everything so I was planning I planned this New York trip around New Year so I was about to go for this trip and I get this email from Amazon saying that they had a position would you be interested why would I not be like okay why not yeah so they did have an interview for me with the hiring manager which happened in January and I interviewed and I got the job so finally about time it only took what three months three months October to January that's it. I got the job and once I got the

job so they wanted me to move from Texas to Seattle in like a week and I was not even mentally prepared for that because they were looking for someone who can join like immediately and I had not thought about it I was going on a trip I had another job offer I was working at a company at Texas A&M I had to give that notice period and then I blinked, and I was in Seattle right now I mean wow the transition has been crazy wow, that is quite the story that you've had there um and there are pieces of that I want to drill down into the first one really being that it seems to me that there is a decent amount of confusion around so essentially once you're on your EAD um I know there's an unemployment clock essentially in terms of days that starts ticking down and I think it's 90 days if if you're still

unemployed after 90 days it's time for you to you know leave the country so and I also know that there's only certain RA or TA positions that can be used towards stopping that clock so to speak so are there any considerations around that you're aware of because there does seem to be a good amount of confusion around how some RA positions will be enough but some won't be is that true at all or what are just what are some things that one needs to know before going down that route that whether like by the time that you're applying for jobs on the side um how do you stop that you know your unemployment clock essentially I think uh I think a lot of RA positions are uh valid to stop the clock okay at least in your first year on OPT you are eligible to work on a volunteer position after first year you're not you

cannot work on a volunteer position but in the first year you are eligible to work for a volunteer so you're saying on the STEM extension yes on OPT you can on STEM extension you cannot so I feel the confusion over here is because of STEM extension and just the regular first year OPT in the first year I uh according to the research I have done uh 20 hours is considered a full-time anything above 20 hours is is considered full-time and above 20 hours yeah and any RA position with your University if you're getting an offer letter for that and if it's approved by the professor I feel that is a valid position because I went to my international student services department and I had clarified this out with them so anything of 20 hours you must have a valid offer letter your professor should be giving out the

offer letter and if you have the right documentation and I feel that is a valid position to stop the clock Makes sense and it sounds like a general good rule of thumb on this would be to when in doubt just go to your International Students and Scholars that most universities have and it sounds like they are in the best position to guide you towards whether or not that would apply so I think that's super helpful and I think that's a safe rule with your university you can never go wrong with working with your university because I know they have a lot of volunteer positions out there but I feel working with your university is way safer because they are a legit organization. Absolutely, and they are immigration experts there that you know obviously that's

their whole job so that makes sense um next I want to you know delve a little bit into almost the career that you've built for yourself around being a program manager. I'm very curious to learn um how one can transition from an analyst role that you were I guess at first at PwC you were a consultant an associate technically a technology associate, and I know that because I was in the same position but it sounds like from there you went to being an analyst and at some point you were able to make that jump between analyst and program manager and I know there's a lot of people that I've met that I speak with and honestly me personally also I'm not really familiar with really what it takes on a resume but more importantly in your general profile or knowledge

base or skills that you can inculcate to make that jump from analyst to program manager so how did you go about doing that was that something that just kind of fell in place for you or was that something that you were mindfully constructing or building towards I think I would say I was mindfully constructing that uh started with taking the right electives uh yeah so I took a lot of MIS project management business corporate strategy entrepreneurship for one and all these a little more business focused electives is what I decided to take like system analysis and design product design so to have that product sense so all uh human computer interaction where I got to design different uh systems, customer yeah basically understand the customer do customer research and review so I feel it

started with me taking those electives and uh doing projects in those uh for those courses and these projects were what I have put on my resume and is what I talk about in interviews as well so I feel if you want to make that jump, the first step would be to be mindful about the course that you're taking and the electives, basically the path that you are carving out for yourself uh and it's decided by the electives you take then there's a lot of extracurricular activities that you can do at your University I went to a lot of conferences where I met people who were working as product managers or program managers or even as project managers in different industries so by having those conversations you understand what is what conversation you understand what is what

conversation you understand what the expectation then I also went is the expectation then I also went ahead and did a certification I am a CSPO-certified Scrum Product Owner, and I also did a lot of certifications from PMI as well, Project Management Institute interesting and was all of that just via self-study or did you have help or coaching or was it just all in your own free time just by sheer will so to speak so about CSPO uh our professor uh my system analysis and design Professor is the one who motivated us to do the certification if you wanted to go in the project/program management space she was the one that motivated us to do that certification and I was actually interested so I decided why not I went and it's a it's $500 certification but I felt it was worth it

