Speaker 1: Hey, hey, aba fam, It's time for another Halla Back Monday.
Speaker 1: In this episode, The One, the Only Mandra is joined
Speaker 1: by Shine, the creator of the online platform flyin Nance
Speaker 1: Finance is dedicated to helping nine to five ers earn
Speaker 1: more money so that they can build wealth, effortlessly, learn
Speaker 1: all about how to career pivot, negotiate a higher salary,
Speaker 1: and get out of debt.
Speaker 2: Okay, so give it a listen.
Speaker 3: Hey, hey, hey va fam. I cannot wait to introduce
Speaker 3: you to today's guest. She is someone who I have been cyberstocking,
Speaker 3: not in a creepy way, in a totally cool way
Speaker 3: for a long time. I feel like she is my
Speaker 3: nine to five hottie partner in crime.
Speaker 2: She's me.
Speaker 3: I think we have so much in common with the
Speaker 3: way she's approached her career and her inspirational message of
Speaker 3: how anyone out there, even if you're working nine to five,
Speaker 3: you can still build wealth. I am so happy to
Speaker 3: welcome Sania to the show. Sania founded Nance, which is
Speaker 3: an online platform dedicated to helping ambitious working women, who
Speaker 3: she calls nine to five hotties, effortlessly build wealth and
Speaker 3: say yes to more travel. She's a product manager and
Speaker 3: she's worked at major companies like AMX and MasterCard, and
Speaker 3: she has grown her salary four x in just four years,
Speaker 3: became debt free, and managed to reach one hundred K
Speaker 3: net worth by the tender age of twenty six years old.
Speaker 3: Her story has been featured everywhere from GMA to CNBC
Speaker 3: and now she's on Brown Ambition. So now you've made it, Okay.
Speaker 2: I know GMA is like.
Speaker 3: Cool, but come on, it's Brown Ambition for legends right now.
Speaker 2: That's a fast I'm jan girling very hard inside. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Mandy.
Speaker 3: Likewise, Cinia, it's such a pleasure to have you on
Speaker 3: the show. First and foremost, thank you for being I
Speaker 3: feel like I've been banging this druma of quit your
Speaker 3: way rich like kind of alone, and there's this like
Speaker 3: stigma around telling people to quit their jobs. Talk to
Speaker 3: me about and you're you know, you're a few years
Speaker 3: younger than me, right are you?
Speaker 2: How old are you?
Speaker 3: If you don't mind, I'm twenty seven right now, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you're a few years younger. It was around my
Speaker 3: mid twenties when I started making those really you know,
Speaker 3: strategic quits, and I quit six times in a decade
Speaker 3: of my career. Now, I was in journalism, and I
Speaker 3: remember my little brother kind of telling me like, why
Speaker 3: do you want to go into journalism? Do you not
Speaker 3: want to make money? And I remember thinking, listen, I
Speaker 3: tell stories. I'm gonna go for it. And I managed
Speaker 3: to quit and increase my wealth along the way. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like the traditional traditional career trajectory or the
Speaker 3: traditional industry you would think you could build wealth in.
Speaker 3: Now you chose tech or did you tell me a
Speaker 3: little bit about your career journey where you started and
Speaker 3: when you started to realize, oh, I can quit and
Speaker 3: actually build wealth here.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love this question. So my career really actually
Speaker 4: started in financial services. I landed my very first job
Speaker 4: at Ames on a product management team totally by chance, right.
Speaker 4: I did not know anything about what I wanted my
Speaker 4: career to look like when I graduated from college and
Speaker 4: grad school. This was around twenty seventeen, right, so product
Speaker 4: management wasn't quite the hot, buzzy you know, career choice
Speaker 4: that it is today. So at that point I was
Speaker 4: just happy to have landed my first big girls salary
Speaker 4: and to land on a team with really great leadership.
Speaker 4: But as I kind of spent more time at AMEX
Speaker 4: and really learned that, hey, product management is not only
Speaker 4: something that's very strategic, it is something that I really enjoy.
Speaker 4: I really feel like this is like my zone of genius.
Speaker 4: That's kind of when I started to see that, Wow,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of opportunity out here for me, and
Speaker 4: a lot of opportunity for me to grow and pivot
Speaker 4: my career. Right, I don't just have to stay at
Speaker 4: this one company. I don't just have to stay in
Speaker 4: this one type of work. So I think tech was
Speaker 4: always kind of something I was drawn too, really curious about,
Speaker 4: so I really spent more time.
Speaker 2: I would say as I.
Speaker 4: Became, you know, a bit more comfortable with my career
Speaker 4: my skill sets, to say, hey, I can take the
Speaker 4: skills that I have as a product manager even though
Speaker 4: I've only ever worked at big banks and turned that
Speaker 4: into a career in tech. So I would say that,
Speaker 4: you know, my my pathway from graduating school in twenty
Speaker 4: seventeen to today has been very serendipitous. I've leaned very
Speaker 4: heavily on my network and really just kind of putting
Speaker 4: myself out there for opportunities and to the question around
Speaker 4: you know how I've known when.
Speaker 2: To make these strategic jumps.
Speaker 4: Honestly, it's been like a gut feeling, right, And we
Speaker 4: can definitely talk more about this, But I think for me,
Speaker 4: even as a young black woman.
Speaker 2: Very rarely was I ever encouraged to leave a job. Right.
Speaker 4: I left my first job in twenty nineteen. I was
Speaker 4: like twenty four years old, right, So I remember having
Speaker 4: bosses be like like, oh my gosh, are you sure
Speaker 4: you want to do this right? Very much a lot
Speaker 4: of a lot of that uh you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of that language around kind of almost like kind of
Speaker 4: wanting to shame me for wanting to make these kind
Speaker 4: of decisions.
Speaker 3: This go ahead, okay, young blood, go ahead, you're gonna leave,
Speaker 3: You'll come.
Speaker 4: Back literally no, literally literally that I feel like that
Speaker 4: was definitely that was definitely the energy. But I think
Speaker 4: for me, especially around twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, when I
Speaker 4: first started to learn about financial freedom and the Fire movement,
Speaker 4: I really saw myself being someone that could take advantage
Speaker 4: of that lifestyle of being able to grow my income
Speaker 4: keep my expenses relatively the same.
Speaker 2: So how was I going to do that?
Speaker 4: I had to make more money so that meant having
Speaker 4: to make some of those quote unquote calculated risks to
Speaker 4: say maybe I need to go somewhere else to make
Speaker 4: more money to build my skill set. And that's kind
Speaker 4: of the energy that I've taken with me for the
Speaker 4: past four and a half five years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what did you study in college? And you
Speaker 3: said you went to grad school? What did you study?
Speaker 2: So in college, I studied Africana Studies.
