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Invoice microsoft for Product Management

for you and your experience how is this community product pods how has this helped you become a product manager and pm as a role is a very entrepreneurial role so product births was kind of like an entrepreneurial journey where we kind of got to learn about team management we got to learn about how do we increase our users how do we increase engagement or what do we do how do we find user problems and solve those problems and a lot of these actually apply to product management because when you're product manager you are nothing but entrepreneur for your product like obviously you're gonna work with bunch of people but at the end of the day you are called product manager because you own the ownership of that product [Music] hello everyone and welcome my name is diego cranatos and i'm a product manager and today i have a very special guest with us i have with me darsh tucker who is a product manager at microsoft and co-director at productbots an online community for aspiring pms darsh is a pleasure to have you here how's everything going well everything is going great i've been six months into my job and i'm soon moving to seattle so i'm excited about that bittersweet i've been atlanta for three years so gonna miss atlanta a lot but overall everything's pretty good that's awesome to hear and don't worry we'll give you a very warm welcome here in seattle uh so we can't wait to have you around but before we get started into talking a little bit about microsoft and product management why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself so the first and foremost thing that everybody needs to know is i'm diego's mentee so that's the major highlight about myself i'm just kidding but as you guys know my name is darsh i am basically from india i was born there brought up there from a state called gujarat and i did my kind of undergrad there in computer science and a minor in business entrepreneurship after i was done with my undergrad i was kind of like confused about that do i want to make a career in software engineering or what do i want to do and those i started looking for a few grad school programs in the united states and i came across something called sci human computer interaction at georgia tech and i applied for the program there's a huge story about it but to keep it short basically i got in and came here at georgia tech and when i started imposter syndrome had hit me really hard but eventually things got better um i've worked several other places and completed a degree in hci after that through product birds and like several other initiatives now i'm a pm at microsoft and i would say like one of the hobbies that i absolutely love is meeting new people and talking to them that's awesome that's an awesome story and and absolutely in fact i think networking is one of the most important things for anybody whether it's you know product management or any career just meeting people networking is super important and and you briefly mention it right through product bots but why did you decide to get into product management and how do you eventually manage to break into p.m you studied hci you mentioned you work uh you know in a few places but how do you break into pm and why did you decide to go for it in the first place got it um so there's a small story to it actually so when i was doing my undergrad or even grad school actually i had no idea what product management is um i had heard the term here and there but it was like a very opaque and not really something i ever got into it so what happened was i came to united states in august 2018 fall 2018 and started my degree in hci and as i just mentioned imposter syndrome really hit me hard because i was in a grad school program which was super specialized at cai slash user experience and everybody around me were super experienced or at least they knew why they went into hci and my reasoning to go in hci was just i thought it was cool a lot of other people knew that hey like i worked as a developer for three years now i want to get into ux hey i'm a school teacher but i want to get into tech and ux is the way hey i'm a designer but i want to do ux design that's why i'm here in hci so when i came to georgia tech my first encounter itself was very shaky for me that okay probably like i should have thought about this more but i was like okay we'll see how it goes as things started um i was very kind of i kept telling myself that probably i made the wrong choice and i should start going back to the software engineering route and try applying to like sd internships and that's i actually did it but soon i realized that hey this is not what i would do like i can do it i can push myself to do lead code but it's probably not so long story short i ended up finding a user experience engineering internship at ups in their emerging tech division for summer 2019 and this place was doing a lot of drone delivery stuff robotic table delivery visualization dashboard hololens so it was a lot of interesting stuff and i was like okay that's cool and uh fortunately my manager gave me a lot of ownership of my project from start to finish that hey you define what the scope is this is what we are trying to do and you basically decide how should we go about it and i love that piece of work at that time i didn't realize what it's called or what am i doing but talking to different stakeholders that hey like what are we trying to achieve setting up goals creating a timeline creating a plan that what are we going to do and basically start to finish carry it out when i finish that internship um i told a friend of mine in georgia tech that hey like i really like that part of internship but i don't know if i want to do ux engineering because now i've started like in ux design to ux research too and i also like the this ownership aspect so as the luck turns out that friend was a former pm in microsoft in the hollow landscape she had worked in microsoft for three years before she joined the georgia tech sei program and she told me have you heard about product management and i'm like yeah i've heard a bit but like isn't that something you need like 15 years of experience and like you are a people manager i have no