Speaker 1: Hey, hey, ba fam, it is producer Imani here.
Speaker 2: Yes, finally you.
Speaker 1: Know I can say what's up Mandy and Tiffany. I
Speaker 1: am going rogue? Just kidding, I'm not going rogue, Okay.
Speaker 1: I am just here to let y'all know. It is
Speaker 1: how to Mondays. Everybody who tunes in every Monday for
Speaker 1: a throwback Brown Ambition episode, you are in for a
Speaker 1: special treat this week. It's how to Make six Figures
Speaker 1: in Tech. Make sure you tune into all of Brown
Speaker 1: Ambition episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Enjoy this throwback
Speaker 1: b a fam.
Speaker 3: Hey, hey, hey, be a fam. I cannot wait to
Speaker 3: introduce you to today's guest. She is someone who I
Speaker 3: have been cyberstocking, not in a creepy way, in a
Speaker 3: totally cool way for a long time. I feel like
Speaker 3: she is my nine to five hotty partner in crime.
Speaker 3: She's me. I think we have so much in common
Speaker 3: with the way she's approached her career and her inspirational
Speaker 3: message of how anyone out there, even if you're working
Speaker 3: nine to five, you can still build wealth. I am
Speaker 3: so happy to welcome Sonia to the show. Sania founded Flyinance,
Speaker 3: which is an online platform dedicated to helping ambitious working women,
Speaker 3: who she calls nine to five hotties, effortlessly build wealth
Speaker 3: and say yes to more travel. She's a product manager
Speaker 3: and she's worked at major companies like AMX and MasterCard,
Speaker 3: and she has grown her salary four x in just
Speaker 3: four years, became debt free, and managed to reach one
Speaker 3: hundred K net worth by the tender age of twenty
Speaker 3: six years old. Her story has been featured everywhere from
Speaker 3: GMA to CNBC and now she's on Brown Ambition. So
Speaker 3: now you've made it, Okay, I know GMA is like cool,
Speaker 3: Come on, it's Brown Ambition for Legends right now.
Speaker 2: That's a sad I'm jan girling very hard inside. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Mady.
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 drum 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? How old are you?
Speaker 2: If you don't mind, I'm twenty seven right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're a few years younger. It was around
Speaker 3: my 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 not want
Speaker 3: to make money? And I remember thinking, listen, I tell stories.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go for it. And I managed to quit
Speaker 3: and increase my wealth along the way. But yeah, it
Speaker 3: wasn't like the traditional traditional career trajectory or the traditional
Speaker 3: industry you would think you could build wealth in. Now
Speaker 3: you chose tech or did you tell me a little
Speaker 3: bit about your career journey where you started and when
Speaker 3: you started to realize, oh, I can quit and actually
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: 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 girl 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.
Speaker 2: About, so I really spent more time.
Speaker 4: I would say as I became, you know, a bit
Speaker 4: more comfortable with my career my skill sets, to say, hey,
Speaker 4: I can take the skills that I have as a
Speaker 4: product manager even though I've only ever worked at big banks,
Speaker 4: and turned that into a career in tech. So I
Speaker 4: would say that, you know, my my pathway from graduating
Speaker 4: school in twenty seventeen to today has been very serendipitous.
Speaker 4: I've leaned very heavily on my network and really just
Speaker 4: kind of putting myself out there for opportunities and to
Speaker 4: the question around, you know, how I've known when to
Speaker 4: make these strategic jumps. Honestly, it's been like a gut feeling, right,
Speaker 4: And we can definitely talk more about this, But I
Speaker 4: think for me, even as a young black woman, very
Speaker 4: rarely was I ever encouraged to leave a job.
Speaker 2: 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 at a
Speaker 4: lot of that, you know, a lot of that language
Speaker 4: around kind of almost like kind of wanting to shame
Speaker 4: me for wanting to make these kind of decisions.
Speaker 3: This go ahead, okay, young blood, go ahead, you're gonna leave,
Speaker 3: You'll come back?
Speaker 2: Literally?
Speaker 4: No, literally literally that I feel like that was definitely
Speaker 4: that was definitely the energy. But I think for me,
Speaker 4: especially around twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, when I first started
Speaker 4: to learn about financial freedom and the Fire movement, I
Speaker 4: really saw myself being someone that could take advantage of
Speaker 4: that lifestyle of being able to grow my income keep
Speaker 4: 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 say,
Speaker 4: m 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. I loved it.
Speaker 4: I absolutely loved it, but there was definitely no immediate
Speaker 4: professional ROI right, It's like most of my most of
Speaker 4: my peers who major in Africana studies are you know,
Speaker 4: obtaining PhDs right now.