Speaker 4: I loved it, I absolutely loved it, but there was
Speaker 4: definitely no immediate professional ROI right, It's like most of
Speaker 4: my most of my peers who majored in Africana studies
Speaker 4: are you know, obtaining PhDs right now or or work academics.
Speaker 3: They want to teach and be in academia forever.
Speaker 4: Literally, I feel like most of my peers went like
Speaker 4: the Melan maze academia academia away, and then a few
Speaker 4: of us kind of went into more like social justice
Speaker 4: nonprofit work.
Speaker 2: I think I'm probably the only.
Speaker 4: Person from my class that actually ended up pivoting working
Speaker 4: in corporate and definitely today working in tech.
Speaker 2: And then graduate school actually did a one year master's,
Speaker 2: my Masters of Sciences and Business Management, so kind.
Speaker 4: Of gave me more of that business acumen, more of
Speaker 4: those practical skills, and I think more of that confidence
Speaker 4: to say, you know, I spent four years in undergrad kind.
Speaker 2: Of shying away from you know, more quant.
Speaker 4: Heavy subjects right as an Africata sci.
Speaker 2: Major.
Speaker 4: So I think that master's program really kind of gave
Speaker 4: me that confidence to say, hey, yeah, I can do excel.
Speaker 4: I can you know, I can read financial charts, which
Speaker 4: I think really helped me pivot and land an American
Speaker 4: Express as my first job.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's wonderful because a lot of people, I
Speaker 3: mean I do a lot of career coaching, and a
Speaker 3: lot of women maybe they study something and they or
Speaker 3: they have experience in a certain field and they want
Speaker 3: to pivot into a new one. So for sure, I mean,
Speaker 3: talk to me about the interview process when with you
Speaker 3: with your Africana studies background. Did you go back to
Speaker 3: get your MBA because you were struggling to find work
Speaker 3: or was that just part of the plan. You know,
Speaker 3: this will help me as I interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So when I was a senior in college, I had
Speaker 4: no idea what I wanted to do professionally. Right, I
Speaker 4: to this really great school. I went to Barnard. I
Speaker 4: was at this really great school but had no job offer,
Speaker 4: and so senior fall I really started to think, Okay,
Speaker 4: I have two choices, right, I can either try really
Speaker 4: hard to convince an interview or on the other side
Speaker 4: that this Africana Studies degree can help me work in
Speaker 4: a more business aligned job, or I can see, hey,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of At that time, there were
Speaker 4: a lot of these programs kind of popping up at
Speaker 4: Duke wake Forest and other kind of business schools, kind
Speaker 4: of giving people like me non traditional backgrounds, lower arts backgrounds,
Speaker 4: and opportunity to break sort of speak, break into more
Speaker 4: business focus fields.
Speaker 2: So that's actually what I ended up doing. I ended
Speaker 2: up taking.
Speaker 4: I ended up deciding to get my master's right out
Speaker 4: of undergrad one because it was fully funded, right, so
Speaker 4: I received a full ride fellowship, and then two because
Speaker 4: to your point, I really did struggle, I guess kind
Speaker 4: of telling my story really to the point where I
Speaker 4: could land offers. Right, So I did a lot of interviewing.
Speaker 4: I was interviewing for a lot of rotational associate programs
Speaker 4: at that time because I felt like I had a
Speaker 4: lot of skills and didn't really see myself narrowly fitting
Speaker 4: into one right now, In hindsight, I wish someone would
Speaker 4: have told me, hey, you could be a product manager,
Speaker 4: but that was never something that I even knew about.
Speaker 4: Right So that's why I decided to get my master's.
Speaker 4: It was fully funded. It gave me an opportunity to
Speaker 4: be a student again, something I'm really good at. I'm
Speaker 4: really good at rechurch regurgitating information. But it also gave
Speaker 4: me a chance to kind of like have another year
Speaker 4: to kind of figure things out and be in that
Speaker 4: position where, hey, jobs are coming to me, you know,
Speaker 4: recruiters are looking for me I'm a student, which which
Speaker 4: really helped me in terms of my interview process.
Speaker 2: I casted a really wide net.
Speaker 4: My master's program was done at WAKE four, so I
Speaker 4: was in Winston Sdale and North Carolina, and I did not.
Speaker 2: Love it down there.
Speaker 4: So I was pretty much putting out increes connections my
Speaker 4: resume to as many companies in the New York area
Speaker 4: as I could. And how I had to landed up
Speaker 4: at AMX was actually through networking. I met a lot
Speaker 4: of different people across AMX, but one person in particular,
Speaker 4: we really built a really great relationship and it just
Speaker 4: so happened around the time that I was about to
Speaker 4: graduate from my master's program.
Speaker 2: I really needed a job.
Speaker 4: She made her own personal decision to lead AMEX and
Speaker 4: to leave New York City, and she recommended me for
Speaker 4: her job. So that is literally how I ended up
Speaker 4: on a product management team, on a high profile product
Speaker 4: management team at American Express.
Speaker 2: Is my first job.
Speaker 4: By networking, hustling and building relationships and a little bit of.
Speaker 3: Luck, yeah, I mean, and thank you for giving a
Speaker 3: shout out to Lady Luck, because it is a piece
Speaker 3: of it. I mean, it's also open. It's also kind
Speaker 3: of approaching your career in a way that you leave
Speaker 3: room for luck, and you leave room for that uncertainty,
Speaker 3: which if you're someone who's like obsessed with doing things
Speaker 3: on a certain schedule, it's very uncomfortable for you. But
Speaker 3: it's hard to articulate that too. That you have to
Speaker 3: put your best foot forward, like you said, the build
Speaker 3: those relationships, but then you got to wait for an opportunity, right,
Speaker 3: and a little bit of is luck. And how wonderful
Speaker 3: that someone was able to kind of put you in
Speaker 3: that position for success when you so going from kind
Speaker 3: of liberal arts to sitting down at a financial services company.
Speaker 3: What was that transition like.
Speaker 4: So I will I will say I think that one
Speaker 4: year and my master's program really set me up well
Speaker 4: for success.
Speaker 2: Now I will say I'm an overachiever.
Speaker 4: So I was that person even in this really intense,
Speaker 4: you know, master's program that I always pushed myself for more.
Speaker 4: So I ended up graduating the top of my class
Speaker 4: for my master's program, was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma,
Speaker 4: which is a business honors society. So I took my
Speaker 4: studies really seriously. I really took that year really seriously
Speaker 4: to learn and absorb as much as I could. And
Speaker 4: I think as a result, when I you know, got
Speaker 4: to financial services, got to AMMEX and here I was
Speaker 4: doing analytics, right, I was in Excel. I was, you know,
Speaker 4: having to create really educating create stories for my team
Speaker 4: around the data that was coming back from our car members.
Speaker 2: Like it was kind of easy, right, because I'd spent this.
