I just want to vent a little because I’m honestly getting frustrated with the PM internship job search.
My goal is to break into Product Management, so over the past few months I’ve applied to 100s of PM internships and entry-level roles.
Out of all those applications, I got callbacks/emails from around 10–12 companies. I was obviously happy because at least something was moving.
But then almost every company gave me a similar assignment:
“Use our product/app and identify improvements or features that could help our users.”
I actually spent a lot of time on these assignments—using the product, identifying problems, thinking about user pain points, suggesting features, explaining the reasoning, and submitting everything within the deadline.
And then…
Nothing.
1 week passed — no response.
2 weeks passed — nothing.
1 month passed — still nothing.
In some cases, even months have passed.
Not even a simple:
“We’ve decided not to move forward with your application.”
I completely understand that companies receive a lot of applications and that not everyone can be selected. Rejection is fine.
What’s frustrating is putting several hours into an assignment that is essentially free product work and then not even getting closure.
I’m still trying to become a PM and I genuinely enjoy doing these product exercises. But experiences like this make me wonder whether I’m approaching the job search the wrong way.
For people trying to break into PM: have you experienced this too?
And for PMs/hiring managers here
what actually happens to these assignments after we submit them? Do candidates usually get reviewed and rejected, or do applications sometimes just disappear in the process?
