Episode 21
How To Crack Your First US Internship (& Transition to Product Manager Roles) - w/ Maya
One of the twenty most-watched Ready Set Do episodes on YouTube right now.
First internships are often less about being brilliant and more about not getting spooked by the process. This episode is for the person who keeps thinking the US product manager path is only for some polished, obvious candidate from the start.
Who this is for
- You are trying to get hired without sounding like everybody else in the pile.
- You would rather hear Maya's version while the mess is still fresh than get another polished hindsight sermon.
Key takeaways
- Crack Your First US Internship (& Transition to Product Manager Roles) - w/ Maya
- This episode is about cracking your first US internship as an international student and then using that experience to...
- Maya says she prepared herself for the worst before joining Purdue in August 2023. In her mind, the internship hunt was...
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Transcript-backed moments
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This episode is about cracking your first US internship as an international student and then using that experience to move toward product, program, or project management roles. Naman introduces Maya Mishra, a master's student at Purdue University in Engineering Management who secured internship offers or callbacks from companies including Amazon, Tesla, Walmart, HP, ABB, and Unilever. The point of the conversation is not generic motivation. It is the actual timeline, resume strategy, application volume, interview prep, negotiation, and internship behavior that helped Maya move quickly after arriving in the United States.
Naman starts by asking what Maya expected the internship hunt to feel like before she left India, and how those expectations compared with reality after she actually arrived in the US. He frames the episode around the gap between what international students imagine and what the first semester really demands.
Maya says she prepared herself for the worst before joining Purdue in August 2023. In her mind, the internship hunt was going to be a horrible, mad rat race, ten times worse than what she had already experienced in India. That mental preparation helped her build stamina. The minute you land in the United States and start your first semester, she says, it hits you like a bullet train. There is not just school. There is banking, insurance, medical paperwork, housing, groceries, and the reality of moving countries completely on your own.
Maya gave herself roughly one week after arrival before she started applying. She spent that week sorting out immediate logistics and deciding what new information belonged on her resume. Then she got into the game. She had done a lot of groundwork before arriving in the US, so the first week was not a vacation; it was the final setup before the application sprint.
Naman asks what students can do before arriving in the United States. The obvious low-hanging fruit is the resume, but he wants Maya to explain the preemptive work beyond simply having a master's application resume ready.
Show notes
First internships are often less about being brilliant and more about not getting spooked by the process. This episode is for the person who keeps thinking the US product manager path is only for some polished, obvious candidate from the start. It is not, and this conversation makes that pretty hard to pretend.
More in Get Hired
Same mess. Different guest. Pick the next conversation that feels closest to your real life.