u/unsouled06

Hey everyone! I have an interview scheduled for the role of Product Marketing Manager, and while I have 8 years of experience across branding and marketing, are there any specific questions that I should definitely prepare for?

I really WANT to crack this interview as I am unemployed as of now, and you already know how the job market is. Plus, this role fits perfectly into my career plans. Plus, it's a startup with good funding, and I love their product (caters to both B2B and D2C).

Please guide. The interview is on Monday, and so far I have covered all the marketing & branding questions along with generic ones. Just wondering if I have left out anything.

I’ve been looking for a full-time marketing role for the last 3 months, and honestly, I’m struggling to understand what I’m doing wrong.

I’m targeting Marketing Manager, Brand Manager, Product Marketing, Marketing Operations, and adjacent marketing roles. I have 8+ years of experience across brand, content, creative operations, social media, campaigns, and account management.

Here’s the context behind my career gap:

I left my last full-time role in October 2023. I was working as a Brand Manager at an ed-tech company, but over time, the expectations of my role were shifting heavily toward graphic design. The environment had also become quite toxic. Around 6 months into the role, I was getting married and asked for 2 weeks off after having not taken a single day off since joining. The request was declined, and I ultimately decided to leave without another offer in hand.

Soon after, I got pregnant. I continued interviewing throughout that period and was actually close to closing an offer when I met with an accident and unfortunately lost the pregnancy. I informed the HR about what had happened, and the offer was immediately withdrawn.

I spent the following months recovering, both physically and mentally. Eventually, I picked up a freelance project through a friend. It was a good way to ease myself back into work, and over time, freelancing became consistent. I worked on multiple projects across brand, content and marketing.

Three months ago, I wrapped up my freelance commitments because I wanted to return to a full-time role.

And that’s where things have become frustrating.

I’ve sent hundreds of applications. I’ve received a handful of rejections, but mostly… silence.

I’ve:

* Reworked my resume multiple times
* Spoken to career counsellors
* Changed the roles I target
* Changed my application strategy
* Started networking and reaching out directly
* Tried positioning my freelance experience more clearly

Still, very few conversations.

At this point, I’m genuinely wondering whether there’s something fundamentally wrong with how I’m positioning my profile.

So I’m putting this out to Reddit.

If you work in marketing, recruitment, hiring, or career coaching—or if you’ve successfully navigated a similar career gap—I’d genuinely appreciate your perspective.

If you think my profile could be relevant to an open role, I’d also be grateful for a referral or introduction.

And honestly, if you look at this and think “here’s exactly why you’re not getting calls”, I want to hear that too.

I’d rather get an uncomfortable answer than continue blindly sending applications into the void.

Happy to share my resume in the comments/DM if that helps.

//open to relocation//

Thanks.

A marketing professional with 8 years of experience and yet having a hard time with job search. I have been applying left, right and center but I barely get calls. And whatsoever calls I do receive happens to be the first and last call.

I’m also reaching out to people for referrals but again, nothing. I have been hearing “market is dry” but I see my friends getting jobs, my cousins boasting about their new job, and here I am, always making excuses in front of my family that the ‘market is dry’. Well, that’s been the case for last couple of years, no?

Two years ago, I had the same problem. Back then I switched to freelancing and it just paid off my bills. But that’s it. No growth. No savings.

This time, I am back to the job hunt market and seems to me that I’m exactly where I left off.

So what is it? Is it my resume? Is it my communication? Is it my ‘seniority’? I don’t know.

Please guide me. I need serious help or I’ll have to resort to freelancing again which will finally lead to unemployment and then homemaker. F34 here. Not even with a child (don’t have the financial stability to bear one and that’s heartbreaking).

I don’t know what’s next and it’s scary.

Hey everyone,

I’m 8 years into my marketing career and trying to break into (or grow within) Product Marketing, and I’d love to find a mentor who’s been in the trenches.

