Junior Year Summer - Will Tech Internship Hurt Me?
Hello, I'm currently a rising Junior at a target (not HYPS), GPA 3.5+, and an engineering major. As an overall career decision, I'm stuck between going into the tech world vs. going into business. I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy SWE, so in tech I would likely pursue PM, and in business I would look to go into something strategy-related. This summer, I'm thinking of trying PM internship to see if it is something I would enjoy. Another factor playing into this decision is the difficulty of landing a consulting internship as well as the relative insignificance that a consulting internship plays into finding a FT role compared to something like finance. Would having a tech/ PM internship my Junior summer negatively affect my chances of pivoting to consulting & the business world FT? If I decide I don't want to pursue PM, will I still be able to land a consulting role after graduation?
Having interests in two different industries is also confusing my interview prep efforts. I'm not sure if I should focus my attention in one industry or the other, or if I should try for everything at once. I.e should I practice case prep as well as product questions? There is certainly some overlap in terms of interview questions, but I'm not sure if applying all over the place will ultimately hurt me more than help me. Also, I don't know if it's even worth it at all to apply for consulting internships given how hard they are to land.
Overall, I'm looking for some direction as I begin to prepare and apply for internships. If anyone has any thoughts or advice on this crossroads I have found myself between, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I think I can answer this question. My brother is a PM @ FAGMA and got interviews for all five and got two offers. For the ease of getting a job as a PM is heavily dependent on your demographics. Generally, for an average applicant who is Asian/White Male it probably is slightly harder, as technical Software Engineers are >90 percent Asian/White males so in order to balance out diversity team headcounts in the engineering department women and URMs are given a tremendous advantage over their male counterparts, perhaps even more so than banking. I've seen pretty head scratching female applicants get offers, while a decent Indian Male won't even get a single interview. FAGMA will typically give nothing harder than a Leetcode medium with the important criteria being our extracurriculars and leadership, which are practically not considered for SWE.
Hmm this seems incorrect. I had superdays with both FB and Uber for their new grad PM programs and my fellow candidates were overwhelmingly white+asian. Gender split was 50/50. I admit that women have an easier time, but that's probably due to the fact that being an effective PM requires good people skills, which nerdy engineers tend to lack. There is also a much lower technical bar, so people who didn't study CS but are passionate about technology are given looks - again, this is intentional because a PM doesn't actually need to code to be effective. FB and Uber both have zero leetcode in their process. Google's technical interview is literally "do you know how tech works on an abstract level", they no longer ask leetcode style questions for APMs.
Interesting that you think the only "headscratchers" who get offers are women, when you yourself didn't go through recruiting for PM, and you are obviously not a hiring manager. I assure you that incompetent men get hired at the same rate, you just notice it less because of your subconscious biases.
To answer OP's question: if you manage to land a pm internship at a prestigious company like Google, you will absolutely be fine for consulting recruiting. The difficult part is actually getting the internship - these programs already have very low headcount for full-time, and it's even lower for the internship. Most don't even offer PM internships. You say it's hard to land a consulting internship but it is 100% more difficult to land a PM internship.
My advice in terms of interview prep: definitely prep for both if you are serious about going for both. If you put in the time now while you're (probably) doing a low stakes remote internship, you'll be set for the fall. Additionally: make sure to network! Referrals help out so much for tech recruiting, it's kind of ridiculous. They basically guarantee a first round.
Actually I'll have to disagree with the idea that it's more difficult to transition from PM to consulting full-time. First, PM is one of the most desirable exits from consulting right now, especially to FAANG/Big N level companies. Second, the reason you don't see movement the other direction, PM to consulting, is because most people wouldn't give up a (relatively) cushy job with a strong level of ownership at a big tech company for doing grunt work in a client services role with half the TC. It's kind of like the same relationship between PE and consulting - people jump from consulting to PE, not the other way around, because PE is the desirable exit.
Let's also look at the numbers for internship recruiting: MBB probably takes 10-15 interns each from a target, and if you include T2/Big 4 opportunities, you're at a total of 70-80 consulting internship spots just at your school. Meanwhile, in PM internship recruiting, there's basically Google and Microsoft which hire a significant number of interns. By significant, I mean Google has a cohort of about 20 and Microsoft I would estimate at around 50-60, globally. Other prestigious companies like LinkedIn and Twitter hire MBB. Meanwhile, if you land a decent consulting internship, the door is still wide open for you in PM if you just do a decent amount of networking and get some referrals.
Basically, my point is that 1) landing a good PM internship is very difficult 2) landing a decent consulting internship is easier due to OCR 3) non-brand consulting internship -> PM program is feasible, while non-brand PM internship -> consulting is hard, so you should focus on landing consulting internship. Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't also try to get a good PM internship, just know that it's probably less realistic.
Otherwise, if both paths end up not working out, just try to find the best opportunity you can. I know you mentioned not liking SWE, but if you can get a FAANG/Big N SWE gig and just grind through it, you'll have a good shot at both PM and consulting. This is also much easier because these companies hire 100s of interns a year. An F500 business internship could also work. Doing PM at a non-brand name startup will be fine for PM full-time, but not good at all for consulting. YMMV, though. Good luck!