Speaker 3: Or or work academics. They want to teach them and
Speaker 3: be in academia forever.
Speaker 2: Literally.
Speaker 4: I feel like most of my peers went like the
Speaker 4: Melan maze academia academia away, and then a few of
Speaker 4: us kind of went into more like social justice 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 and then
Speaker 4: graduate school.
Speaker 2: Actually did a one year master's my Masters of Sciences
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 4: kind of shying away from you know, more quant heavy subjects.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I was an Africata sci major, So I think that
Speaker 4: master's program really kind of gave me that confidence to say, hey, yeah,
Speaker 4: I can do excel. I can you know I can
Speaker 4: read financial charts, which I think really helped me pivot
Speaker 4: and land at an American Express as my first job.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's wonderful because a lot of people,
Speaker 3: I mean, I do a lot of career coaching, and
Speaker 3: a lot of women maybe they study something and they
Speaker 3: or they have experience in a certain field and they
Speaker 3: want to pivot into a new one. So for sure,
Speaker 3: I mean, talk to me about the interview process. When
Speaker 3: with you with your Africana studies background. Did you go
Speaker 3: back to get your MBA because you were struggling to
Speaker 3: find work or was that just part of the plan.
Speaker 3: You know, this will help me as I interview yeah.
Speaker 4: So, well, when I was a senior in college, I
Speaker 4: had no idea what I wanted to do professionally. Right,
Speaker 4: I went to this really great school, I went to Barnard.
Speaker 4: I was at this really great school, but had no
Speaker 4: job offer, 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.
Speaker 2: Or I can.
Speaker 4: See, hey, there are a lot of At that time,
Speaker 4: there were a lot of these programs kind of popping
Speaker 4: up at Duke wake Forest and other kind of business schools,
Speaker 4: kind of giving people like me non traditional backgrounds, lower
Speaker 4: arts backgrounds, and opportunity to break sort of speak, break
Speaker 4: into more 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 served a full ride fellowship and then too 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
Speaker 4: interviewing I was interviewing for a lot of rotational associate
Speaker 4: programs at that time because I felt like I had
Speaker 4: a lot of skills and didn't really see myself narrowly
Speaker 4: fitting into one right now, in hindsight, I wish someone
Speaker 4: would 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 and be in
Speaker 4: that 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. I
Speaker 4: casted a really wide net. My master's program was done
Speaker 4: at WAKE four, so I was in Winston Sdale and
Speaker 4: North Carolina.
Speaker 2: I did not love it down there, so I was.
Speaker 4: Pretty much putting out increes connections my resume to as
Speaker 4: many companies in the New York area as I could,
Speaker 4: and how I had landed up at AMX was actually
Speaker 4: through networking. I met a lot of different people across AMMEX,
Speaker 4: but one person in particular, we really built a really
Speaker 4: great relationship, and it just so happened around the time
Speaker 4: that I was about to graduate from my master's program.
Speaker 4: I really needed a job. She made her own personal
Speaker 4: decision to leave AMEX and to leave New York City,
Speaker 4: and she recommended me for her job. So that is
Speaker 4: literally how I ended up on a product management team,
Speaker 4: on a high profile product management team at American Express.
Speaker 4: Is my first job by networking, hustling, building relationships and
Speaker 4: 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 like obsessed with doing things
Speaker 3: on a certain schedule, it's very uncomfortable for you. But
Speaker 3: it's it's hard to articulate that too. That you have
Speaker 3: to put your best foot forward, like you said, the
Speaker 3: build those relationships, but then you got to wait for
Speaker 3: an opportunity, right, and a little bit of is luck
Speaker 3: and how wonderful that someone was able to kind of
Speaker 3: put you in that position for success. Now I'm sure
Speaker 3: that she recommended you, but she still had to interview
Speaker 3: for the job right and get in the door. So
Speaker 3: I mean, congrats to you for that. When you so
Speaker 3: going from kind of liberal arts to sitting down at
Speaker 3: a financial services company, 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
Speaker 4: more So I end up graduating the top of my
Speaker 4: class for my master's program, was inducted into Beta Gama Sigma,
Speaker 4: which is a business honors society.
Speaker 2: So I my studies really seriously.
Speaker 4: I really took that year really seriously to learn and
Speaker 4: absorb as much as I could. And I think as
Speaker 4: a result, when I got to financial services, got to
Speaker 4: AMES and here I was doing analytics.
Speaker 2: Right, I was in Excel. I was you know, having to.
Speaker 4: Create really educating create stories for my team around the
Speaker 4: data that was coming back from our car members Like
Speaker 4: 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 4: I think one being really sad for success, but I
Speaker 4: was also extremely lucky to land on a team where
Speaker 4: I had really strong leaders and women leaders who really
Speaker 4: were invested in me being successful, right, who mentored me
Speaker 4: and said, yeah, I know, this is your first corporate job,
Speaker 4: and this is how you can do things right.