A bit about me:
• Currently in-between jobs, giving interviews for marketing roles
• Background in D2C marketing
• Have picked up [skills — positioning, GTM, competitive research, sales enablement, etc.] mostly through on-the-job learning and my own reading
• Have taken up a course to transition to a PMM role

What I’m hoping for:
• Someone willing to do an occasional 20–30 min call, or even just async feedback over email/DMs
• Honest perspective on how you broke in / grew in this field, and what you’d do differently
• A sanity check on my resume, a mock positioning doc, or how I’m framing my experience

What I bring to the table:
• I’ll come prepared — no “so what does a PMM even do” questions, I’ve done my homework
• Genuinely respectful of your time; happy to work around your schedule
• Willing to return the favor however I can

If you’re a PMM (or adjacent — product, growth, sales enablement) and open to an informal mentorship or even a single conversation, I’d really appreciate you reaching out. Also open to book/newsletter/community recommendations if a 1:1 isn’t feasible right now.

Thanks for reading — happy to answer any questions in the comments!

I am a marketing professional with a collective of 9 years of experience, residing in Bangalore, India. My career has been complete disaster by design and choice. I started my career with a campus placement. Then after a year, I left the company for career growth.

Every company I joined got shut after a while of my joining. So I had to keep switching jobs. Finally I landed a consistent job during lockdown, and I performed exceptionally well. Two and a half years into it and the company that made headlines got shut.

I secured 2 offers - one contract role with a big brand and other full-time role with a lesser known company. I joined the latter and it turned out to be a disaster. I left after 7 months of joining, without any other offer. Wrong decision but really, the company was THAT toxic. Full blown lala company.

Mind you, all this while whenever I was looking out, my resume collected gap months.

After the lala company, I was already broken. I took the time off to explore other areas but I started freelancing on the side. I did certification in makeup artistry and started getting projects. This continued for 1.5 years and that’s when I left makeup artistry completely but continued with freelancing.

Which brings me to today. I decided to go back to full-time and concluded all my freelance gigs in June. I have been looking out but no luck.

Some say, it is because of my gap year that I’m not considered for a role. Other say, it is because I switched too often. And then there are people who say, you need an MBA degree to secure good positions (which I think is partly true because I’m a mid-senior and to grow vertically, I may need an MBA degree).

Now my delimma is, where is my career going? What is it that I should do? I’m confused.

I am a marketing professional with a collective of 9 years of experience, residing in Bangalore, India. My career has been complete disaster by design and choice. I started my career with a campus placement. Then after a year, I left the company for career growth.

Every company I joined got shut after a while of my joining. So I had to keep switching jobs. Finally I landed a consistent job during lockdown, and I performed exceptionally well. Two and a half years into it and the company that made headlines got shut.

I secured 2 offers - one contract role with a big brand and other full-time role with a lesser known company. I joined the latter and it turned out to be a disaster. I left after 7 months of joining, without any other offer. Wrong decision but really, the company was THAT toxic. Full blown lala company.

Mind you, all this while whenever I was looking out, my resume collected gap months.

After the lala company, I was already broken. I took the time off to explore other areas but I started freelancing on the side. I did certification in makeup artistry and started getting projects. This continued for 1.5 years and that’s when I left makeup artistry completely but continued with freelancing.

Which brings me to today. I decided to go back to full-time and concluded all my freelance gigs in June. I have been looking out but no luck.

Some say, it is because of my gap year that I’m not considered for a role. Other say, it is because I switched too often. And then there are people who say, you need an MBA degree to secure good positions (which I think is partly true because I’m a mid-senior and to grow vertically, I may need an MBA degree).

Now my delimma is, where is my career going? What is it that I should do? I’m confused.

I am a marketing professional with a collective of 9 years of experience, residing in Bangalore, India. My career has been complete disaster by design and choice. I started my career with a campus placement. Then after a year, I left the company for career growth.

Every company I joined got shut after a while of my joining. So I had to keep switching jobs. Finally I landed a consistent job during lockdown, and I performed exceptionally well. Two and a half years into it and the company that made headlines got shut.

