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Harshita Pathak Microsoft PM IIMB
Harshita Pathak Microsoft PM IIMB
Harshita Pathak Microsoft PM IIMB
Microsoft is definitely one of the dream companies of anyone who wants to get into Product
Management. The whole process of summer preparations culminated into two good months of
enriched learning. As they say, the journey is more important than the destination, Microsoft
definitely is one of those companies that ensure this. They made sure that my intern experience is a
beautiful end to the months of preparations I put in to get there. I not only worked on one of the most
upcoming technologies, but I was also made to feel how my decisions would affect my product’s
direction. But before I delve into that further, let me walk you through my preparation and how I
reached where I did. A very important piece of advice that I would like to give you upfront, is that do
not judge your preparation by your peers and no matter where you are in your preparation, it is never
too late to start.
Preparation Strategy:
If there is anything that preparing for summer internships has taught me, it is that no shoe fits all. But
I do believe most of you will end up going through the phases that I went through sooner or later. If I
had to describe my preparation, it would have to be in phases. The best thing that I would advise you
to do is to breathe through it all, take it one day at a time and the day you get too overwhelmed, take
a break and go outside.
This phase started for me as soon as the resume preparation began. I did some basic hygiene
preparation in every sector like reading up on the latest developments, solving puzzles, collecting
frequently asked questions from seniors. Since I had good grades throughout, most of the seniors
believed that I would get lots of consult shortlists. I had no clue what consulting actually did, but I
knew that all the kids were running behind it. Thus, started my journey to Consult Case Preparations.
The preparation helped me with concepts like MECE (Mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive)
questions. They also made me realize that when you were posed with a question, it wasn’t necessary
to directly looking for solutions; it was equally important to know the finer details and that you could
keep questioning till you gained clarity. The preparations had to be done in groups of 2-3 and finding
common time with people became extremely difficult. I also realized that Consulting and Finance was
something I did not want to pursue at all and once I eliminated them, the amount of pressure reduced
significantly.
As soon as I realized that Consulting and Finance were not something that interested me, I looked at
what it was that I really wanted to do. At this stage, I started going for sessions arranged by seniors
to see what each sector consisted. Going to presentations and seeing the kind of work each type of
role would do also helped me in deciding where was I going to devote my time. While this phase
should have been the shortest, it took me the longest time to realize what it was that I really wanted
to do, what it was that interested me and was not something that resulted from groupthink.
Meanwhile, I continued attending Group Discussions and Mock Interviews to judge how I was going
to approach my preparation. I finally narrowed my interest down to two major fields: Product
Management and Marketing. Now, that I had decided on my areas of interest, I moved to the next
phase.
At the start of each week, I would list down my weekly goals. They ranged from a number of chapters
to complete to form filing deadline. On days I had too many deadlines approaching, I would ease on
the preparations and on days I had time, I would double down. Another thing that helped me
immensely was my calendar. They made sure I did not miss any deadline and I liked this method so
much that I have continued using this for my academics as well. Further, as shortlists started coming
out, my preparation became more and more focused on Product Management and Marketing. I
continued focusing on GDs and Mock Interviews. In order to do better in GDs, I started a GD prep
group in our section which practiced GDs every 3 days across various topics.
Hindsight Insights:
I should have started avoiding people who told me how wonderful their preparation was or how they
weren’t prepared at all. Both kinds of people stressed me and I realize that nothing fruitful came out
of this sort of conversation.
I also believe that I anchored myself around the opinions of my peers and seniors. As they glamorized
the life of a consultant, I weighed my self-worth heavily in terms of how many consulting shortlists I
got. DO NOT DO THAT. YOU ARE YOUR OWN PERSON. I met tons of people who hated their
consulting job and some who loved it more than anything. But again, no shoe fits all.
We were all placed at different places in the room and over the next hour, the moderators came up
to us and discussed with us what we had done so far. At the end of one hour, we were given a minute,
to sum up what we had done. At the end of the day, they sent out an extremely short hotlist and I
believe converted most of the people who they called. My interview next day lasted merely 8 mins
where they told me that they were extremely impressed with the way I had handled the case. I was
asked basic HR questions and voila I was hired.
Pros of my internship:
1. Great work-life balance. I was never overly exhausted. I worked for 8-10 hours and had
plenty of time to do what I loved.
2. The technology was top-notch.
3. People at Microsoft are super helpful, even if they don’t know you.
4. I got to work with a cross-functional team of designers, developers, and design interaction
engineers.
Cons of my internship:
1. Specifically, to my team: I did not have a mentor and wasn’t the case in other teams.
2. A lot of times you would feel like a headless chicken, doing too many things all at once.
As my end my journey with Microsoft, I understood a major thing, it is not the end. Being in one
of the most prestigious colleges of the country has made me realize, sometimes things don’t
work out and that is probably for the best. If you ever face the same, do realize the “Universe
doesn’t make mistakes.”
Harshita Pathak
Program Manager Intern
Microsoft
PGP Class of 2020, IIM-Bangalore
Contact: harshita.pathak18@iimb.ac.in
Mobile: 8870496829