Speaker 4: Year really really trying to build up these skills that
Speaker 4: I felt like I didn't really have a chance to
Speaker 4: practice an undergrad And I think as a result, I
Speaker 4: think that that's why I was really successful at AMES.
Speaker 2: I think one being really sad for success.
Speaker 4: But I was also extremely lucky to land on a
Speaker 4: team where I had really strong leaders and women leaders
Speaker 4: who really were invested in me being successful, right, who
Speaker 4: mentored me and said, yeah, I know, this is your
Speaker 4: first corporate job, and this is how you can do
Speaker 4: things right. This is the brand and the culture at AMEX,
Speaker 4: and this is how you can show up and show
Speaker 4: your best self. Right, And that really helped me. Right,
Speaker 4: Even as I think about my experience as a young
Speaker 4: black professional at ames and the short amount of time
Speaker 4: that I was there, I think I was able to
Speaker 4: get promotions and have really high profile opportunities because I
Speaker 4: had such strong leadership and strong mentorship and sponsorship. Right that,
Speaker 4: as I looked at some of my other peers, who
Speaker 4: were just as intelligent as me, just as capable as me,
Speaker 4: not having those pieces, especially in a corporate culture like AMEX,
Speaker 4: I think kind of kept them from I think, getting
Speaker 4: some of the markers of achievement and success that I
Speaker 4: think that they were really owed. So I would say
Speaker 4: the transition wasn't It wasn't too tough, but there was
Speaker 4: definitely a learning curve, as there is any time you
Speaker 4: join a new organization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a couple of things I want to talk go
Speaker 3: back to you really quick. You mentioned a fellowship that
Speaker 3: got you a full ride scholarship or how did you
Speaker 3: How did you find that opportunity to get your degree
Speaker 3: paid for? Because I think that's important for listeners to
Speaker 3: maybe get a tip from that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the tip from that is put yourself out
Speaker 4: there for any and all opportunities.
Speaker 2: So, I mean the opportunity that.
Speaker 4: Allowed me to get a full ride fellowship to get
Speaker 4: my master's program actually goes back to even when I
Speaker 4: was applying to colleges in high school. I was that
Speaker 4: girl that went to the library, got a scholarship book,
Speaker 4: knew my parents could not afford to send me to college,
Speaker 4: and just applied to everything that I was eligible for.
Speaker 4: One of those things was being a part of the
Speaker 4: rom Brown scholars Network. Now I was not a rom
Speaker 4: Brown scholar. I did not receive all of the money,
Speaker 4: but I was a part of their network and took
Speaker 4: advantage of all the opportunities that they would send to
Speaker 4: students in the network. Right, So I ended up getting
Speaker 4: an internship one year in college through that network, and
Speaker 4: they were also partnering with the wake Ford School of
Speaker 4: Business to promote this new program and promote the fellowship.
Speaker 4: So when I saw that, it's like free ride, y'all
Speaker 4: are going to pay for my room and board and
Speaker 4: I can get a master's.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, I'm gonna do this. So that's what
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 4: And you know, I had the delusional confidence that I
Speaker 4: was exactly I was going to be picked right, Like
Speaker 4: I went into my interview saying, when I am a
Speaker 4: corporate fellow for this program, these are the people I
Speaker 4: want to sponsor me, right, And I think that confidence
Speaker 4: and I think my my persistence, I think is what
Speaker 4: helped me get that right. So I think the tip
Speaker 4: there is anytime you see an opportunity, don't be afraid
Speaker 4: to go for it, right, especially as women, as women
Speaker 4: of color, especially as Black women, we receive so many
Speaker 4: messages that tell us we're not worthy enough, we're not
Speaker 4: capable enough. But I think I've always kind of kept
Speaker 4: with myself that hey, if I see something that's out
Speaker 4: there that speaks to me, I'm going to put myself
Speaker 4: out there because I never know what can come out
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: Right, my seventeen year old self set my twenty one,
Speaker 2: twenty two, and now twenty.
Speaker 4: Seven year old self up for so much success and
Speaker 4: she didn't even know it back then.
Speaker 3: Oh, baby Sania, Thanks baby Sania.
Speaker 2: Look what you've shot up to her? All right?
Speaker 3: Another thing that I was thinking while you were speaking about,
Speaker 3: you know, you being and thank you for pointing out
Speaker 3: the importance of those relationships and having sponsorship and actually
Speaker 3: putting your best foot forward to build those relationships and
Speaker 3: not necessarily being the person. You get a job and
Speaker 3: you come then and you just think you're going to
Speaker 3: quietly sit in your cubicle and that someone will just
Speaker 3: tap you on the shoulder and say you you, we've
Speaker 3: noticed you. That's not how it happens. Building relationships is
Speaker 3: so important and getting that sponsorship did that make it?
Speaker 3: And this is I'm going to ask you this question.
Speaker 3: And the reason I'm asking is because I think you
Speaker 3: and I both agree that when you quit jobs, there
Speaker 3: is that perception that you know or you're often told,
Speaker 3: be grateful, be loyal. People took a chance on you,
Speaker 3: and you had people who were going to bat for
Speaker 3: you within your company at amex SO, but you still
Speaker 3: left And I love that. So talk to me about
Speaker 3: your decision around leaving and why when, what all that stuff?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so let me set the scene for you. So
Speaker 4: my decision to leave AMEX the very first company I
Speaker 4: ever worked at, and to your point, where I had
Speaker 4: a lot of brand equity, right, not just on my
Speaker 4: immediate team, but I had leaders across the company who
Speaker 4: knew me, believed in me, were putting me in a
Speaker 4: position to when I think it started to conflict with
Speaker 4: my holistic vision of what I had for myself, and
Speaker 4: that was to become more financially sound. That was to
Speaker 4: start building wealth. That was to have more money that
Speaker 4: I could get over some of the financial challenges that
Speaker 4: I felt like I was kind of in. Right, So
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, I now had spent a year working full
Speaker 4: time and I was fucking my money up, right.
Speaker 2: I was bad girl.
Speaker 4: That was just kind of like, yeah, it's okay, I
Speaker 4: have my first set of credit cards.
Speaker 2: I'm just fat online, you know. Yeah. I was bredging
Speaker 2: real hard. I was ubering really hard. Oh these were
Speaker 2: the days of uberpool. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Right, So I was having a good time, right, I
Speaker 4: was having a great time in New York. I would argue,
Speaker 4: as you should have done, but yeah, yeah, definitely, And
Speaker 4: I don't regret those times at all. But as a result, right,
Speaker 4: not having any type of financial acumen when it came
Speaker 4: to money management, I put myself into a lot of debt,
Speaker 4: and it was debt that I couldn't afford to pay
Speaker 4: when I kind of looked back at and those times,
Speaker 4: it was like, Hey, I have this decent salary. I
Speaker 4: have a great salary as a single woman in New York,
Speaker 4: but I have nothing to show for it. I don't
Speaker 4: have any savings. Now I have all this debt that
Speaker 4: I put myself into. I don't have anyone I can
Speaker 4: go to and be like, oh, mom and dad, can
Speaker 4: you say me a small loan of ten thousand dollars
Speaker 4: to pay off these credit cards?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: It just wasn't It wasn't a thing, right, So that
Speaker 4: was a big wake up call for me, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that was a big wake up call for me.
