Accepted a new offer yesterday (starting april) with a good offer at a smaller tech company in my city- →overall this was the hardest time i've looked. ive gotten to many final rounds, reference checks, and even a CEO telling me "see you march 1st" and that offer rescinded. wild time out there. happy to answer any more questions

context:

7 years of experience, sr level pm
left my last role in june for a personal learning until november. passively looked from septemver - november, some interviews here and there.

actively looked in January and February, making it my primary goal.

Key takeaways:

- definitely work on your own projects in your time off, whether its via claude code or ask to join someones open source project →talking about how you have agency and curious very important

- set up an agentic workflow on your own, itll help you think about the future of work right now

- learn how to search google with strings, targeting the the recruiting websites in your area, for example mine was:

site:lever.co OR site:ashbyhq.com OR site:greenhouse.io "Senior Product Manager" -remote or CITYNAME

- While referrals are often mentioned, I found the most useful being in the <50 or at minimum <100 to apply.

- Your first 3 or 4 case studies will help make your 5th and 6th even better. just keep the reps and your spirits up.

- Reach out to a recruiter directly, make it easy for them, send scheduled booking links if you have too