and I therefore I I got certified in that and even when you're learning learning for these certifications you get to network as well absolutely there are a lot of people that are doing the certification you get to talk to them even reach out to people on LinkedIn that already have that certification so you basically build that mindset and you're building your profile as well because you have projects you have certifications you have a network to support you in the transition yeah so on that note um something that comes to mind is I know there's generally at least from the people that I interact with or just from what I've seen but generally two schools of thought around how to go about um academics in your graduate degree so the first school is essentially the people

that are like I'm just here to do the absolute bare minimum not have to worry about tough courses or you know things that will be a huge time thing versus you know the other school is kind of what you laid out where people are very mindful about that's okay if it's hard or it will take a lot of my time but I still want to do that because it has value so it does sound like you're fairly set on the path that you went about because clearly it worked for you are you willing to comment at all on whether the first part is the first path is useless or do you think it might have some merit for some people under some some circumstances I know a lot of people who believe that it's just uh you're doing this course just to get a job okay absolutely it's just the path that people are taking and it's they feel

that it doesn't add value but uh I feel those people feel that because they already have that knowledge I was not someone I just came with two years of experience and I was not I did not have that kind of experience and I wanted to build that uh have that. I wanted to have the expertise in a field and I want to build that so people who feel this is not uh this is just a way, I feel, already have the expertise already and they feel they don't need to build on it and they feel that this is not adding value for them but see I I actually feel people who actually put in effort are people that feel this will add value to them or are the same and have fewer years of experience and then they are building their profile and they're like very intentional. That's what my opinion would be but that makes sense yeah I mean uh I mean

people can you cannot put in the effort and still get a good job and absolutely there's no right way yeah there's no one way totally so I think what really I think what you're saying is that if you do not already have that you know expertise or that well-rounded knowledge about the stream that you're trying to break into does make a lot of sense to go out of your way to get you know enroll in those hard courses put in the grind and get through that because you're saying it will uh you know give you value in one way or the other be it in interviews or maybe later once you get that position you will benefit from it so don't shy away from that if you don't already if you aren't already an expert quote unquote on those which I think absolutely that makes a lot of sense to me so with that um I want to

jump next into you know just really a deep dive on the world of applying for jobs be it within or outside of LinkedIn any strategies around you know cold approaching people be it via cold DMs on LinkedIn or cold emails or basically yeah any because it does sound like you have been doing a great job of managing to get interviews and you know converting them if I'm being honest and what I'm hearing currently is that it's just a time in the US market at least probably the world market if you're being honest where it's just a really bad time it sounds like and people out there are just absolutely struggling to even get interviews let alone you know getting jobs so what are some strategies or things that you did that worked for you and probably we can start with you know within LinkedIn first and then kind

of branch out from there okay yeah I agree the market is really tough right now because I get so many DMs on LinkedIn right now like people even my juniors like they are trying to find a job and the market is really difficult for them and but you just I mean I just want to say this you just have to get that one job. That's it don't worry about what is happening uh true coming back uh I feel what I started doing uh I was not getting a lot of interviews in the initial phase like any person uh I was my approach was very one-directional it was I was it was very narrow I was just applying through LinkedIn and even applying to job postings that has been there for, say, 10 days I still I feel it's not how you go about it they have

uh every in this current market a job posting that has been out there for more than 3 days there is no point in applying to a position like that because they already have like thousands of applications and they will not look at your application from a thousand people that have already applied so it's always in my experience I feel it's always first come, first served so be proactive apply early as soon as you see the position may be set up uh subscribe to the companies that you want to get a job at so whenever there's a new job posting you get an email immediately and you can go ahead and apply so uh and even you can set up uh these email reminders on LinkedIn when there's a new opening, it will send you an email and you can proactively apply there's so many other mailing list as well that you can subscribe to

that send you the positions that have opened for example by Exponent and uh there are a lot of mailing lists out there which you can subscribe to be proactive and apply early got it and you're saying like time is very crucial yes I am saying time is very crucial the application then LinkedIn is not the only platform through which you can apply there is Indeed and then there is just plain Google where you can just go and apply there's Glassdoor there's SmartRecruiters there's so many other platforms where you can go and apply and uh and it's not just about applications you know there's the other thing is you can network and I mean everybody will vouch for the method that they were able to find a job through absolutely but I feel uh when you're in this situation this current market where people are

