Why you shouldn’t do PM internships?

Saw some misguided student post about PM internships. This is for anyone considering a PM internship.

DONT.

A fresher should not be going into Product Management. Focus on building hard skills first. You need an edge/alpha in your career strategy while reducing risk.

Atleast work for 1 year in the industry in a hard skill role. Then, think about transitioning.

This does two things.

1. You have a core differentiator compared to other candidates: Engg/ Design/ Sales/ Data Science/ Analytics.

Having a PM internship is not a good enough differentiator. No company would hire a Product Management intern over someone with hard skills in another domain.

Product is different. In SDE, it makes sense to have multiple internships as it gives confidence to the recruiter that you’ll be able to do your job.

In PM, no recruiter worth their salt will consider a PM internship contributing to you being a successful PM. Your internship doesn’t contribute anything meaningful to its ability to communicate your skill.

1. You realise if you’re getting into a field because it’s a fad or you’re genuinely interested in it.

I’ve seen many such freshers switch into product and get into suboptimal orgs. Don’t. Do your career a favour and work on your hard skills. That alone will contribute a lot more to your Product Skills than some poor internship.

As a GPM at Gojek, I will never hire anyone who has done a PM internship unless they have a solid track record in a hard skill based role.

You can only be a good “enabler“ if you can empathise with a “builder”.

Can you be a PM out of college, YES? Should you? NO.

You’ll realise this later in your career. First gain experiences building/enabling real products, you’ll thank yourself for that when it helps you build better Products.

Also, stop listening to these charlatans who masquerade as Product Gurus. They are out to make a quick buck. Don’t do these Product Courses. It’s all a farce. First, get some experience and then you’ll know