Plan

My plan for practicing cases is as follows

2 Cases per day - One as interviewer and one as interviewee

My plan for off campus recruiting is as follows

1. Conduct 25 informationals a week - 5 per day
2. Submit 500 quality applications a week - 50 per day
3. Send 250 emails a week - 50 per day
4. Spend 2 hours on preparing - 1 hour reading and 1 hour preparing for questions

August

So here's my progress for the month of August. I only met 6% of my target for emails and 12% of my target for informationals. My conversion rate is 20%. That is, if I email 100 people at least 20 people give me time for informationals. This is a good improvement over last month, where I only had a 10% conversion rate.

I didn't meet my target because I was busy preparing for interviews. I had a total of 7 interviews so far. I didn't hear back in 4 and waiting for the remaining 3. I learnt a lot from these interviews, especially the ones that I bombed. It was with companies I didn't care much about, so it's all good. Nevertheless, I did feel a bit down after doing poorly in them. Anyway, they have given me a good kick in the butt to prepare harder. I'm now strengthening my PM skills, behavioral answers and my business fundamentals. As far as the books I'm reading, I'm re-reading Cracking the PM interview and Case in Point. When I go on my walks, I think through answers to behavioral questions.

For thinking on the spot, I'm practicing casing with people online. I'm also going to enroll in a course called Fast Math to improve my public math skills.

On the personal front, I decided to stop drinking alone. I had my very last bottle of wine this weekend and don't plan to drink alone again, ever. Maybe an occasional glass socially, but never alone. I used to exercise before, I think I went to the gym for 30 mins everyday and walked for about 5K steps a day. Now I'm doing yoga for 30 mins a day (the stretching helps with relieving stress) and walk 5K steps a day. I live in a very nice apartment complex with a breathtaking view, so it's been awesome. I didn't realize I would enjoy being unemployed so much. Yay for summer!

July

I can't believe its been a year since I wrote this. I got hired back at my old company since I last wrote and got let go at the end of this June. Well technically, my last day will be at the end of August, since they have put the people who were let go on a leave of absence, so I will have 1 year of PM experience on paper. In all it has been an experience with good exposure to Marketing, Finance, Product roles and also to Senior Management especially the C-Suite.  I can't complain about being let go because the company has given severance for 10 weeks and they have given 2 months of leave of absence.  I have no hard feelings and look forward to the future.

So since the past 1 month I have been recruiting or trying to recruit. One of my colleagues who was let go had an idea for a startup which he looped me into and I have been working a bit for that. The first two weeks since I was let go, I worked a lot for the market research and have written stuff in a document format. So I didn't do much in terms of recruiting.

Since the last two weeks I have been reaching out to people and having conversations. Not as many as I would have liked to, since I've been reaching out to less than 50 per day, but now I am seeing some traction. Here's my status so far. As you can see, I've only met 8% of my target in both emails and informationals, with a 10% conversion rate. Of every 100 people I email, 10 people give time to speak. Will start working towards achieving the target from today.

Retail companies to target

1. Amazon
2. CVS Health
3. Walgreens
4. The Home Depot
5. Wayfair
6. RetailMeNot
7. Lowe's
8. Kohl's
9. JC Penney
10. Shoprunner
11. Shopify
12. Overstock
13. Macy's
14. Chewy.com
15. Tate and Lyle

Day 7 - Aug 7

It feels strange to not work. I think my time management skills are not good these days. I somehow waste a lot of time because I have so much of it. One thing I waste time on is the phone. I easily waste 5-6 hours per day I reached out to an alum in my dream company and his suggestion was to prepare behavioral questions thoroughly and then send him one or two roles so that he can refer me.

Meanwhile I had enrolled for the CFA for this December as well and have to focus on that too. There are 60 chapters to study from. 

Day 1 - Aug 1

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I found a PM role, and now I am on a break because I have to switch to another visa category and will be rehired at the company again. I'll try for both consulting and Product Manager roles since I enjoy my current role. I hope this time I'll be able to get interviews and crack them, since I have a bit of experience under my belt. 

Day 20 - Nov 20

Statistics for week 3 ending Nov 18th 

1. Informationals - 0
2. Applications - 3
3. Emails sent - 1
1. Alums - 1
2. Recruiters - 0
4. Questions - 0

As you can see here, my recruiting has come down the lower levels. I am not even sure how to find another job now. Over all these weekends, I had been going to buy stuff for the house or for winter wear.  I think I am finally done buying stuff. I went to a mall yesterday. It was full of people doing holiday shopping. I stepped into a H&M store and there was a long line of people waiting to try out clothes. I did see some that I liked but I was getting late and returned back.

I have to email people and start networking. I am casing on the weekdays and I did 3 cases last week.  I need to do more and also network more with people.