Job Search Diaries No.7―Senior PM
Dating while unemployed, building prototypes to sharpen your PM skills during a job search, and scouting temporary income sources.
👋 Hey, it’s 📣 Coach Erika! Welcome back to JOB SEARCH DIARIES, where we shadow someone’s tech job search for an entire week. Ride the highs and lows with these job seekers and get the scoop on fresh tools and tactics for job searching in tech.
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Now, onto the diary!
Today, we have an entrepreneurial senior product manager who is just kicking off his job search. He’s courting Founding PM roles, toying with Gemini APIs and Figma mocks for a product concept, and actively job searching. Oh, and dating while unemployed (an adventure of its own).
About me: I’m an experienced Senior Product Manager with deep experience across SaaS, Cloud solutions, social networks, e-commerce, and marketplaces.
My location: Austin, Texas
Role I'm seeking: Senior Product Manager or Founding Product Manager, ideally working with AI.
Target company stage: Series A, B, or C startups
Target industry(ies): SaaS, Social Media, E-commerce or Marketplace
Passive or active search? Active
When I started my job search: March 2024
What drove my job search: I was laid off 😕
Average time spent weekly on job searching: 12-15 hours
Total applications: 9
HR or recruiter screens: 1
First-round interviews: 0
Final-round interviews: 0
Day 1
6:30 am
I wake up every day at the same time. Groomed, made coffee, and went for a morning walk with my dog. I live right by the Colorado River in downtown Austin. Our walk is very scenic and full of squirrels to chase.
8:30 am
Back home. Feed my dog, shower, and pour another cup of coffee.
9:00 am
For me, mornings are great for tasks that require high mental capacity. Most days, I spend 90 minutes learning something new to benefit my career.
This month, I’m reviewing some AI product management course material I did a few months ago because I would like my next role to be in an AI product role. Today I reviewed the course intro: an intro to AI, ML, and large language models.
10:30 am
I try not to work the brain longer than 90 minutes at a time, so I take a screen break. Played with my dog and took her out. She played with the neighbor's dog for a bit while I stretched in the sun.
11:00 am
Normally, I would start another 90-minute bout of learning, but today I have a board meeting. I am on the board of an organization in the Middle East that provides aid to LGBTQI+ refugees fleeing persecution in Islamic countries. Today, we had a 2-hour board meeting to discuss budget, leadership changes, and other organizational challenges.
1:00 pm
Lunch. I didn't meal prep Sunday, so I had a Trader Joe's frozen Indian meal. Trader Joe's frozen meals are quite decent.
2:00 pm
Officially started my job search. Worked on my resume and added the last job I had. Enumerated my achievements in ChatGPT and asked it to write it for me in a similar tone to other entries in my resume.
2:30 pm
Replied to a recruiter on LinkedIn who reached out to see if I am interested in a data PM position at a beer company🍻
3:00 pm
It is the first day of my job search. The thought of searching for a job in this tough market is daunting, so I procrastinated by cleaning the kitchen and sending WhatsApp messages to friends.
3:30 pm
Browsed some product jobs on LinkedIn to get a feel for what's out there. Saved a few of them on LinkedIn and then added them to my job search tracker in Notion.
4:00 pm
I prefer looking at jobs on Otta.com because they add a lot of insights about the company. It’s also infinitely more searchable than LinkedIn jobs. I found a goal job with Wise (the money transfer company). They are looking to fill a few product roles. Hopefully, I can snag one.
5:00 pm
Ported interesting jobs into my Notion job search tracker and then worked on organizing information within Notion to help me prepare for interviews. My cat keeps sitting on my keyboard or mouse, which means I also have to pet him while I do this.
6:00 pm
My dog harasses me for a walk, so we go to a nearby dog park. She plays, and I catch up with friends. On the way back, she jumped in the river trying to catch a beaver! I didn't know there were beavers in the Colorado in downtown Austin. I saw it, so it must be real**
I had to give her a bath, and then we both got dinner.
** editor’s note: it turns out it wasn’t a beaver. It was a nutria, pictured below. Reasonable mistake.
8:00 pm
Started working on a product idea. Since I am still in the very early stages, I spent a couple of hours planning the work, looking for inspiration, and sketching some design ideas until I felt tired.
10:00 pm
Watched an episode of a British show called Would I Lie To You.
11:00 pm
Read 3-4 pages of a sci-fi novel I started recently called Majority. Fell asleep by 11:20.
Total time job searching today: 2 hours