Speaker 3: It was about ten thousand dollars of credit card debt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had I one summer I put myself in
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars a credit card debt.
Speaker 3: So, wow, tell you was living really good? Did you
Speaker 3: take a vacation?
Speaker 4: I was traveling, I was sing out, I was going
Speaker 4: to Pollo Classic, buying one hundred dollars bottles of Bilfleco
Speaker 4: like I was living.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was living. I was living right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't say that now, but I mean in
Speaker 4: the moment, I had a lot of shame around it, right,
Speaker 4: Like I had a lot of shame around around my
Speaker 4: money mistake.
Speaker 3: You were tender swindling yourself pretty much that summer. Wait,
Speaker 3: so what was your salary at AMEX though?
Speaker 4: So when I around this time, I was making seventy
Speaker 4: two thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: That's not jabby at all for your first at all
Speaker 3: out of college. I was making at all. Well, you
Speaker 3: got about I got about eight years on you. But
Speaker 3: I came into I came to Manhattan making forty five k.
Speaker 3: But my problem was I'm from Georgia and I had
Speaker 3: a Georgian mentality about salary. So I thought forty five k.
Speaker 3: I was like, maybe I made it. I'm here, but
Speaker 3: now don't worry. My expectations are definitely on the New
Speaker 3: York level. Now, all right, So you had this debt,
Speaker 3: you were still making a decent salary, But was your
Speaker 3: career move purely about Okay, I'm going to increase my
Speaker 3: earnings and I can't get it quickly. Enough here at AMEX,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. Right.
Speaker 4: So I got a little sidetracked when I was telling
Speaker 4: you a story, right, I wanted to set the scene though, Right.
Speaker 2: So twenty eighteen, I put myself into all this debt.
Speaker 4: Twenty nineteen, I end up getting connected with the financial advisor.
Speaker 4: I start learning about fire, I start following all these
Speaker 4: personal finance accounts on Instagram. I'm just like, oh wow,
Speaker 4: I can do this, Like, okay, let me start to
Speaker 4: kind of figure out, like what does it mean to
Speaker 4: live on a budget?
Speaker 2: Okay, this is not so hard.
Speaker 4: Okay, I actually have more money at my disposal that
Speaker 4: I could be putting towards like my future self. But
Speaker 4: I've been overspending so much that I don't even see
Speaker 4: that it's there. Right, So this is kind of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: I spent that year really kind of learning a lot
Speaker 4: about my own spending habits, triggers traumas, and also learning
Speaker 4: about future state where do I want to be? And
Speaker 4: at this time, I'm like, Okay, I was promoted at AMX,
Speaker 4: so now I'm a manager. I ended up getting a
Speaker 4: parity raise, so at this point. I'm making actually right
Speaker 4: under six figures. I'm making around ninety nine thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: still have a lot of discpolsal income, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: this is great.
Speaker 2: I really want to become debt free.
Speaker 4: So in addition to the credit card debt that I mentioned,
Speaker 4: I also did have some student loan debt from from
Speaker 4: my years in school right that I was kind of like, this.
Speaker 2: Isn't like a super big deal. But for me, I'm
Speaker 2: an overachiever.
Speaker 4: I want to become debt free, like I want to
Speaker 4: be able to have that major bump to my net
Speaker 4: worth growth. So this is twenty nineteen and now twenty
Speaker 4: twenties approaching. Obviously had no idea what was around the corner,
Speaker 4: But at the beginning of twenty twenty, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I want to set a really ambitious goal for myself
Speaker 4: of paying off all of my debt in one year.
Speaker 2: I'd spent a year working on a budget.
Speaker 4: I feel like I can do this twenty three thousand
Speaker 4: dollars in one year on my salary.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a stretch.
Speaker 4: I'm actually probably short some so I need to make
Speaker 4: more money. You know, I'm doing great work at ames
Speaker 4: I'm working on.
Speaker 2: All these strategic projects.
Speaker 4: I just got promoted in a year that almost never happened,
Speaker 4: and then I'm having these conversations with my leaders and
Speaker 4: I'm just like, yeah, so, like, let's talk about career progression,
Speaker 4: Like what is it going to take for me to
Speaker 4: get to senior manager that's the next level on AMEX.
Speaker 4: It was just kind of all like, oh, yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: we just promoted you a year ago. Oh well, But
Speaker 4: I think also the writing was on the wall, right
Speaker 4: that I could see other professionals, even on my team.
Speaker 2: Right, who.
Speaker 4: Had kind of matriculated even before me, that they were
Speaker 4: not being hunted down for promotions, right. So I also
Speaker 4: had this sense my own self awareness to say, Sis,
Speaker 4: the longer that you stay here, the longer these people
Speaker 4: and pay with your money. Right, It's like all of
Speaker 4: those things that you were talking about in terms of
Speaker 4: this idea about loyalty, this idea around like paying your dues,
Speaker 4: this idea of oh, we need to make sure that
Speaker 4: the people who are more senior get their chance, right,
Speaker 4: headcount can only go so far.
Speaker 2: All of those things were embedded into the culture at.
Speaker 4: AMEX, and I just kind of realized like, I want
Speaker 4: to make more money, not just for money's sake, but
Speaker 4: because I want to become debt free, because I know
Speaker 4: that I now feel like I had the skills to
Speaker 4: be able to put this money to good use for
Speaker 4: my future self. And also I just feel like it's time.
Speaker 4: Right I'd spent three and a half years at AMEX,
Speaker 4: I felt like there's more out there again leaned on
Speaker 4: networks right. So I ended up actually landing my next
Speaker 4: job at MasterCard through a connection that I had at Columbia.
Speaker 4: I went to Columbia for undergrad a fellow alum. Her
Speaker 4: team was hiring. They were looking for someone with my expertise,
Speaker 4: a product manager, ideally a woman of color who had
Speaker 4: my financial services background. I interviewed, the interview process was
Speaker 4: really smooth, and literally got my offer before New York
Speaker 4: City went into shutdown. So I like to say that
Speaker 4: I was one of the first people to create the
Speaker 4: exodus that has now happened at AMEX, especially amongst professionals
Speaker 4: of color. I was probably one of the very first
Speaker 4: people to leave AMEX and the pandemic because I ended
Speaker 4: up putting my two weeks in right at the end
Speaker 4: of March twenty twenty, and for me, it wasn't just again,
Speaker 4: it wasn't just purely about.
Speaker 2: The money piece, right.