Speaker 2: This is the brand and.
Speaker 4: The culture at AMEX, and this is how you can
Speaker 4: show up and show your best self right, And that
Speaker 4: really helped me. Right, Even as I think about my
Speaker 4: experience as a young black professional at AMES and the
Speaker 4: short amount of time that I was there, I think
Speaker 4: I was able to get promotions and have really high
Speaker 4: profile opportunities because I had such strong leadership and strong
Speaker 4: mentorship and sponsorship. Right that, as I looked at some
Speaker 4: of my other peers, who were just as intelligent as me,
Speaker 4: just as capable as me, not having those pieces, especially
Speaker 4: in a corporate culture like AMEX, I think kind of
Speaker 4: kept them from I think getting some of the markers
Speaker 4: of achievement and success that I think.
Speaker 2: That they were really owed.
Speaker 4: So I would say the transition wasn't it wasn't too tough,
Speaker 4: but there was definitely a learning curve, as there is
Speaker 4: any time you 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 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the tip from that is put yourself out there
Speaker 4: for any and all opportunities. So, I mean the opportunity
Speaker 4: that allowed me to get a full ride fellowship to
Speaker 4: get my master's program actually goes back to even when
Speaker 4: I was applying to colleges in high school. I was
Speaker 4: that 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.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I ended up getting an internship one year in
Speaker 4: college through that network, and they were also partnering with
Speaker 4: the wake Forest School of Business to promote this new
Speaker 4: program and promote the fellowship. So when I saw that
Speaker 4: it's like free ride, y'all gonna pay for my room
Speaker 4: and board and I can get a master's Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: So that's what I did.
Speaker 4: And I I had the delusional confidence that I was exact,
Speaker 4: I was going to be picked right like. I went
Speaker 4: into my interview saying, when I am a corporate fellow
Speaker 4: for this program, these are the people I want to
Speaker 4: sponsor me, right like. And I think that confidence and
Speaker 4: I think my my persistence, I think is what helped
Speaker 4: me get that. Right So, I think the tip there
Speaker 4: is anytime you see an opportunity, don't be afraid to
Speaker 4: go for it. Right. I think, especially as women, as
Speaker 4: women of color, especially as Black women, we receive so
Speaker 4: many messages that tell us we're not worthy enough, we're
Speaker 4: not capable enough. But I think I've always kind of
Speaker 4: kept with myself that, hey, if I see something that's
Speaker 4: that's out there that speaks to me, I'm going to
Speaker 4: put myself out there because I never know what can
Speaker 4: come out of it. Right, My seventeen year old self
Speaker 4: set my twenty one, twenty two, and now twenty seven
Speaker 4: year old self up for so much success, and she
Speaker 4: didn't even know it back then.
Speaker 3: Oh, baby, Sania, thanks baby, said to her, all right,
Speaker 3: another thing that I was thinking, Well, 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 it is because I think
Speaker 3: you and I both agree that when you quit jobs,
Speaker 3: there is that perception that you know or You're often
Speaker 3: told 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.
Speaker 2: Me in a position to win.
Speaker 4: I think it's it started to conflict with my holistic
Speaker 4: vision of what I had for myself, and that was
Speaker 4: to become more financially sound.
Speaker 2: That was to start building wealth.
Speaker 4: That was to have more money so that I could
Speaker 4: get over some of the financial challenges that I felt
Speaker 4: like I was kind of in. Right, So twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: I've now had spent a year working full time, and
Speaker 4: I was fucking my money up, right. I was that
Speaker 4: girl that was just kind of like, yeah, it's okay,
Speaker 4: I have my first set of credit cards.
Speaker 2: I'm just online, you know. Yeah, I was bretting really hard.
Speaker 2: I was ubering really hard at these were the days
Speaker 2: of uberpool. Oo 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, I have this decent salary, I have
Speaker 4: 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 send me a small loan of ten thousand dollars
Speaker 4: to pay off these credit cards? Like it just wasn't
Speaker 4: It wasn't a thing, right, So that was a big
Speaker 4: wake up call for me, Right, Yeah, that was a
Speaker 4: big wake up call for me.
Speaker 3: It was about ten thousand dollars of credit card debt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had.
Speaker 4: I one summer I put myself in ten thousand dollars
Speaker 4: a credit card debt.
Speaker 3: So, wow, tell you girl, was living really good? Did
Speaker 3: you take a vacation.
Speaker 2: I was traveling, I was seeing out.
