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