struggling to get an interview I feel trying everything is the way to go about it do that don't be shy just go ahead and send those cold emails all right find people and send those cold emails even on LinkedIn you can get that premium subscription and send personalized InMails to these people and uh just network a lot because for Amazon as well I had applied to the position the same position without a referral and I did not get a call back but as soon as I got that referral in place that's how I got the interview so getting that referral can be very important and at some places cannot be important as well maybe when you're waiting for that referral the position is already closed so there's no point waiting for a

referral when you can just apply so you have to try multiple different things and listen like just talk to your seniors your friends about the approach that they're taking and if you're not doing something you can try doing that as well got it be ready to experiment and take feedback essentially apply the feedback that you're getting um on that note uh do you have any particular tips for people especially around the networking aspect because personally I've heard a few different approaches so some people swear by the reach out to somebody without asking for something first off yeah there's a different type of person or you know a school of thought essentially that says just be honest like people likely know why you're reaching out and it's okay to just be like hey I'm really struggling um I

would love it if you could refer me so do you have a thought on which might be better for the general person I suppose you know just any person yeah okay so speaking from my experience and also the kind of messages that I like is when people are being straightforward I mean I know why you're reaching out to me right, just ask for it and I mean when you ask for it the other person is is bound to give you something in return right if like closed mouths don't get fed right absolutely so it's I feel uh whenever I was straightforward in my conversation because with ChatGPT and everything people can write hundreds of emails and everyone's inbox is full nobody is reading those big text where you're trying to build a network

just by not asking for it but then later on trying to get that point there right, in a coffee chat or something. I feel being straightforward and upfront about okay hi uh whatever you're looking for be polite about it, but put whatever you're looking for out there because you don't have that kind of time to to play that game I feel this is and I personally now that I get so many InMails and messages right now I feel when people directly send me what they're looking for it's easier for me to okay, you want this I will reply and I will respond to that so that is a personal thing I mean Absolutely. Not everyone reacts to the same message in the same way but yeah I just kind of wanted to

get a sense on you know your thoughts specifically around this so but yeah to um recapitulate it sounds like you're saying that authenticity really is what might you know be the difference between kind of a cookie-cutter, copy-paste template type message that you might send to somebody versus you know more heartfelt a more authentic hey I really have these skills this is what I've done it would mean the world if you could please um you know maybe refer me or point me to the right person or point me to the right position that you know might be suited more for my interests so I think that's a really helpful tip um with that I kind of quickly want to jump into the loop interview experience that you had at Amazon because um again it's something that's almost infamous at this point

like a lot of people know it exists and there seems to be a decent amount of misconceptions around what really goes on with it I've heard some pretty scary um you know anecdotes about it that may or may not be from actually people at Amazon it sounds like there's just stories going around at this point so do you want to give us a you know quick run-through on what that main five-hour continuous loop experience was like for you and I think this applies specifically for the technical program manager positions if I'm not wrong yes I mean the loop interview is like a marathon and you have to so for program manager at Amazon they're very much focused on the leadership principle and uh there is

like multiple resources out there when you want to prepare for a loop but there are like multiple YouTube videos there's so many articles books everything you can find for the loop interview uh I will briefly tell you what it's like so Amazon has these 16 leadership principles and okay in these loop interviews the people are already working with the team and they're trying to find if you are a fit for Amazon if you have those leadership principles embodied in you and if you have worked in a similar direction so every interviewer is given three or four leadership principle that they ask a question on for example customer obsession and it'll be a question asked in the past like what was your experience with doing something like this for your customer so like

behavioral type question yes it is definitely behavioral and um and then they try to drill down on the experience that you're sharing they are looking for something in a very structured format the STAR format because that's what Amazon follows so some a person needs to answer everything in a very structured manner and using a lot of insights and KPIs and metrics because Amazon is a data-driven company yeah and for listeners, STAR is situation, task, action, and result okay there you can you see say that one more time without me yes it is uh STAR is situation, task, action, and result so basically I feel that's how you prepare for other interviews as well because it gives a

lot of structure to your answer and and personally I like to add an L as well at the end which is the learning so that's personal thing I do because uh it makes the answer well-rounded for me because I am in the very early phases of my career so that learning is something that sets me apart from other people so that's I think that's yeah that makes sense. That's my personal thing that it's you can also use it whoever wants to it's cool yeah so uh got it yeah and then uh yeah five hours every interviewer has a set of leadership principles they're going to ask you questions on and basically you cannot repeat any stories between all these interviews so you need to have around 32 unique stories that you should be prepared with and you should be so much you should