Speaker 4: I was going to Polo Classic, buying one hundred dollars
Speaker 4: bottles of Bilfleco.
Speaker 2: Like I was living. Okay, I was living.
Speaker 4: I was living right, I can say that now, but
Speaker 4: I mean in the moment, I had a lot of
Speaker 4: aim around it, right, like I had a lot of
Speaker 4: shame around around my money.
Speaker 2: Mistake.
Speaker 3: You were tender swindling yourself pretty much. But then Whinler
Speaker 3: that summer. Wait, 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 gig out
Speaker 3: of college. I was making at all. Well, you got
Speaker 3: about I got about eight years on you. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I came into I came to Manhattan making forty five k.
Speaker 3: But my problem was I had it. I'm from Georgia,
Speaker 3: and I had a Georgian mentality about salary. So I
Speaker 3: thought forty five k I was like maybe I made it.
Speaker 3: I'm here. Uh but now don't worry my, my, My
Speaker 3: expectations are definitely on the New York level. Now, all right,
Speaker 3: ba fam, let's take a quick break. This is brown ambition,
Speaker 3: all right, ba fam, we are back. All right, So
Speaker 3: you had this debt, you were still making a decent salary.
Speaker 3: But was the was your career move purely about Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to increase my earnings and I can't get
Speaker 3: it quickly enough here at am I, So I'm gonna
Speaker 3: 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 the story, right, I wanted to set the scene though, Right,
Speaker 4: 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 like the credit card debt that
Speaker 4: I mentioned, I also did have some student loan debt
Speaker 4: from from my years in school, right that I was
Speaker 4: kind of like, this isn't like a super big deal,
Speaker 4: but for me, I'm an overachiever. I want to become
Speaker 4: debt free, like I want to be able to have
Speaker 4: that major bump to my net worth growth. So this
Speaker 4: is twenty nineteen and now twenty twenties approaching. Obviously had
Speaker 4: no idea what was around the corner. But at the
Speaker 4: beginning of twenty twenty, I'm like, Okay, I want to
Speaker 4: set a really ambitious goal for myself of paying off
Speaker 4: 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. It's going to
Speaker 4: be a stretch. I'm actually probably short some so I
Speaker 4: need to make more money. You know, I'm doing great
Speaker 4: work at AMS. I'm working on 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.
Speaker 2: Oh well ah.
Speaker 4: But I think also the writing was on the wall,
Speaker 4: right that I could see other professionals, even on my team, right,
Speaker 4: who had kind of matriculated even before me, that they
Speaker 4: were not being hunted down for promotions, right. So I
Speaker 4: also had this sense my own self awareness to say, Sis,
Speaker 4: the longer that you stay here, the longer.
Speaker 2: These people are going to pay with your money.
Speaker 4: Right, Like, it's like all of those things that you
Speaker 4: were talking about in terms of this idea about loyalty,
Speaker 4: this idea around like paying your dues, this idea of oh,
Speaker 4: we need to make sure that the people who are
Speaker 4: more senior get their chance, right, headcount can only go
Speaker 4: so far. All of those things were embedded into the
Speaker 4: culture at AMEX, and I just kind of realized, like,
Speaker 4: I want to make more money, not just for money's sake,
Speaker 4: but because I want to become debt free because I
Speaker 4: know that I now feel like I had the skills
Speaker 4: to be able to put this money to good use
Speaker 4: for my future self. And also I just feel like
Speaker 4: it's time, Right I'd spent three and a half years
Speaker 4: at AMEX, I felt like there's more out there again
Speaker 4: leaned on networks, right. So I ended up actually landing
Speaker 4: my next job at MasterCard through a connection that I
Speaker 4: had at Columbia. I went to Columbia for undergrad a
Speaker 4: fellow alum her team was hiring. They were looking for
Speaker 4: someone with my expertise, a product manager, ideally a woman
Speaker 4: of color who had my financial services background, I interviewed.
Speaker 4: The interview process was really smooth, and literally got my
Speaker 4: offer a week before New York City went into shutdown.
Speaker 4: So I like to say that I was one of
Speaker 4: the first people to create the exodus that has now
Speaker 4: happened at AMEX, especially amongst professionals of color. I was
Speaker 4: probably one of the very first people to leave AMEX
Speaker 4: and the pandemic because I ended up putting my two
Speaker 4: weeks in right at the end of March twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: And for me, it wasn't just again, it wasn't just
Speaker 4: purely about the money piece, right. I knew I was
Speaker 4: leaving behind all these great relationships, but it was also
Speaker 4: just like I had this gut feeling that I wanted
Speaker 4: to do something else. And you know, I feel like
Speaker 4: I'd heard this idea all the time, Right, you have
Speaker 4: to be the driver of your own career, you have
Speaker 4: to be in the driver's seat, And I just felt
Speaker 4: this urge to say, this is.