Speaker 4: I knew I was leaving behind all these great relationships,
Speaker 4: but it was also just like I had this gut
Speaker 4: feeling that I wanted to do something else. And you know,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'd heard this idea all the time, Right,
Speaker 4: you have to be the driver of your own career.
Speaker 4: You have to be in the driver's seat. And I
Speaker 4: just felt this urge to say, this.
Speaker 2: Is a calculated risk.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm going to another big financial services company that's
Speaker 4: going to pay me more, that's going to give me
Speaker 4: a chance to also develop my skills as a product manager.
Speaker 2: What do I have to lose? Right? And it was
Speaker 2: definitely the best decision I made for myself.
Speaker 3: Can I just mention too that a lot of times
Speaker 3: we put too much I think a lot of especially women,
Speaker 3: put way too much value in the stability of a
Speaker 3: job itself and how a job is stable, and you know,
Speaker 3: and not recognizing that you are your own stability at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, Like even with you, Sania,
Speaker 3: you're the fact that you have an MBA, the fact
Speaker 3: or you have a business administration a masters in that
Speaker 3: you have this college network, you've done so well in
Speaker 3: you know your school, You've built relationships professionally. Like that
Speaker 3: is resiliency. And at the end of the day, is
Speaker 3: it a risk take a new job? Sure, but also no,
Speaker 3: because you can get laid off and I'm sure you'd
Speaker 3: bounced right back off bound bounce right back because you have,
Speaker 3: you know, this foundation of success yourself. All right, ba fam,
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break. This is brown ambition. All right,
Speaker 3: ba fam, we are back now. I want to ask
Speaker 3: you what was the pay jump? Because I love I
Speaker 3: feel like any anytime we can like share how much
Speaker 3: of a jump we made by quitting, it's powerful because
Speaker 3: I mean, in my experience, maybe you can agree with me,
Speaker 3: we'll see, but the biggest pay raise has come when
Speaker 3: you are ready to leave and move to.
Speaker 2: An Absolutely I totally agree with that, Mandy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So when I left Amex, I was making just
Speaker 4: under one hundred thousand dollars, I was making around like
Speaker 4: ninety nine thousand some change. By joining MasterCard on the
Speaker 4: team that I was on again, also being a product manager,
Speaker 4: which is seen as more technical, therefore more strategic and
Speaker 4: worth more, I increased my base salary by thirty two
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, and then when I kind of throw in
Speaker 4: the fact that I also got a bonus at the
Speaker 4: end of that year.
Speaker 2: In total, I ended.
Speaker 4: Up earning an additional fifty thousand dollars by leaving Nice.
Speaker 3: So when you negotiated a new offer MasterCard, what was
Speaker 3: that experience like? Now, did you have to fight for
Speaker 3: that thirty two and was there any talk of signing
Speaker 3: bonus equity other incentives that you know you were able
Speaker 3: to ask for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So when I negotiated my offer at Mastercred, I
Speaker 4: was I'm very happy to say that I had a
Speaker 4: recruiter who was very direct, very transparent, so it wasn't
Speaker 4: a hard negotiation at all.
Speaker 2: I pretty much just asked for what I want.
Speaker 4: I think the initial offer was maybe like eight or
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars short of the number that I actually
Speaker 4: ended up landing on. So that came from negotiating, and
Speaker 4: I think I was also able to negotiate a sign
Speaker 4: on because you know, my thing, Because I have also
Speaker 4: been pretty fortunate to kind of always leave jobs right
Speaker 4: before bonuses are paid out, I always use that as
Speaker 4: an opportunity to negotiate for more cash in my pocket.
Speaker 4: So I think I ended up leaving AMEX right before
Speaker 4: my bonus was paid out and kind of used that
Speaker 4: number to say, Hey, MasterCard, I really want to sign
Speaker 4: this offer, but I need this money right So, and
Speaker 4: that's actually the same tactic that I used again when
Speaker 4: I now join my current employer in tech, to say, Hey,
Speaker 4: if I leave MasterCard, I'm leaving behind twenty nine thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: What can you guys do to bring this in the offer?
Speaker 4: And that's how I was able to negotiate in this
Speaker 4: current job a twenty nine thousand dollars sign on bonus
Speaker 4: that was not even on the table initially, right. So
Speaker 4: for me negotiating, I've always been like, really stern on
Speaker 4: just getting my base salary up, Like I haven't really
Speaker 4: negotiated for other perks like PTO DA's and things like that.
Speaker 4: I've kind of always just kind of been happy with
Speaker 4: the packages that I've received on that front. But I've
Speaker 4: always been trying to just get more cash into my
Speaker 4: bottom line, whether that's through my base or through a
Speaker 4: sign on bonus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hell's yes. I mean I will say it till
Speaker 3: I'm blue in the face, really sit down and crunch
Speaker 3: the numbers on how much money you're leaving on the table.
Speaker 3: I love that you mentioned your annual bonus, especially if
Speaker 3: for leaving at the beginning of the year and those
Speaker 3: bonuses don't pay out till March. Don't let that keep
Speaker 3: you stuck.
Speaker 2: Don't let that comet that car.
Speaker 3: Or if it's equity, or even if it's your unvested
Speaker 3: you know, four toh one k matches. Add it all up, baby,
Speaker 3: and then ask for as a sign on bonus. I
Speaker 3: love that you did that, and it gets easier each time.
Speaker 3: You know, the fact that you were the fact that
Speaker 3: you've even been able to ask this early in your
Speaker 3: career should be inspiring to anyone listening that. And I
Speaker 3: too was asking very early in my career and I
Speaker 3: was hearing no, or if I was hearing yes, it
Speaker 3: maybe was a couple thousand or this or that. It
Speaker 3: wasn't anything crazy, but it made me prepared and you
Speaker 3: will be too for those days when then you're when
Speaker 3: you're walking away like I have with like one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars, you know, signing bonus or equity
Speaker 3: grant like that's it's all about practicing and getting the
Speaker 3: in the habit of asking, because I will you agree
Speaker 3: that it's still stressful and it's still like do you
Speaker 3: get nervous when you negotiate?
Speaker 4: So do I?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. I think it's I think
Speaker 2: it's totally normal too.
Speaker 4: And I think, especially for me, right, I don't I
Speaker 4: don't necessarily have so many women in my family to
Speaker 4: kind of lean on and say how should I go
Speaker 4: about this? Right, Like, my eldest sister has kind of
Speaker 4: worked the same job for fifteen years, and the women
Speaker 4: before her, right, my mother and grandmother, they spent their
Speaker 4: entire lifetimes working at the same company.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I think for me, I am, I am even
Speaker 4: a testament of how we talk about this all the time,
Speaker 4: how the new generation goes about things, how millennials go
Speaker 4: about things, because I think even the women my family
Speaker 4: are so inspired by when I'm like, yeah, I'm going
Speaker 4: to leave this company and I'm going to negotiate for more,
Speaker 4: They're just like, more power.