idea about it and she's like no that's not it it's a very big misconception and you should look into it so i started googling like hey what is product management and i got to know that okay it is kind of you have a bit of design research you are basically carrying the product forward and product management is not equal to people manager so the next fall for 2019 i started attending career fairs with an onset that hey i want to interview for pem rolls fortunately um i got my first kind of pm interview through walmart walmart came to georgia tech and they were hiring for an associate product manager role so uh it started like when i talked to the recruiter about it she asked me a few questions and she was like hey like are you interested in this and i was like yeah that sounds interesting so i did two kind of introductory rounds they were not very difficult it was more about like what my past experience was if i had to prioritize something how would i do that so until this point i thought like hey this is like very behavioral what am i even doing so when i went into the final rounds i remember that the company had come to georgia tech for like two days and they're entering bunch of candidates and for each candidate final rounds were basically four hours because there are four rounds divided one hour each and i was like dude what am i gonna do for four hours so they said like hey like one round is product sense one round is estimation one round is uh your past experience and so on so i was like okay let's see how it goes i did not get the offer like the walmart apm offer i did not get but what i got that day was something far greater than the offer that day i realized that i want to do product management and that's the career that i've been looking for which i was not sure about at all like as i said earlier i was super confused whether i want to do this or that when i gave those interviews my brain just started firing up that hey i'm using research from somewhere i'm doing design from somewhere i'm using my tech concept somewhere i'm using my leadership past leadership example some and it all started fitting together perfectly well and i think that was my first encounter with product management and that's where i knew that product management is what i want to do because i also have a lot of fomo that i've studied tech in undergrad i've studied at cnn grad school i've studied design i've done ux engineering internship i've led clubs but like nothing that combines all of them together and this was the first and the only thing that i found that combined everything and basically made me feel that i enjoyed myself that's one part now how did i break into broke into pm is like after that that's a long story i don't want to go in all the details but to kind of tldr of that version is like after that it was a lot of hard work basically every month i got to know something new about product management and what it meant and what i did was i tried to leverage my internship at ups i approached them like my last semester of grad school i had like credits left or like i had done my credits but like i still had to take something and georgia tech allowed you to do an internship for nine credits so i reached out to them hey like i would love to kind of still work with you guys i had a lot of fun but i want to do a more pm centric internship because that's something i i want to go into they were very open about it and basically gave me flexibility to define my role so my goal was to get some pm experience because i didn't do any pm internship or can claim that hey i can work as a pm so i got a pm intern experience there and then covert head so i was still interviewing for bm roles but because of covet it had become super scarce and i wasn't aware of like pm recruiting timelines at that time so ups i i got my offer converted from a pm intern to an associate product manager and then there were other interviewing i don't know if you'd want me to go into detail of that because diego is the one who knows my entire story and has helped me out and it's a great story no no but thank you for sharing that because i think you covered a lot of very important points and let me let me rescue one that that i think it's incredibly important for everybody to understand that product manager does not mean people manager right it's in this whole journey as a pm you're not managing people you're influencing them and there's a lot of nuances in between but it's not the same to be a product manager than a people manager and and we'll get into some details into breaking into pm and some advice for any aspiring pm watching this video but before we get we get into those those pieces from all of these learnings everything like you said you learn something new every month uh you learn a few things at ups from your interview in walmart now you're at microsoft and and you know tell us a little bit about why microsoft and how do all of these learnings apply meaning you learn things about product manager is it what you're really doing on your date today and and uh yeah tell us a little bit a little bit about that experience go ahead so uh i'll answer your first question which is why microsoft so basically as i said like um i'm from like gujarat which is in india i'm from a city called and my grandfather actually has a consumer electronics business that my dad and my uncle handles now and when i was a small kid so like about 2000 or something my grandfather had retired from the business but he was one of the first people in our city who somehow had this vision for tech and that's why he sort of started consumer electronics business because he believed tech is the future i guess his bet worked out pretty well because right now we see tech in all aspects of our life but basically when i was younger we had this computer um in our place which my grandfather used to like work on it every day even though he was retired he used to do some of the other stuff on that so while growing up i had a lot of interaction with him and him teaching me about computers and i remember that time we had like windows 95 version so my first encounter with any technology was microsoft like eventually when i became like 10 12 years old like any other kid like i used to use computer mainly for games and a