Speaker 2: 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 4: What do I have to lose, right, and it was
Speaker 4: 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 at the end of the day. Is it
Speaker 3: 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: bounce right back off, bounce right back because you have,
Speaker 3: you know, this foundation of success yourself. Now I want
Speaker 3: to ask you what was the pay jump, because I
Speaker 3: love I feel like any anytime we can like share
Speaker 3: how much of a jump we made by quitting, it's
Speaker 3: powerful because I mean, in my experience, maybe you can
Speaker 3: agree with me, we'll see. But the biggest pay raise
Speaker 3: is come when you.
Speaker 4: Are ready to leave and move to an absolutany I
Speaker 4: totally agree with that, Mandy. Yeah, so when I left Amex,
Speaker 4: I was making just under one hundred thousand dollars, I
Speaker 4: was making around like ninety nine thousand some change. By
Speaker 4: joining MasterCard on the team that I was on again
Speaker 4: also being a product manager, which is seen as more technical,
Speaker 4: therefore more strategic and worth more, I increase my base
Speaker 4: salary by thirty two thousand dollars, and then when I
Speaker 4: kind of throw in the fact that I also got
Speaker 4: a bonus at the end of that year, in total,
Speaker 4: I ended up earning an additional fifty thousand dollars by
Speaker 4: 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. I pretty much just asked
Speaker 4: for what I want. I think the initial offer was
Speaker 4: maybe like eight or ten thousand dollars short of the
Speaker 4: number that I actually ended up landing on, So that
Speaker 4: came from negotiating. And I think I was also able
Speaker 4: to negotiate a sign on because you know my thing,
Speaker 4: Because I have also been pretty fortunate to kind of
Speaker 4: always leave jobs right before bonuses are paid out. I
Speaker 4: always use that as an opportunity to negotiate for more
Speaker 4: cash in my pocket. So I think I ended up
Speaker 4: leaving AMEX right before my bonus was paid out and
Speaker 4: kind of used that number to say, Hey, MasterCard, I
Speaker 4: really want to sign this offer, but I need this
Speaker 4: money right So, and that's actually the same tactic that
Speaker 4: I used again when I now join my current employer
Speaker 4: in tech, to say, Hey, if I leave MasterCard, I'm
Speaker 4: leaving behind twenty nine thousand dollars. What can you guys
Speaker 4: do to bring this in the offer? And that's how
Speaker 4: I was able to negotiate in this current job a
Speaker 4: twenty nine thousand dollars sign on bonus that was not
Speaker 4: even on the table initially, right. So for me negotiating,
Speaker 4: I've always been like, really stern on just getting my
Speaker 4: base salary up, Like I haven't really negotiated for other
Speaker 4: perks like PTO DA's and things like that. I've kind
Speaker 4: of always just kind of been happy with the packages
Speaker 4: that I've received on that front. But I've always been
Speaker 4: trying to just get more cash into my bottom line,
Speaker 4: whether that's through my base or through a sign on bonus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hells 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 esecially for
Speaker 3: leaving at the beginning of the year, and those bonuses
Speaker 3: don't pay out till March. Don't let that keep you stuck.
Speaker 3: Don't let that came stock that car, or if it's equity,
Speaker 3: or even if it's your unvested you know, four one
Speaker 3: k matches. Add it all up, baby, and then ask
Speaker 3: for it as a sign on bonus. I love that
Speaker 3: you did that, and it gets easier each time. You know,
Speaker 3: the fact that you were the fact that you've even
Speaker 3: been able to ask this early in your career should
Speaker 3: be inspiring to anyone listening that. And I too was
Speaker 3: asking very early in my career and I was hearing no,
Speaker 3: or if I was hearing yes, it maybe was a
Speaker 3: couple thousand or this or that. It wasn't anything crazy,
Speaker 3: but it made me prepared and you will be too
Speaker 3: for those days when then you're when you're walking away
Speaker 3: like I have with like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: you know, signing bonus or equity grant like that's it's
Speaker 3: all about practicing and getting the in the habit of asking,
Speaker 3: because I will you agree that it's still stressful and
Speaker 3: it's still like do you 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. Right, So I
Speaker 4: think for me, I am even a testament of how
Speaker 4: we talk about this all the time, how the new
Speaker 4: generation goes about things, how millennials go about things because
Speaker 4: I think even the women and my family are so
Speaker 4: inspired by When I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna leave this
Speaker 4: company and I'm going to negotiate for more, They're just like, more.