Speaker 2: To you, girl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean true. And I think for our generation too,
Speaker 3: it's almost like we have the we have the benefit
Speaker 3: of having the Internet and having social media and having
Speaker 3: all these I feel like virtual sisters, big sisters who
Speaker 3: are kind of showing us another way, and those little
Speaker 3: like nudges and those and even sharing your story, you
Speaker 3: kind of can become that mentor virtual mentor for other
Speaker 3: people to inspire them and show them a different way.
Speaker 3: Whereas like my mom didn't have an you know when
Speaker 3: without social media, you're just kind of closed off to
Speaker 3: whatever's happening in your bubble, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So absolutely, I mean I feel like my career coaching clients,
Speaker 3: I've talked to so many women. I'm surprised, honestly how
Speaker 3: many women are in their fifties and sixties who are
Speaker 3: reaching out to me and they're like, I see what
Speaker 3: y'all are doing.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not too late. So I do follow you
Speaker 3: on the Tiki TALKI and I know that you like
Speaker 3: to travel. Now, I was looking at your TikTok and
Speaker 3: I know one of my one of my favorite posts.
Speaker 3: You always post these like gorgeous, you know, scenes of
Speaker 3: you and I'm beautiful. I got to ask for you
Speaker 3: your swimwear at because you're always looking fly. I guess
Speaker 3: it's why you go buy fly danced. I get it,
Speaker 3: But you tell his story on one of your viral tiktoks,
Speaker 3: how about a year and a half into the pandemic
Speaker 3: October twenty twenty one, you were suffering from depression and
Speaker 3: feeling like you were in a toxic work environment, and
Speaker 3: also you were job hunting. Can you take me to
Speaker 3: that time and tell me what was going on in
Speaker 3: your career and how you were able to move through
Speaker 3: that to your next opportunity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm happy to talk about it.
Speaker 4: I will say September to November twenty twenty one was
Speaker 4: probably the hardest, some of the hardest like moments of
Speaker 4: my life thus far, right, so just kind of paid
Speaker 4: the picture for you. I had been working at MasterCard
Speaker 4: for about a year and a half and and really
Speaker 4: just started to feel like I was not appreciated, like
Speaker 4: I was not really receiving the development that I wanted
Speaker 4: to see in my career. That I was essentially being
Speaker 4: siloed and stifled. Whether that was intentional or not, but
Speaker 4: you know, I kind of came in expecting one thing
Speaker 4: about how this job was going to look, and by
Speaker 4: I would say, by by mid twenty twenty one, it
Speaker 4: was kind of clear to me that if I did
Speaker 4: not take the reins over my career. I was either
Speaker 4: going to get pushed out or worse, and I think
Speaker 4: that was kind of like a wake up call for me.
Speaker 4: I'd never really experienced that in my career thus far.
Speaker 4: So here I was feeling like, one, I definitely want
Speaker 4: a new job, but two, I also want more freedom
Speaker 4: in flexibility. I had spent three months living remotely Intulum
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty one, and that gave me such a
Speaker 4: taste of the lifestyle that I want. I am someone
Speaker 4: who wants to be location independent, who sees myself living
Speaker 4: overseas and retiring early overseas, so I think to have
Speaker 4: that experience was such an eye opener for the type
Speaker 4: of job that I need to be able to experience
Speaker 4: that and not kind of sacrifice. And then at the
Speaker 4: same time, I was job hunting, which anyone of us
Speaker 4: knows it can feel like a second job. So here
Speaker 4: I was dealing with a lot of toxicity in my
Speaker 4: nine to five that's paying my bills, right. I don't
Speaker 4: have the option to quit my job because I don't
Speaker 4: want to necessarily rely on my savings. I don't necessarily
Speaker 4: want to put myself under that pressure. But the same time,
Speaker 4: job hunting. It took me a lot longer than I thought.
Speaker 4: Right here, I am a qualified product manager. I have
Speaker 4: all these great companies in my resume. What's not clicking,
Speaker 4: Steven Right, I was going on all these interviews.
Speaker 2: I was talking to a lot of great companies.
Speaker 4: I did not receive a single offer when I started
Speaker 4: my job hunt in May twenty twenty one too about November,
Speaker 4: did not receive a single offer, And that was really frustrating.
Speaker 4: It was very humbling. I knew that I knew that
Speaker 4: I was suffering room depression because I couldn't get out
Speaker 4: of bed. I'd started having just like apathy towards all
Speaker 4: the things I enjoy doing. Right, I wasn't posting as
Speaker 4: much on Flinance. I was honestly burnt out right from
Speaker 4: trying to travel, create work a nine to five job hunt.
Speaker 4: It was just was way too much on my plate.
Speaker 4: So kind of what started to shift for me is
Speaker 4: one I had to seek out a new therapist. I
Speaker 4: just had to get a new help too. I had
Speaker 4: to change up my career strategy. I realized, maybe I
Speaker 4: can't do this by myself, maybe I need support. Right,
Speaker 4: So I ended up investing in a career accelerator called
Speaker 4: product Gym to really kind of help me create a
Speaker 4: new strategy and build up some more confidence when it
Speaker 4: came to interviewing and kind of telling my story, and
Speaker 4: then I just had to kind of keep the ground running, right,
Speaker 4: I took a break. I took like two and a
Speaker 4: half weeks where I just didn't do anything. I didn't
Speaker 4: not apply to any jobs. I just was kind of like,
Speaker 4: let me just do my job and I'm going to
Speaker 4: spend the rest of the time just resting and focusing
Speaker 4: on me. And I came back with a vengeance and
Speaker 4: then ended up applying to literally about one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty jobs in a like three week span.
Speaker 2: One of those jobs ended up being the job that
Speaker 2: I have now.
Speaker 4: So I ended up receiving my offer in December twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one. And you know, I would say that every
Speaker 4: day it started to get easier. I think as I
Speaker 4: started to really see some real traction and and my process,
Speaker 4: as I started to kind of focus on my mental
Speaker 4: health and really kind of prioritize my own self care,
Speaker 4: you know, I started to feel like I could come
Speaker 4: out of that depressive state. And then I really did win.
Speaker 4: I ended up getting I mean the offer that I
Speaker 4: accepted in the job that I have now was my
Speaker 4: dream offer. I know that because I tweeted. I'd like
Speaker 4: put out a tweet saying I am manifesting this. I
Speaker 4: think I said I wanted like one hundred and sixty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars fully remote PM job if I'm limited PTO
Speaker 4: and equity, and I got that and then some and
Speaker 4: the offer that I ended up landing. So WHOA I
Speaker 4: would say last year was definitely a not only a
Speaker 4: test of my patience and humility, but also a test
Speaker 4: of my resilience to say, this too shall pass and
Speaker 4: it's going to get better, and you can rest, but
Speaker 4: you cannot quit, right, There's so much more that's out
Speaker 4: there that you're deserving of. So let's rest, let's take breaks,
Speaker 4: but let's keep going, right, Because imagine if I, if I,
Speaker 4: you know, if I had stopped, if I had stopped
Speaker 4: my progress, I would have kept myself from all this
Speaker 4: abundance and.