know everything about the story like about whatever you're saying who were your stakeholders who were you working with what were some of the challenges that you faced in the project what how if you say for example if you say you improved the tax compliance by 15% something I did at PwC so you should know how you did that how did this 15% come into the picture what went behind it it's not just the number but everything in getting to that number you should know you should have your bases covered for these interviews so yeah and and to prepare for that sorry go ahead yeah, that's it yeah and then you referenced some resources you mentioned that there's a lot out there is there any that you remember that you personally benefited from around that or like maybe a YouTube channel or

somebody's blog or something that just you know comes to mind if at all that you know was especially helpful for you MH uh two things on top of my head is videos by Jeff Su he is a program manager he's a product marketing manager at Google and he creates content okay I feel his videos were amazing on STAR format on structuring your answers how you go about questions and it really benefited me and the second thing that I went through was the course there is this Cracking the Amazon PM Interview by Exponent and it's uh I subscribed to that and paid a little bit for that it's not expensive uh they have a series of uh interviews for every leadership principle from a real Amazonian so that helped me a lot and then a lot of resources were shared by my recruiter at Amazon those

were that I had no idea that was a thing that's so nice that's really cool and wow yeah and then uh coming back to the networking thing I did reach out to a lot of people who were currently working as a program manager at Amazon and I was grateful that everybody like a lot of people like three or four people took mock interviews with me and they guided me yeah they guided me on how to structure my answers and what to expect in an interview so wow um and I know when we were connecting off the record here you I think you mentioned that you've now started getting a lot of requests for mock interviews do you want to talk us through how that whole thing came to be and your reasons for doing that um just for our listeners just like I said um when I reached out to people everybody helped me so it is my pay-it-forward moment and uh because

because because it was a difficult time for me and everybody did help me so I feel obliged to help people that are reaching out to me and that are reaching out to me, and I sometimes take their mock interview and help in the ways they want me to like questions they ask and they the way they reach out to me yeah that's so nice of you and I will admit I had no idea this was a thing at all on LinkedIn and it just blows my mind in a very good way that there's people out there you know that will take time from their lives to to help other people and I think it's just amazing that you know you're paying it forward um one last note on this whole you know little can of worms called job search is that do you have any um resume tips for I guess not just program

manager roles but just resumes in general because I think in your case you were um you were able to structure your entire resume around you know that program manager especially the e-commerce uh type of industry-specific almost so what does somebody that doesn't really have from their past experience that streamlined um you know common unifying theme which in your case it was e-commerce how does somebody like that go about tailoring their resume to you know tell a coherent story um if at all that's something that's possible you know according to you I think it is uh whatever experience you have, it can be written in a way that even if you did something completely different there would be parts of that project that would align you with the field that you want to transition into

because whenever you work at a company you're not just doing one thing there are multiple things that you're doing and you're part of multiple things so find those unique points maybe that was not your main project but that was something you were doing maybe with a different team, maybe a volunteer experience, maybe a project like the piece with PwC where you guided us so there are so many other things that you're doing so you can find multiple things from your experience that will make your resume niche I feel it is very important to have a niche because when you're applying to multiple

things nothing will come through it's better to have uh a niche like at PwC, my client was P&G so it was an e-commerce uh even my internship it was an electrical e-commerce Rexel is an electrical distributor and they had their e-commerce and I was working for the e-commerce team and over here at Amazon I'm working at retail so it's all e-commerce at the end but uh I'm not saying you need to make it industry-specific but you can definitely make it for example if you're like applying for a product management role maybe or a program manager role so look for things that the keywords that are expected in these resumes and you will have a story about it and try to have that in your resume the other thing is making sure your resume is ATS-compliant okay so there are multiple tools where you can upload your resume and put the

position name and according to that they will give you what keywords are missing from your resume what keywords are actually helping you so LinkedIn used to have that feature where you could on LinkedIn Premium, upload your resume and it gives you uh ATS insight so and there are a lot of free tools out there too which you can use and see what are the keywords that are actually benefiting you and if it's not helping, remove that add something new and I mean and so that's very interesting and I personally actually didn't know this was a thing at all granted I haven't been a LinkedIn premium user so that's probably why but so the way it works you're saying is that you can match your resume for a program manager so for any program manager position or does it like is it specific to a certain company or

for a particular posting it's just all broad umbrella over here when you can write a maybe an analyst position so for and analyst position ATS has multiple keywords mhm so and based on that your resume is filtered and uh checked for the keywords if you have those high-ranking keywords some keywords have more weight than others and if you have those keywords it'll show you okay you have these many keywords and it will also like LinkedIn used to give me a lot of suggestions that these are the keywords that are present in a person's resume who's applying for similar positions so you can use those keywords and tailor it to your story so making it more coherent I see I think that's pretty awesome and