Speaker 2: Power 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 fire 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. Let's go. Yes, it's not too late,
Speaker 3: So I do follow you on the tiki talking and
Speaker 3: I know that you like to travel. Now, I was
Speaker 3: looking at your TikTok and I know one of my
Speaker 3: one of my favorite posts. You always post these like
Speaker 3: gorgeous you know, scenes of you and I'm beautiful. I
Speaker 3: got to ask where you get your swimwear at because
Speaker 3: you're always looking fly. I guess it's why you go
Speaker 3: buy fly, nanst. I get it. But you tell a
Speaker 3: story on one of your viral tiktoks. How about a
Speaker 3: year and a half into the pandemic October twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: you were suffering from depression and feeling like you were
Speaker 3: in a toxic work environment, and also you were job hunting.
Speaker 3: Can you take me to that time and tell me
Speaker 3: what was going on in your career and how you
Speaker 3: were able to move through 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.
Speaker 2: And really just started.
Speaker 4: To feel like I was not appreciated like I was
Speaker 4: not really receiving the development that I wanted to see
Speaker 4: in my career. That I was essentially being siloed and stifled.
Speaker 4: Whether that was intentional or not, but you know, I
Speaker 4: kind of came and expecting one thing about how this
Speaker 4: job was going to look, and by I would say,
Speaker 4: by by mid twenty twenty one, it was kind of
Speaker 4: clear to me that if I did not take the
Speaker 4: reins over my career, I was either going to.
Speaker 2: Get pushed out or worse.
Speaker 4: And I think that was kind of like a wake
Speaker 4: up call for me. I'd never really experienced that in
Speaker 4: my career, so here I was feeling like, one, I
Speaker 4: definitely want a new job, but two, I also want
Speaker 4: more freedom and flexibility. I had spent three months living
Speaker 4: remotely intu Loom in twenty twenty one, and that gave
Speaker 4: me such a taste of the lifestyle that I want.
Speaker 4: I am someone who wants to be location independent, who
Speaker 4: sees myself living overseas and retiring early overseas. So I
Speaker 4: think to have that experience was such an eye opener
Speaker 4: for the type of job that I need to be
Speaker 4: able to experience that and that kind of sacrifice. And
Speaker 4: then at the same time, I was job hunting, which
Speaker 4: anyone of us knows it can feel like a second job.
Speaker 4: So here, I was dealing with a lot of toxicity
Speaker 4: in my nine to five. That's paying my bills, right.
Speaker 4: I don't have the option to quit my job because
Speaker 4: I don't want to necessarily rely on my savings. I
Speaker 4: don't necessarily want to put myself under that pressure. But
Speaker 4: the same time, job hunting, it took me a lot
Speaker 4: longer than I thought.
Speaker 2: Right here, I.
Speaker 4: Am a qualified product manager. I have all these great
Speaker 4: companies my resume. What's not clicking, Steven right, I was
Speaker 4: 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 2: It was very humbling.
Speaker 4: I knew that I knew that I was suffering room
Speaker 4: depression because I couldn't get out of bed. I'd started
Speaker 4: having just like apathy towards all the things I enjoyed doing. Right,
Speaker 4: I wasn't posting as much on Flinance. I was honestly
Speaker 4: burnt out right from trying to travel, create work a
Speaker 4: nine to five job hunt. It was just was way
Speaker 4: too much on my plate. So kind of what started
Speaker 4: to shift for me is one I had to seek
Speaker 4: out a new therapist. I just had to get new
Speaker 4: help too. I had to change up my career strategy.
Speaker 4: I realized, maybe I can't do this by myself, maybe
Speaker 4: I need support, right, So I ended up investing in
Speaker 4: a career accelerator called product Gym to really kind of
Speaker 4: help me create a new strategy and build up some
Speaker 4: more confidence when it came to interviewing and kind of
Speaker 4: telling my story. And then I just had to kind
Speaker 4: of keep the ground running, right. I took a break.
Speaker 4: I took like two and a half weeks where I
Speaker 4: just didn't do anything. I did not apply to any jobs.
Speaker 4: I just was kind of like, let me just do
Speaker 4: my job and I'm going to just spend the rest
Speaker 4: of the time just resting and focusing on me. And
Speaker 4: I came back with a vengeance and then ended up
Speaker 4: applying to literally about one hundred and fifty jobs in
Speaker 4: a like three week span. One of those jobs ended
Speaker 4: up being the job that I have now. So I
Speaker 4: ended up receiving my offer in December twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: and you know, I would say that every day it
Speaker 4: started to get easier. I think as I started to
Speaker 4: really see some real traction in my 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, offer that I accepted
Speaker 4: in the job that I have now was my dream offer.