Speaker 2: Success that I have now in this current role.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the majority of the clients who gravitate
Speaker 3: toward me have ended up being women of color in
Speaker 3: the six figure range mid career. And when I tell
Speaker 3: you and I have to tell them a lot too.
Speaker 3: Is it's the most challenging I think when you are
Speaker 3: at a certain level in your career to find your
Speaker 3: next opportunity, and it takes a lot longer it can
Speaker 3: because those opportunities are not they're fewer and further between, right,
Speaker 3: They're also a bit more competitive, and at that point,
Speaker 3: your standards are higher, so you're not ready. You do
Speaker 3: have like you, for example, you wanted something that was
Speaker 3: fully remote, you want a certain salary range. So though
Speaker 3: you know it does take time, and I think even
Speaker 3: adjusting your own expectations for how long this journey may take.
Speaker 3: And then and there's so many women who I've looked
Speaker 3: at on the other end of a you know, a
Speaker 3: zoom call during coaching sessions and I've said, you have
Speaker 3: got to take a break, because even I can feel
Speaker 3: your tired energy, your your lethargy, your depression like it's
Speaker 3: coming through and it's hard to sparkle and shine and
Speaker 3: attract a new opportunity in an interview when you are
Speaker 3: carrying that energy with you. And I think it's a
Speaker 3: tough pill to swallow for a lot of people, but
Speaker 3: I love that you recognize it Okay, I've got to
Speaker 3: like take a deep breath, you know, take time, pause,
Speaker 3: pour back into yourself so that you could go back fighting.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Definitely you mentioned a program that you joined.
Speaker 3: What was it, Product Gems?
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 3: Tell me more about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so product gem is a career accelerator for experience
Speaker 4: aspiring or experienced product managers who specifically want to learn
Speaker 4: how to land higher paid product manager role. So why
Speaker 4: I ended up landing there is because I knew I
Speaker 4: didn't I didn't necessarily need general career coaching. I knew
Speaker 4: exactly what I wanted, I knew exactly where I wanted
Speaker 4: to be, but I really felt like there weren't really
Speaker 4: many resources out there that were kind of giving me
Speaker 4: that specific coaching around how do you win at these
Speaker 4: product manager interviews, which if anyone is out there looking
Speaker 4: for product manager jobs, you know that it's its own ethos,
Speaker 4: it's its own culture as it relates to you know,
Speaker 4: being able to kind of navigate those interview processes. So
Speaker 4: it was it was a pretty significant investment, but I
Speaker 4: think it was a worthwhile one because it really gave
Speaker 4: me the confidence, the clarity, and that push to say, okay,
Speaker 4: there's definitely.
Speaker 2: More out here.
Speaker 3: How much was it?
Speaker 2: It was six thousand dollars?
Speaker 3: Oh okay, shit, I've heard worse.
Speaker 2: I know about kind of great and may not know.
Speaker 3: So for those who are listening and who have heard
Speaker 3: and seen Sonia and others, especially on TikTok, you know,
Speaker 3: really speaking about the possibilities in product management to find
Speaker 3: for people who are listening, what is a product manager?
Speaker 3: And then you mentioned the particulars of the interview process.
Speaker 3: Any tips that you can share for how to navigate
Speaker 3: that or what maybe there are what's different about applying
Speaker 3: for those PM roles?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So you know, in a nutshell, a product manager
Speaker 4: is really that person that's thinking about an end to
Speaker 4: end customer experience and building the best experience for their.
Speaker 2: Subset of users.
Speaker 4: So, as a product manager, you could be owning any
Speaker 4: type of products, right.
Speaker 2: Product does not just have to be a physical item.
Speaker 4: It could be a software, it could be an app,
Speaker 4: it could be a digital platform.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So as a product manager, I have worked on financial products, right,
Speaker 4: like credit cards. That was the very first product that
Speaker 4: I owned at AMEX. Right, I owned the American Express
Speaker 4: Gold card. So what that meant is every step of
Speaker 4: that customer journey from someone applying for this card, through
Speaker 4: using it, and even as they consider closing that account.
Speaker 4: Right as a product manager, I was thinking about all
Speaker 4: the steps in that process deliver the best customer experience.
Speaker 4: I would say when it comes to interviewing for product
Speaker 4: management jobs, especially if you don't have that true PM experience,
Speaker 4: I think think about any time that you have been
Speaker 4: able to either create something from scratch or significantly improve
Speaker 4: a process, and what were those outcomes. That's what a
Speaker 4: product manager is doing. So whether you've worked in a classroom,
Speaker 4: you've worked in healthcare, you worked in social services, you
Speaker 4: worked in other types of business, I think we all
Speaker 4: can think about those moments where we've said, hey, there's
Speaker 4: something really wrong with this process, here's how I would
Speaker 4: improve it, here's how I'm going to improve it, and
Speaker 4: here were the outcomes. I think the more that you
Speaker 4: have those examples to be able to speak to even
Speaker 4: if you don't have this quote unquote PM true experience,
Speaker 4: I think that's what many of the hiring managers that
Speaker 4: are hiring for product managers are looking for. Can you
Speaker 4: really kind of dig your hands into something that might
Speaker 4: be complex, or it might be kind of broken, offer
Speaker 4: new solutions and then be able to create a new
Speaker 4: path forward.
Speaker 3: Do they commonly give you those like case studies, like,
Speaker 3: here's a situation, you know what would you I've seen them?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I would say as a product manager, you
Speaker 4: can be very on the technical side, and I think
Speaker 4: especially as you think about some especially as you kind
Speaker 4: of look at more tech companies, you might have more
Speaker 4: case studies or more product exercises, but there are plenty
Speaker 4: of business focused teams that need product managers where your
Speaker 4: interview process might just be behavioral. It might just be
Speaker 4: tell me about a time when it might just be hey,
Speaker 4: our clients are XYZ.
Speaker 2: How would you approach the scenario? Right?
Speaker 4: Where you don't necessarily have to be able to create
Speaker 4: or build something from scratch, you don't have to be
Speaker 4: able to explain code, but can you explain how you
Speaker 4: would approach a situation and how you would bring your
Speaker 4: skills to the situation. There are plenty of business product
Speaker 4: managers that don't code, that don't have technical backgrounds. Right,
Speaker 4: You've heard a lot about my experience. I don't have
Speaker 4: any certificates. I'm not PMP certified. I don't have any
Speaker 4: of those You know more technical certifications or qualifications, but
Speaker 4: I've built things, right, I can talk about the things
Speaker 4: that I've built. I can talk about how I think
Speaker 4: about approaching new or difficult situations. And I think that's
Speaker 4: what's kind of kept me going on this process and
Speaker 4: what's made me stand out even in interview processes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and do you have a particular opinion about the
Speaker 3: whole PMP certification. I can't tell you how many people
Speaker 3: I've seen considering it while they're kind of throwing everything
Speaker 3: at the wall in terms of pivoting into a different career.
