“Find a potential problem, go out there an extra mile and rectify it for best user experience.”

Being someone who has been into Product Management for about six to seven months now, I prefer going step-by-step. So, let’s start from the very beginning.

What is Product Management and how did I think of pursuing it?

By now, most of you must have Googled the term “Product Management” online and I think all of you will agree that different links pertaining to the topic provide different perspectives. The way I define it, might give you another perspective of the profile.

For me, Product Management is all about understanding the sentiment of the users, whether they are your customers or employees from different teams, and come up with a solution to every problem in a way that benefits all the concerned stakeholders.

After exploring almost half-a-dozen different work profiles during my sophomore year, I landed up with an intern at Udaan.com. While concluding it, I thought of working in a strategic role in an intersection of business, technology and design. I can say that was probably the time when I opened myself up to Product Management.

The Application Phase

“Whatsoever be the scenario, we always have a possibility to improve.”

As it turned out, I had an opportunity to improve exponentially. So, instead of testing my luck with the crowd-popular on-campus internship opportunities, I preferred to improve myself, through online courses and different books. With almost everyone in your peer group going for competitive coding, it isn’t easy not to get influenced and stick with what you want to do. But trust me, if you really enjoy something, you will find ways to get into that and improve.

I started my internship hunt in the last week of January. Not only my resume and cover letter but also the LinkedIn profile. The first month went completely into making my professional presence flawless to the very finest of details.

Tension is a common human emotion, right? Yeah, I was tense that I was really starting with my intern hunting now when most of the people around me were done with it. Yes, I committed a few mistakes. I applied for Jindal Stainless (Hisar) Limited(JHSL) and Reliance Industries Limited(RIL), even when I had no interest in the core sector. Against my expectations, I was selected for the interview round of the former in the beginning of February and for the latter at the end of March.

But by the time of the first on-campus interview, I had dropped 100 to 150 emails. Luckily, I got a Product Intern offer from Yatra.com. To add onto it, the interviewer of JSHL was my freshman year SMP Mentor. Making sure that I am not selected for the industry wasn’t a big deal after that point.

Things seem to be pretty chilled out, don’t they? But life had different plans for me in the magical bag of tricks.

In the first week of March(just a week after the mid-semester examinations), news of Yatra.com being acquired by Ebix Inc. was all over the internet. And one week down the line, I had an offer letter in my hand but it was clear that I will have to join the Operations Team instead of the Product Team. With this, I was down to square one again.

I was tagged to 10 to 15 LinkedIn posts daily. I received almost an equal number of mail IDs to apply to daily. Even most random branch alumni whom I never met came up to help with just a single LinkedIn message. It was actually then when I understood the importance of peers who kept motivating me during those days.

The Selection Days

Receiving a call from the HR at Grofers after almost three weeks of applying was pretty much unexpected. But, I knew that this was it. This was the opportunity to make the months of hard work count.

An application form specially designed for understanding the Product perspective, and two rounds of interviews by PMs actually tested my product thinking and problem-solving abilities. Instead of calling them as interviews, I prefer calling them Buddy Sessions. I got a chance to improve even during the 20-25 minute interviews and yes, they were the people who preferred giving on-spot feedbacks instead of making an HR do it.

The Intern Time

Team and Location

Being the only Product Intern in the Bangalore office was pretty much unexpected. I landed working under the Supply Chain Product Team for the PO/VMS Segment. The team primarily worked towards managing the vendor side of the organization.

Aim of the Internship

On the very first day, sitting next to the Senior Director, Product Management, I got some advice from him, “PM is like a game of cricket. Sitting outside, everyone feels it’s easy to slam off a six. But you will know the actual difficulty when you walk to the center.” During that time, I worked on three projects. Whether it was about making a process, or it was about bringing different teams on-board or setting up deadlines, I was completely owning those projects. In a nutshell, I can say that I was completely spending times in the boots of a Product Manager.

My projects involved sanitizing the existing vendor-level values present in the system which directly improved the item availability. So as to strengthen our stand against the competitors, we worked upon automating the Purchase Order(PO) process to speed-up the involved process. During the same time, the PM team conceptualized the method of Cluster Delivery and eventual effects on the Business value.

Work Culture

Grofers Bangalore office has a Technology team of almost 100 people. And Grofers is definitely an awesome team to learn and grow. Working in a startup, we had no worries of timings. But being a part of such a team, we were pushed ahead of our limits to iterate and improve.

With Grofers, it was a perfect blend of work and enjoyment. At times, the teams stayed back till late night hours our of interest. Teams went out for lunch every second week. Unexpected outings were planned during weekends. To conclude it all, a designer used to call me “Roorkee” instead of my name.

Final piece of advice

By now, you all would have understood that the internship days are pretty hectic. In my case, quite a few of my friends received offers from some big names of the corporate world. I know it gives a mixed feeling. Considering my case, I was quite happy for them but tensed at the same point-in-time. Based on the experience, I can only suggest you all to stay practical and understand both ends of the spectrum. Just stay focused on what you are aiming for.