Speaker 4: I know that because I tweeted. I'd like, put out
Speaker 4: a tweet saying I am manifesting this. I think I said,
Speaker 4: I wanted like one hundred and sixty thousand dollars fully
Speaker 4: remote PM job if I'm limited PTO and equity, and
Speaker 4: I got that and then some and the offer that
Speaker 4: I ended up landing. So WHOA I would say last
Speaker 4: year was definitely a not only a test of my
Speaker 4: patience and humility, but also a test of my resilience
Speaker 4: to say, this too shall pass and it's going to
Speaker 4: get better, and you can rest, but you cannot quit, right,
Speaker 4: There's so much more that's out there that you're deserving of.
Speaker 4: So let's rest, let's take breaks, but let's keep going, right,
Speaker 4: because imagine if I if I you know, if I
Speaker 4: had stopped, if I had stopped my progress, I would
Speaker 4: have kept myself from all this 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 you,
Speaker 3: and I have to tell them a lot too, is
Speaker 3: it's the most challenging I think when you are at
Speaker 3: a certain level in your career to find your next opportunity,
Speaker 3: and it takes a lot longer it can because those
Speaker 3: opportunities are not they're fewer and further but right, they're
Speaker 3: also a bit more competitive. And at that point, your
Speaker 3: standards are higher, so you're not ready. You do have
Speaker 3: like you, for example, you wanted something that was fully remote,
Speaker 3: you want a certain salary range. So though you know,
Speaker 3: it does take time, and I think even adjusting your
Speaker 3: own expectations for how long this journey may take. And
Speaker 3: then and there's so many women who I've looked at
Speaker 3: on the other end of a you know, a zoom
Speaker 3: call during coaching sessions, and I've said, you have got
Speaker 3: to take a break, because even I can feel your
Speaker 3: tired energy, your your lethargy, your depression like it's coming
Speaker 3: through and it's hard to sparkle and shine and attract
Speaker 3: a new opportunity in an interview when you are carrying
Speaker 3: that energy with you. And I think it's a tough
Speaker 3: pill to swallow for a lot of people. But I
Speaker 3: love that you recognize that. Okay, I've got to like
Speaker 3: take a deep breath, you know, take time, pause, pour
Speaker 3: back into yourself so that you could go back fighting.
Speaker 3: You know. Definitely you mentioned a program that you join.
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 3: Product Gems? What is Tell me more about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So product Gym 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.
Speaker 2: So why I ended up landing.
Speaker 4: There is because I knew I didn't necessarily need general
Speaker 4: career coaching. I knew exactly what I wanted, I knew
Speaker 4: exactly where I wanted to be, But I really felt
Speaker 4: like there weren't really many resources out there that were
Speaker 4: kind of giving me that specific coaching around how do
Speaker 4: you win at these product manager interviews, which if anyone
Speaker 4: is out there looking for product manager jobs, you know
Speaker 4: that it's its own ethos, it's its own culture as
Speaker 4: it relates to, you know, being able to kind of
Speaker 4: navigate those interview processes. So it was it was a
Speaker 4: pretty significant investment, but I think it was a worthwhile
Speaker 4: one because it really gave me the confidence, the clarity,
Speaker 4: and that push to say, okay, 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, I've heard worse.
Speaker 2: I know. That's about kind of great.
Speaker 3: People may not know. So for those who are listening
Speaker 3: and who have heard and seen Sonia and others, especially
Speaker 3: on TikTok, you know, really speaking about the possibilities in
Speaker 3: product management to find for people who are listening, what
Speaker 3: is a product manager? And then you mentioned the particulars
Speaker 3: of the interview process. Any tips that you can share
Speaker 3: for how to navigate that or what maybe there are
Speaker 3: what's different about applying 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.
Speaker 2: For their subset of users.
Speaker 4: So as a product manager, you could be owning any
Speaker 4: type of products.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: 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. I own the American Express Gold card.
Speaker 4: So what that meant is every step of that customer
Speaker 4: journey from someone applying for this car, through using it
Speaker 4: and even as they consider closing that account. Right, As
Speaker 4: a product manager, I was thinking about all the steps
Speaker 4: in that process deliver the best customer experience. I would
Speaker 4: say when it comes to interviewing for product management jobs,
Speaker 4: especially if you don't have that true PM experience, I
Speaker 4: think think about any time that you have been able
Speaker 4: to either create something from scratch or significantly improve a process,
Speaker 4: and what were those outcomes. That's what a product manager
Speaker 4: is doing. So, whether you've worked in a classroom, you've
Speaker 4: worked in healthcare, you worked in social services, you worked
Speaker 4: in other types of business, I think we all can
Speaker 4: think about those moments where we've said, hey, there's something
Speaker 4: really wrong with this process. Here's how I would improve it.