Speaker 4: Yeah, My short opinion is that I think they can
Speaker 4: be very fruitful if they are aligned with the jobs
Speaker 4: that you actually want.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So, if you are looking for job descriptions that are
Speaker 4: not mentioning PMP, they're not mentioning any certifications you don't
Speaker 4: necessarily want to be a technical product owner, for example,
Speaker 4: then it may not be worth your time, right. It
Speaker 4: might be better to invest that time in learning how
Speaker 4: to interview with confidence, learning how to brand yourself, spending
Speaker 4: time connecting with other product managers.
Speaker 2: Right, Because as you've.
Speaker 4: Just heard, my first you know, four years I've spent
Speaker 4: as a product manager have come through me just having
Speaker 4: relationships with people who are inside companies looking to hire.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So if I had spent so much more time thinking about,
Speaker 4: oh I don't have these certificates, I might have missed
Speaker 4: out on the opportunity to build relationships, build connections with
Speaker 4: people who could have just gotten me right into an
Speaker 4: interview process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you mentioned branding, and I love talking about
Speaker 3: professional branding for you and I and you went through
Speaker 3: the product gem's course or what was it like a
Speaker 3: program accelerator? You said, right, what were some of the
Speaker 3: turning points for you think in your interview strategy, because
Speaker 3: it sounds to me like that was. Will you tell me,
Speaker 3: you know what was it that finally broke for you
Speaker 3: where you were finally kind of getting those callbacks to
Speaker 3: interviews and eventually getting your you know, your job offer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was. I think it was. There
Speaker 2: were a couple of things.
Speaker 4: I think one of mindset shifts to say, there is
Speaker 4: such a high demand, especially right now for product managers.
Speaker 4: Even if I don't get this one job, rejection is redirection, Right,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna land somewhere else, right that there's just so
Speaker 4: much out here. I think two was through product. I'm
Speaker 4: really learning to apply at scale, right. So I think
Speaker 4: when I was doing it myself, I was trying to
Speaker 4: update my resume every time I was applying a job,
Speaker 4: was trying to be super picky about what I applied to.
Speaker 4: And I really learned through their curriculum how to apply
Speaker 4: at scale so that I could put out twenty five
Speaker 4: applications a day, right, which meant I was getting a
Speaker 4: lot more interviews, right instead of kind of focusing in
Speaker 4: on these like five or so I spending all this
Speaker 4: time focusing on a handful, I'm going to focus on
Speaker 4: twenty five fifty seventy five a week, right, which means
Speaker 4: I have more interviews, more opportunities to land and offer.
Speaker 4: And I think the last thing was really even as
Speaker 4: someone like me who was an experience PM, I really
Speaker 4: had to, I think, redefine and refocus my skills so
Speaker 4: that I was also rising to the top of when
Speaker 4: recruiters were looking for product managers, especially online like LinkedIn right.
Speaker 4: So there were things that I didn't even know that
Speaker 4: I could do, for example with my branding online, like
Speaker 4: to call out a lot of the skills that I had,
Speaker 4: for example on LinkedIn right, and to really like crystallize
Speaker 4: some of the things that I had done and show results,
Speaker 4: because then, I mean, at the peak of when I
Speaker 4: was interviewing, I was receiving in mails from like three
Speaker 4: to five recruiters a day, right, Like, that's how much
Speaker 4: my profile was standing out because I made more of
Speaker 4: the strategic choices around how I talk about myself, how
Speaker 4: I show up, right, how do I just kind of
Speaker 4: really show any recruiter that's timing for product managers that yes,
Speaker 4: I need to be in your interview cycle. So those
Speaker 4: were a lot of things that I learned through Product
Speaker 4: Jim that I definitely feel like I wasn't doing well
Speaker 4: on my own, and I think that's what gave me
Speaker 4: that confidence. That's what kind of gave me that momentum
Speaker 4: again that ultimately helped me land the offer that I landed.
Speaker 4: And you know it, I will say also as part
Speaker 4: of partist gim curriculum is that, hey, getting one offer
Speaker 4: isn't enough, Like it's great to have multiple offers to
Speaker 4: be able leverage against. I mean, I think that's a
Speaker 4: great advice for anyone, right, But I was pretty happy
Speaker 4: with the offer that I received, so I decided not
Speaker 4: to keep interviewing.
Speaker 2: But I remember when I kind of announced.
Speaker 4: Hey, I got this this great offer, one of the
Speaker 4: co founders was like, Okay, are you going to keep interviewing,
Speaker 4: Like because you don't have to stop interviewing, you know,
Speaker 4: like why don't you keep going right? But I think
Speaker 4: for me, I was honestly just kind of ready to
Speaker 4: focus on something else.
Speaker 2: I had been at it for a while. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And also you had the driver of kind of
Speaker 3: being in a situation that you wanted to get out of.
Speaker 3: So I mean, there's all the advice in the world,
Speaker 3: but ultimately it's like sitting down with yourself and do
Speaker 3: I feel ready and is it right for me? And
Speaker 3: I feel like you can never go wrong, you know,
Speaker 3: when you're doing it for what's right for you. Well, Sonia,
Speaker 3: it has been such a pleasure having you on Brown Ambition.
Speaker 3: Thanks for letting me pepper you with questions.
Speaker 2: This is such a great interview.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for your time, and I'm so
Speaker 4: glad that we got to spread this message for more
Speaker 4: women to hear that you know, there is no shame
Speaker 4: and taking control of your career. There's no shame in
Speaker 4: asking for more and getting.
Speaker 3: What you deserve Amen's sister friend. All Right, nine to
Speaker 3: five hotties, thank you so much for listening to this
Speaker 3: interview with Sonia Go to Fly danced on ig check
Speaker 3: her out. Where else can people find you?
Speaker 2: I'm everywhere.
Speaker 4: I'm on ig, TikTok, Twitter, and you can also find
Speaker 4: my website flinance dot com. And yeah, I would love
Speaker 4: to know if you heard me on the Brown Ambitious podcast,
Speaker 4: DM me and let me know.
Speaker 3: Maybe find you on a beach somewhere.
Speaker 1: Chah, wasn't that an awesome throwback? It's such a fun
Speaker 1: trip jam memory lane. Okay, make sure to check out
Speaker 1: Brown and Bish every Monday, Wednesday or Friday because we
Speaker 1: are here.