lot of times i couldn't figure out why a game wasn't working then i would search on youtube that oh like what does this error mean and then try to figure it out and i would say microsoft kind of influenced my childhood because of that windows operating system and obviously yeah using products like board powerpoint and even i owned an xbox when i was in seventh grade so those things really gained my respect for microsoft as a company so that is reason one so microsoft was always in the back of my head reason two is i think we are living in a in kind of in technical ecosystem like everywhere you see around you you use technical products or you kind of have some application of it maybe google uber lyft and lately in last five to six years there have been a lot of concerns about ethics and how people treat technology and how people use technology to build things and somewhere there are blurred lines of ethics somewhere there are not i think in my experience obviously there are more companies out of there but out of the companies that i interact a lot with microsoft is one of those companies where i see clear lines of ethics like when i think about microsoft when i talk to people from microsoft or even like when i was interviewing it was very visible to me that the company has a goal like microsoft added score is a productivity company and that's why people should on them a lot that oh like you can't do consumer which what microsoft is trying to do right now but at the very end because their productivity company their ethics are super clear and for me i try to also sense like company as a hold which direction it is going and i strongly believe a lot in the leadership principles that satya nadella has and even like my team leadership so for me it also depended a lot on which team do i work in microsoft and if that work relates to what kind of i want to work in because i did a masters in ux or hci so i wanted to work more in consumer space so that is why microsoft i would say right what are you working on do you mention different teams uh but what what team are you on what are you working on uh and i know that the answer is well my day-to-day it depends but tell us a little bit about you know what's your work at microsoft as of right now i work on microsoft teams lee i work on something called as a consumer version of microsoft teams which uh g8 general availability this may so like about a month back so that is basically a version of teams where we allow users to use teams for their families for their friends for their uh soccer league groups for their poker night groups things like that the aim is that we want to allow people to collaborate and do things together more easily i wanted to move a little bit away from microsoft and start getting into how can people transition into pm and my quiet my first question to you about that is what can more specifically students at school or outside what can they do to make this transition into say for example an associate pm role we know many companies as an example microsoft don't have the title associate but there is the title pm1 or pm entry level every company calls it different but how can students make the transition into product management go ahead so my answer to this it has kind of different layers to it and maybe some thing applies to somebody and something does not so take it with a grain of salt i would say you first need to kind of understand what pm is because not every role is right for you like for example for me software engineering wasn't right for me but if i just went with the flow probably i would be working there right now and never discovered pm so i would say number one is understanding the landscape that you are kind of dealing with and the best way to do about is talk to pms or talk to somebody who knows of the pm if you're a student talk to your career center in your university they would know about what product management is try to understand if not exactly at least a good idea of what you are dealing with here it's like if you're going to a soccer game and you have no idea which teams are playing then like you reach there and you're like oh i don't really even know who are these people so try to understand what you are getting into first of all then try to decide like do you like them because in my case when i interviewed that's when i actually got to know i like pm like i knew what pm was before that but because i never interviewed i had no idea how interviews are or what pms exactly do so try to get some kind of idea from people what do pms exactly do in terms of transition there are number one and most important is create experiences list down the experiences you have you might have a tech experience you might have a marketing experience you might have a leadership experience list those down sit down and list those down don't do it in your mind because when you do it in your mind you are like oh yeah yeah you lost it but if you actually yes if you actually put down to the paper i i like to do it uh handwritten but if you like digital you can do that but that will exactly list out your skills then try to find out what are the skills required to become a pm so let's say a few skills are like understanding of text nuances not exactly coding but you should be able to talk about tech understanding ux design maybe ux research maybe leadership may be influencing others what are the skills that a pm generally has or people expect then try to find out which are the experiences you are missing and bridge them out let's say you do not have a tech experience you do not have a leadership experience but you have a design and a research experience try to find a bunch of friends let's say like hey let's do a project together and give them ideas maybe if you don't want to do like development get few engineers work with them you lead the team make a technical project so basically you get the tech experience in that hey even though i don't code i led a technical team so i know how to talk to them work with them and because i led i also got leadership experience add it to your portfolio github linkedin whatever bridge those experiences because when you actually get the role and you don't have experiences nobody is going to hire you especially if you're a new grad pm or trying to