Speaker 4: Here's how I'm going to improve it, and here are
Speaker 4: the outcomes. I think the more that you have those
Speaker 4: examples to be able to speak to even if you
Speaker 4: don't have this quote unquote PM true experience, I think
Speaker 4: that's what many of the hiring managers that are ying
Speaker 4: for product managers are looking for. Can you really kind
Speaker 4: of dig your hands into something that might be complex
Speaker 4: or it might be kind of broken, offer new solutions
Speaker 4: and then be able to create a new 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. How would you approach the scenario
Speaker 4: right where you don't necessarily have to be able to
Speaker 4: create or build something from scratch. You don't have to
Speaker 4: be able to explain code, but can you explain how
Speaker 4: you would approach a situation and how you would bring
Speaker 4: your skills to the situation. There are plenty of business
Speaker 4: product 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 you know, new or difficult situations. And I
Speaker 4: think that's what's kind of kept me going on this
Speaker 4: process and 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. Right, So, if you are looking
Speaker 4: for job descriptions that are not mentioning PMP, they're not
Speaker 4: mentioning any certifications you don't necessarily want to be a
Speaker 4: technical product owner, for example, then it may not be
Speaker 4: worth your time, Right, it might be it might be
Speaker 4: better to invest that time in learning how to interview
Speaker 4: with confidence, learning how to brand yourself, spending time connecting
Speaker 4: with other product managers. Right, because as you've just heard
Speaker 4: my first you know, four years I spent as a
Speaker 4: product manager have come through me just having relationships with
Speaker 4: 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 gems course or what was it like a
Speaker 3: program curriculum accelerator? You said, right, what were some of
Speaker 3: the turning points for you you think in your interview strategy,
Speaker 3: because it sounds to me like that was Will you
Speaker 3: tell me, you know, what was it that finally broke
Speaker 3: for you where you were finally kind of hitting those callbacks?
Speaker 3: To interviews and eventually getting your you know, your job offer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 4: I think was there a couple of things. I think
Speaker 4: one of mindset shift to say, there is such a
Speaker 4: high demand, especially right now for product managers.
Speaker 2: Even if I.
Speaker 4: Don't get this one job, re 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 to jobs,
Speaker 4: 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 was spending all
Speaker 4: this time focusing on a handful.
Speaker 2: I'm going to focus on twenty.
Speaker 4: Five fifty seventy five a week, right, which means I
Speaker 4: have more interviews, more opportunities to land and offer. And
Speaker 4: I think the last thing was really even as someone
Speaker 4: like me who was an experienced PM, I really had to,
Speaker 4: I think, redefine and ref I guess 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 and on LinkedIn right, and to really like
Speaker 4: crystallize some of the things that I had done and
Speaker 4: show results because then, I mean, at the peak of
Speaker 4: when I was interviewing, I was probably receiving in mails
Speaker 4: from like three to five recruiters a day, right, Like
Speaker 4: that's how much my profile was standing out because I'd
Speaker 4: made more of these strategic choices around how I talk
Speaker 4: about myself, how I show up right, how do I
Speaker 4: just kind of really show any recruiter that's timing for
Speaker 4: product managers that yes, I need to be in your
Speaker 4: interview cycle. So those are a lot of things that
Speaker 4: I learned through Product Jim that I definitely feel like
Speaker 4: I wasn't doing well on my own, and I think
Speaker 4: that's what gave me that confidence, That's what kind of
Speaker 4: gave me that momentum again that ultimately helped me land
Speaker 4: the offer that I landed, and you know it. I
Speaker 4: will say also as part of partisan curriculum is that, hey,
Speaker 4: getting one offer isn't enough, Like it's great to have
Speaker 4: multiple offers to be able leverage against. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think that's great advice for anyone, right, But I was
Speaker 4: pretty happy with the offer that I received, so I
Speaker 4: decided not to keep interviewing. But I remember when I
Speaker 4: kind of announced, hey, I got this this great offer,
Speaker 4: one of the co founders was like, Okay, are you
Speaker 4: going to keep interviewing? Like because you don't have to
Speaker 4: stop interviewing, you know, like why don't you keep going?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: But I think for me, I was honestly just kind
Speaker 4: of ready to focus on someone 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: in taking control of your career. There's no shame in
Speaker 4: asking for more and getting what you deserve.
Speaker 3: Aymen's sister friend. All right, nine to five hotties, thank
Speaker 3: you so much for listening to this interview with Sania.
Speaker 3: Go to fly nanced on ig check her out. Where
Speaker 3: 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 2: DM me and let me know.
Speaker 3: Maybe find you on a beach somewhere