After advising companies on their digital transformation efforts while at Deloitte Consulting, Karan Gupta (Kenan-Flagler, ’20) came to UNC Kenan-Flagler to focus on product management, and building and bringing products to market. During his first year, Gupta landed a Product Management Internship at Dell, and in our interview, he shared his MBA internship recruiting journey to an internship in Product Management, and his advice for those who are preparing for the Product Management interview process.
MBASchooled: What did you do before business school, and why did you choose to recruit for Product Management?
I was a Technology Consultant with Deloitte. I worked on digital transformation projects for clients in the financial services industry, primarily insurance. I have an engineering background and have a lot of familiarity leading and working with AGILE teams. I wanted to transition into a product driven firm, having worked all my career in implementing products made by other companies.
MBASchooled: What was your recruiting process like? What were the types of interviews?
I interviewed with Dell and Cisco for PM roles. The processes were wildly different. Dell had a very direct interview process – One 30-minute interview on campus, mostly focused on behavioral and strategic questions about the business. With Cisco, it was a two stage process. The interviews focused a lot on cases like market sizing, and product cases. There were also a lot of STAR oriented questions, but asked in a non-direct way. Both firms placed a premium on networking because they are very team oriented and collaborative internally.
MBASchooled: What were some of the challenging aspects of the recruiting process?
Product research was one of the toughest parts. Cisco makes highly technical products and trying to get a good grasp of them by reading 10-Ks and other company reports was a little difficult. Dell had just come back to public markets after a big acquisition and had recently announced a new strategic direction. Both companies also have a large channel based distribution which makes it harder to understand the economics of the business.
It was a very interesting challenge, one where I could draw from a number of MBA classes like Marketing, Operations and Finance to fully understand these businesses.
MBASchooled: How did you prepare for your interviews? What resources were most helpful?
Lots and lots of reading about the company’s products, upcoming launches, competitive dynamics and strategies the firms employ in the market. I did a lot of prep with classmates to get my STAR stories on point for behavioral questions. Product casing was another interesting aspect of the preparation. I got into the habit of looking at everyday objects or even tech products and thinking about how they could be improved, what implications would changes have on their market share etc.
Best Resources – Classmates, Company 10-K and strategy documents
MBASchooled: What did you do during your summer, and what were some of the key learnings?
I interned at Dell over the summer in an internal strategy team focused on data analytics. The most important skill I used over the summer was problem solving in ambiguous situations. As an MBA, managers want to just give us a broad problem. It falls on our training to be able to define and scope the problem, find the right data, identify the right people to talk to and drive towards a solution. Another key learning was around data tools – I used a lot of excel tools and visualization software over the summer.
MBASchooled: What were some of the projects that you worked on?
My project was focused on building an automated tool to give product owners a clear understanding of Dell’s market position. I also built a front-end dashboard which identified the top opportunities across the globe where Dell was lagging the competition across the different products. The dashboard presented a standardized view to the Product Group leadership so they could compare opportunities across product lines, geographies and product attributes in just a few clicks. This shaved off nearly 2 weeks of manual work in every team.
MBASchooled: What from your first year of business school was helpful or relevant to your internship experience?
The biggest thing was learning how to solve unstructured problems. Second, familiarity with excel and analyzing large sets of data was really helpful. Classes like Data Analytics and Decision Making and Consulting Skills and Frameworks were really helpful in both of these things. Some of the experiential learning through the Kenan-Flagler STAR program helped me easily navigate team dynamics and build relationships across the organization.
MBASchooled: What should MBA students who are interested in Product Management do to put themselves in a good position to recruit for Product Management internships?
Thoroughly research the firms you are planning to recruit for. Be familiar with their main products, competitive dynamics and their macro environment. Practice casing and product casing early and well. Casing helps you structure thoughts during an interview, which is a highly desired trait interviewers look for. Don’t forget to lean on and help your classmates – they are your best resource to succeed!
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