become one people are not looking that hey like let me hire a pm from school they're looking for let me look for a potential person who can become a pm what does a potential person have skills that a pm might have so you should have those experiences once you have those experiences or while you're having that network i can't stress enough like both p i have been a pm intern i've been an apm and i've been a product manager at microsoft all three of them were through networking networking is the best parts there are networking experts out there so i'm not gonna blabber about the tips try to find people who you can maybe follow on social media uh people like diego watch his videos try to understand like who these people are how did they go about it because one thing you need to understand is the ratio of pm to let's say a software engineer is one to ten if a company is hiring 100 pms or 200 sorry 100 software engineers they would probably hire like 10 pms at max 10 to 15 because it's pm run the show but at the execution level you need more people to execute so that's why like most companies and most team actually when they have a pm rule open they'll ask the team members do you know anybody who we can get for this role and if you network with that person that person would support you there are other nuances to networking but i think diego is more expert so i'm not going to go in that one thing just i would like to add is for networking try to create genuine connections don't create transaction like my connection with diego started as just like a chat and it's super genuine it wasn't like hey diego can you refer me to microsoft and like i want a job there don't start like that and it's just like and the way i kind of tell it to my mentees is think about it as you're asking somebody out for a date if you go and tell them hey let's go on a date they are not going to be like who are you like if you just sit on the table and start talking to them instead if you go and like broach a conversation that hey like i see that both of us are interested in soccer like let's talk about it try to get to know the person there are a lot of other nuances joint product bits for that but i guess like that might do for the video yeah no that that's an amazing tip uh let me uh i'm gonna i'm gonna share the links to product box but community in this in the description below so you can go and check them out and join them um i'm going to share a few articles of networking and i'm going to give you an extra tip if you don't know for example you want to reach out to darsh or anybody that i've interviewed before in my channel watch the interview find them on linkedin and say hey darsh i saw your video this is what i learned i love to learn more from you about product management and i'm sure that everybody that i've interviewed before will be open to you know at least have a coffee chat a few words because you are trying to make a genuine connection versus a hey darsh i want to connect or hey can you refer me exactly so and every time you talk to a new person you're going to learn something new yes trust me like even till day any pm i talk to i learn something new it might be a recruiting tip it might be something about pm it might be just a random fact but you learn things and pm is a very heavy give back community product managers want to give back to other aspiring teams because they have also been through the face so they know that there is a struggle but the struggle is worth it absolutely and so we have talked about how you don't need to be a technical person right you can work with engineers you have to understand technology but you don't need to know how to go we talked about networking we have talked about building site projects and and for example for me a site project is this channel and the content that i'm creating for you as a side project is product bots right and building communities um and a lot of people out there are also trying to build their own communities or or i'm not going to say finding them because finding you can join different things but building creating something for you and your experience how has this community product bots how has this helped you become a product manager or or or being a better product manager for anybody out there trying to figure out if uh creating a community is a good site project how has this helped you in your career go order so i in this one i would actually answer the latter part before because that's some thing that people ask me a lot i would say try to find your passion somewhere and see if that relates to a community in my case i've been through the struggle that i had no clue what pm was if my friend didn't exist or she was not in my class i probably wouldn't be here right now it was maybe luck chance whatever you call it so i've been through that struggle and i know how ambiguous that process was and i wanted to make that easier which is what led to product buds so i would say don't create a community with an onset that hey like oh this would be a good bullet point on my resume no and people see through it recruiters see through it interviews see through it it's not that hard it's very obvious when you talk to them about it so find what you're passionate about maybe let's say you're passionate about adventure sports create a community for that like there's no harm in that said that how it has helped me product with specifically i would say the number one value that i've got from product bits is not on resumes not for individuals nothing like materialistic it's the people i've met and this is the same value that i've got from my grad program as well georgia tech like that's why i have so much heavy emphasis on networking because the people you meet the people you surround yourself to with that matters a lot it may not be obvious in the moment but it gets more and more obvious as you do it more so let's say diego uh probably not exactly through product but i have met him through other community like my product with steam i've met all of them through product and each of them have something to kind of teach and just people you meet you get different perspectives and pm exactly is kind of a lonely recruiting route because not all your friends will do it maybe they're in today of something else