I think there's a lot of value in there speaking of value do you happen to be aware of any no-cost or free tools that do a similar thing outside of LinkedIn premium all good if not I just figured you might I am not aware of them but I know because I had a LinkedIn premium subscription so okay and sounds like it I'm sure if you search for it there'll be a free tool maybe it won't be that good but it will serve the purpose I mean I see but I think the takeaway here is that it helps to rely on these systems that are built to get an insight into how your resume is featuring in the ATS side because it does sound like it's almost a black box where you send your resume and then you don't you have no idea what happens once it's there you're just kind of praying for the best to you know hear back so I

think that's really helpful that there are tools that can be used potentially and perhaps I can do some research and add those to the show notes around what some of those uh free tools are if at all they exist but yeah I think that's a great tip on that so I know we've covered a decent amount that sorry I mean that I feel uh like you can take 10 job descriptions put it in a word cloud and and it will give you like 10 different keywords that are present in every job description so one till the time that I did not know about this ATS tool on LinkedIn that's what I did because I was not okay I I took all the important job descriptions like the positions that I was applying to put it in a word cloud you it it

gives you the keywords and you see okay these are the keywords that are there and and that is something you should have on your resume as well so absolutely wow I think yeah as somebody that's worked with word clouds before I for whatever reason it never occurred to me that you could use that so creatively but I think that makes a lot of sense and there's definitely free word cloud tools out there a lot of them yeah that I have personally used so I think yeah those are definitely uh you know free of cost or low-cost tools that people can leverage to um get insight into how the resumes are performing against you know ATS systems so I think that's really the meat of the discussion that I really wanted to cover I do know that uh you recently heard the I would say good news that you know that your

H-1B was picked um truly, yay but I did want to you know I was curious as to how it feels really you know because it sounds like just until 3 months ago you were you know not in an ideal place in terms of perhaps your goals that you had in mind when you uh you know moved to the US for your master's what you were hoping to achieve from a career standpoint and then yeah just three months later it sounds like everything's really turned on its head so how does it feel um how have you been you know internalizing that or dealing with that you mean I have no words for it I am actually really grateful but yeah in November I was not even thinking uh I was not even thinking about H-1B or uh I mean I was trying to get to a better place like I was trying to get in a better place and

all of a sudden I have everything it feels like that it is yeah um when it works out for you so just keep pushing and you will get there that's so true some might even say the um way to do that would be to just you know Ready Set Do that's just a not-subtle plug at all for you know my own podcast in my own podcast so that's I didn't realize I could get any more dork here than that but really the last question I have for you is um what does the future look like have you thought about any near or long-term plans um or, you know are you just more of a rolling stone type of I'll go where the wind takes me marching to the beat of your own drum type person I currently don't because I mean I have just G got

don't because I mean I have just got out of the stressful job-hunting phase so I am just chilling right now I'm trying to settle in with the Seattle weather and I'm looking forward to Seattle summers, basically that's what I'm looking forward to right now so that's my future plan yeah I have heard good things about the summer and yeah hopefully I have heard it's very beautiful so I am looking forward to it and hopefully not as rainy and gloomy and cloudy as it can hopefully. But um yeah I think that brings us to the end of our chat here I once again I'm so grateful that you took out the time to meet with me today and to go over these things that hopefully a lot of people out there will benefit from um did you have any parting remarks

at all um to you know close us out here yeah one thing that when we were discussing it uh yesterday one thing that really stood out to me was that if this podcast helps just one person as well that's good for me so I I believe I feel your idea is really cool and thank you for having me it's been a pleasure and perhaps I can have you again in a few months to go over what life is like you know as an Amazon program manager so yeah really looking forward to that but until then um yeah I I hope you have a great you know start to your new job here in Seattle and at Amazon yeah thank you and all the best with your podcast thank you that brings us to the end of the second episode of the Ready Set Do podcast I decided to upload the full

video and not just the audio on YouTube in response to the widespread feedback that I received I hope this discussion was helpful for you if it was please consider subscribing to my channel I have a lot of conversations planned with a wide variety of guests that have been doing really cool things as an update I will be releasing a new episode every Wednesday that is all I had for now so until next time ready set