and because there are less pm roles less people recruit for it so when you have a support group like that through product buds it helps a lot and that was the main value that i got through it so i wouldn't say managing product bits was the main value being part of it was mean value while i did my recruiting the second thing which is kind of running part of it and getting that experience it allows you to experiment right like product birds is not like a life-and-death situation it's not a hospital like if we do make a mess it's gonna cost somebody's life it's low risk so it allows me and my team members to experiment a lot and learn from our mistakes and whenever you are in a role like pm experience matters a lot like obviously you can go and do four degrees but four degrees in a span of eight years or work for four years on a side project you are going to learn a lot more as in those four years and pm as a role is a very entrepreneurial role so product births was kind of like an entrepreneurial journey where we kind of got to learn about team management we got to learn about how do we increase our users how do we increase engagement or what do we do how do we find user problems and solve those problems and a lot of these actually apply to product management because when you're product manager you are nothing but entrepreneur for your product like obviously you're gonna work with bunch of people but at the end of the day you are called product manager because you own the ownership of that product if it performs well you gotta have guts to give credit to your team if it doesn't perform well you gotta have guts to take the ownership on yourself that you made a mistake and product bits became kind of a practice ground for us and i'm very thankful that we didn't made any mess but it definitely helped us a lot to realize and that gives you talking points that talks about your experience in your interviews yeah that makes a lot of sense and i think we've talked before in this channel about how you're right it's not just a resume it's about networking it's also about building products having these side projects and it's super important and even if your thing is building a community you're absolutely right you have to be authentic about it it's not just building a community for the sake of building it because even if you put it in your restaurant even if you get the interview it's very likely they're gonna see through that you're not really passionate about it and you're really not learning about it because you're not being intentional about it so all awesome tips so thank you so much for sharing these things now i have another question for you do you feel as a young professional pm is it the right role for you does it give you does this job gives you the sense of satisfaction excitement and a stream of passion you briefly talked earlier about well pm is not for everyone but what's your take in this garden um i feel this is a question that most people do not ask and this is something that a lot of people miss and i think the reason for that is the tech rule is very lucrative i can say from my experience to pm or even uh through product buds and even my own journey people start to think about product management for wrong reasons number one is the lucrative pay benefits whatever you say the tech thing which is for all tech roles so that's not product management specific another misconception people have is oh product management i don't really have to code i don't really have to design i don't really have to do research i don't really have to marketing i just need to talk to people that's not difficult like coding i have to do lead code it's so difficult design i have to make prototypes that's so difficult i have to create a portfolio that's so difficult and product management is something oh i don't need portfolio i don't need to code let's do it that sounds like super cool that like sounds like i'm the hero of the movie and that is wrong people need to talk about this more those shouldn't be the reasons why you are into pm and it's completely absolutely all right if product management is not your thing don't try to get into something for wrong reasons try to get into something if it ticks with you because there's a very famous song which became really famous lately i don't know if you've heard about diego it's called vacation and i don't remember the artist maybe it's some some band called dirty hats but that song has a lyric that every day for me is a vacation because i love my occupation aim for that if you love what you do you are going to perform better in it and you are you'll be able to achieve more you'll be able to achieve success and you'll be satisfied more for me as i said like when the walmart interview happened i realized that this is the satisfaction that i was seeking which i thought i would never find because when that hits no matter what the role is you will be ready to grind even if it takes three years for you to grind you will like for me i figured that out in september 2019 where i interviewed for mobile part it took me december sorry january 2021 to start as a pm so it's like one and a half years but i was able to grind that much because i got that satisfaction from that interview or from that role so i would say that is one of the most important things that you need to figure out what's best for you maybe product management does give you satisfaction and i would try to think of it in a way if you're somebody who's okay not being i see which is like individual contributor to something so you are okay not being a creator in one sense like because if you're a coder you are making the code if you're a designer you are creating the designer if your pm trust me you are not creating anything you can suggest not even advice you can suggest you can do gentle nudges you can say that oh i think we should do this but then you have to have justifications you have to have data facts to prove that so if you're okay doing something like this and you like doing something like this then it might make sense if you like pushing toward because that is something i always tell people that if you want tldr of what a product manager does it's probably getting things done like just pushing things forward which doesn't sound cool at all but if you like it you like it if it satisfies you it satisfies and the last thing as i said like if you have a fomo that oh i might miss out on the design part of the product i might miss out on the research part i might miss out the development part all these different life cycles a different part of life cycle have particular reasons and if you want to be involved in each of them which in my case i wanted to be which is why i'm satisfied because i feel like i have a sane product in all stages and i liked all these fields i've worked in all these fields that brought me the satisfaction for some people you might just like the design part you don't want to deal with coding part you don't want to deal with research part you want to deal with a consumer facing only product you want to deal with internal so there are a lot of nuances and that's why the company and the team you interview with matters a lot that makes a lot of sense and um you're right when you were interviewing with a company you're they're not just evaluating you you are also evaluating them and and i want to i want to emphasize something which is product management is not for everyone and that's very okay if it's not for you if you after doing your research discover that pm is not for you that's very okay you're gonna find something that you're really passionate about and that you enjoy but don't go into product management or any role for the wrong reasons so thank you for sharing all those really valuable inside styles in in in is pm something for for anyone i have two more questions for you one is you gave a lot of great advice but if you think about yourself a few years ago when you started to doing your research about pm and trying to break into pm knowing what you know today what would you advise yourself you know x years ago when you were starting what is that thing that you would have loved to hear when you were starting to research and break into pm oh man this is a question that i ask a lot of people especially when i used to network because i was trying to get all these tips so i would go to them and ask that hey like what would you tell yourself before you break into pm and now i am being asked that so it feels very weird about it that is called karma yeah i i remember i've asked this to diego too but um if i have to answer this um there is not one true answer like what i say now might change in a year might change in two years because as i said you gain experience you know more stuff number one thing um from pure recruiting perspective i'm guessing you are asking right one thing what i would do is related to networking so as we already talked make genuine connections but also make those connections before the rolls are open because that's something people miss out on people are like oh lift apm and this happened to me last year when i was recruiting uh lyft apm session there was a lyft apm session and they were going to bring bunch of apms and ask them to talk about their apm role and the day before that session i went on linkedin and tried to send a connection request with all these apms and i didn't even knew who was going to be in session and my odds turn out i sent a request to like six or seven of them nobody had accepted till now because i did it just a day before that session all seven of them were in that session and that session had 400 people even if you take like a 50 chance out of those 400 people 200 people would have sent them connection requests till date none of those seven have accepted my request and that's the lesson on that i learned that create genuine connections before you need anything from them because that's when it's genuine right like my intention there if you observed was not genuine my intention was like oh like lift apm roll is going to open up let me connect with few lift apms which might work for some people and it might work for you as well but in the long run ask yourself like do you really want to just be get to that stage through that or do you want to create genuine connections that let's say i'm in california i can call a lift apm and say hey man like we've never talked like let's meet in person let's go out for a coffee would you want that or would you just want a random referral where they're not even going to talk much about it because they don't even know it so that would be the first thing i would tell my younger version in 2018 if i could go number is be proactive lot of times we have ideas in our head and the perfect example for this is gymming so like i never used to work out a lot and i always used to think oh like whenever i decide i want to start working out i'm going to work out straight and i'm gonna do this that whatever it remained an idea in my head for almost like four or five years so start doing things and one of the good ways to do it put things down on paper stick it on a wall stick it somewhere where you always see it because that will keep reminding you you have to do this you have to do this you have to do this start being proactive if you want to get somewhere start reaching out to people reach out to 50 people in a day reach out to 40 reach out to 30 start doing those mock interviews just start doing something like you might fail miserably like first two three weeks doing that struggle that but once you create a habit you will keep going and starting something early is much more beneficial than starting something at like when thousands of other people are doing that would be second so first one is network genuinely second is be proactive third one which i feel is kind of specific to pm is do your mock interviews before you get the interview and this is something that i learned from diego and few of my other mentors because the walmart interview that i mentioned i failed miserably i wouldn't say failed miserably but i failed the interview because i didn't do mock interviews and i was reading uh decode and conquer a day before that pm is a habit pm is a mindset it's not an algebra equation or it's not something that you are just going to mock up and go like it's like some people do this with lead code when they have coding interviews that they remember problems and then try to remember the answers to those problems in the interview most of the times you won't pass because coding is a habit and similarly pming is a habit if i do a pm interview now and if i do a pm interview two years back there will be like tremendous difference because now i have developed that pm mindset obviously not very skilled but like in some sense that i can answer think about a pm initially when i was doing interview my goal was how do i impress this person how do i like make sure that i go into the next round of interview how do i get the offer again they were all wrong reasons so my third tip would be like do mock interviews before in advance because it's a habit and you have to train your muscle and last which is like the fourth thing and which i've already covered several times don't do things for the wrong reasons just as i said mock interview don't try to impress the person try to in a way think that oh i'm solving a problem with them like how i would solve a problem myself i'm just solving this problem with them the only thing changes well from a pm and problem solver is in pm you use technical concepts or you might use technical nuances and you use technology to solve a problem but pmx is nothing more than problem solving so do stuff for the right reasons not for the wrong reasons i absolutely love all the tips i'm going to add one thing to number two which is about networking never ever ever ever send a request to connect without a message always personalize the messages if you're going to connect with darsh after watching this video don't just send the connection send him a connection with a message that talks about something about product bots something that you learn about you know him or pm in this video personalize the connection that's the way to start that path into doing a genuine connection so darsh thank you so much for sharing those tips it was amazing yeah i have actually one thing to add to the last girlfriend which might motivate people more to do this so i decided somewhere down the line last year and i still follow it if i get any connection request that has even one personalized and white line that hey there's like my name is this would love to connect you even that simple without thinking i would accept it if it has nothing and if it has no invite and even if it's like director of pm i'm not accepting it and the reason i did that is like often people try to connect on linkedin for wrong reasons i'm not saying director of pm might obviously somebody i know in person or somebody that i've worked with before they send me without invite that's okay you won't trust me my first line on my buy on linkedin is if you do not know me personally please send a personalized invite in the connection request that's my first line and still weeks and weeks i have like 3 000 pending requests right now out of which i'm pretty sure more than like 2500 haven't even read that so do your research and be more qualitative when you want to connect with people professionally that would just be like one time super super important uh this was awesome my last question for you for today is where can people connect with you besides linkedin if you have other social networks um or or how can they learn more about product bots essentially how do people connect with you if they want to learn more from you go at it i would answer that before i do answer that there is one hack here which i hope helps people linkedin dms are always flooded for any professional person a maybe me maybe diego may be xyz and there are reasons for it sometimes it's not but if you're when you start working like you might give more time to linkedin and it just floods up i don't think it's anybody's personal vendetta or personal fault try to think creatively one tip that i got from one of the coffee chat which is why i say every coffee chat you learn something new is from one of the apms i think she was in salesforce and she told me connect to people on twitter message them on twitter if they are on twitter people have very less engagement on their twitter accounts compared to linkedin instagram whatever so if you just send them a polite gentle message on twitter the odds are they would reply to you there like if somebody messaged me on twitter i would reply to them much higher chance compared to linkedin because on linkedin like when i open it's just like oh i would love to get a referral for microsoft and i don't even know the person on twitter i would be like okay this person made the effort to find me on twitter and like twitter i don't really use that much i don't think that they took the extra time to to exactly to know you in a different way exactly so that's the tip um in terms of how you can reach me out the most accessible for me is the product with slack i replied to i tried to check it almost daily or at least two to three times a week so i try to reply to people there um another way linkedin exists but as i said i don't check it there you can reach out to me on twitter that would be best and if there's anything else like you can reach out to any of the product with team members we are always like happy to help out and if one person doesn't reply we usually just let them know internally that hey like you might have a good chance but try to add value to it and try to be like a genuine connection because if you try to connect with somebody in the mindset that hey i want the referral for microsoft let me just do this 9 out of 10 times it's not gonna work for you absolutely darsh this has been fantastic i'm sure people are gonna learn a ton from these videos so thank you so much for being with us today uh it was fantastic thank you yeah thank you so much diego and for anybody i want to give a huge shout out to diego's youtube channel i've used it personally when his youtube channel was very new i remember like how to answer tell me about yourself question i learned from diego's channel and i used exactly that trick in all my interviews and it has worked tremendously well i tell people to go and watch a diego's youtube channel not like i'm trying to like advertise him because i find it super qualitative and quality is much better than you trying to get some quick templates so if you're watching this i would encourage you to watch more of his videos thank you thank you so much for that and for everybody watching thank you so much and we'll see you next time you