I secured 2 offers - one contract role with a big brand and other full-time role with a lesser known company. I joined the latter and it turned out to be a disaster. I left after 7 months of joining, without any other offer. Wrong decision but really, the company was THAT toxic. Full blown lala company.

Mind you, all this while whenever I was looking out, my resume collected gap months.

After the lala company, I was already broken. I took the time off to explore other areas but I started freelancing on the side. I did certification in makeup artistry and started getting projects. This continued for 1.5 years and that’s when I left makeup artistry completely but continued with freelancing.

Which brings me to today. I decided to go back to full-time and concluded all my freelance gigs in June. I have been looking out but no luck.

Some say, it is because of my gap year that I’m not considered for a role. Other say, it is because I switched too often. And then there are people who say, you need an MBA degree to secure good positions (which I think is partly true because I’m a mid-senior and to grow vertically, I may need an MBA degree).

Now my delimma is, where is my career going? What is it that I should do? I’m confused.

I am a marketing professional with a collective of 9 years of experience, residing in Bangalore, India. My career has been complete disaster by design and choice. I started my career with a campus placement. Then after a year, I left the company for career growth.

Every company I joined got shut after a while of my joining. So I had to keep switching jobs. Finally I landed a consistent job during lockdown, and I performed exceptionally well. Two and a half years into it and the company that made headlines got shut.

I secured 2 offers - one contract role with a big brand and other full-time role with a lesser known company. I joined the latter and it turned out to be a disaster. I left after 7 months of joining, without any other offer. Wrong decision but really, the company was THAT toxic. Full blown lala company.

Mind you, all this while whenever I was looking out, my resume collected gap months.

After the lala company, I was already broken. I took the time off to explore other areas but I started freelancing on the side. I did certification in makeup artistry and started getting projects. This continued for 1.5 years and that’s when I left makeup artistry completely but continued with freelancing.

Which brings me to today. I decided to go back to full-time and concluded all my freelance gigs in June. I have been looking out but no luck.

Some say, it is because of my gap year that I’m not considered for a role. Other say, it is because I switched too often. And then there are people who say, you need an MBA degree to secure good positions (which I think is partly true because I’m a mid-senior and to grow vertically, I may need an MBA degree).

Now my delimma is, where is my career going? What is it that I should do? I’m confused.

Guys, to give you a context - 8 years ago I started my career and back then we either had telephone interviews or f2f interviews. Telephonic rounds were pretty easier while the f2f rounds were quite intriguing but it generally used to be the last round so you’ve already made a good impression to reach f2f round. Anxiety was controlled.

For the last few years, everything moved to video call interviews. And I have noticed that I tend to perform well on an audio meet interview but the moment I turn on my camera, I get nervous and start fumbling. I’m a very confident person in general and I know answers to most of everything but the problem is - I cannot explain them well, I just know. And unfortunately, that doesn’t work for interviews.

Audio meet interviews are fairly forgiving and I’m able to hold myself together but video meet interviews are brutal for me. I think I may have a problem with structuring my thoughts.

I know a lot of you would say - the more you do it, the better you get. I have done it multiple times already and nothing helps. Plus, I don’t have interviews everyday; there’s a substantial amount of time between interviews.

Is there any platform that I can use to practice my answers? Please suggest SOMETHING to overcome this problem. I’m a good professional who has earned several recognitions at my previous companies but I’m unable to portray the same excellence in my interviews.

Quick context- I’m a marketing & advertising professional with 9 years of experience. Throughout my career I have changed jobs multiple times- none of which is my fault. Most of the companies shut shop and I had to lookout. But it reflects badly on my resume.

I have done some great work in my career though but when it comes to applying, I seldom get interview calls and the interviewer usually expects me to have multiple skills (that of a marketing team) and hence I get rejected.

I took a break for 2 years due to miscarriage and then slowly started freelancing in this period. Now I’m back at hunting for a full-time role but NOTHING. NADA.

Makes me question my own worrh and if I have a future in this job market. I have too many questions- should I opt for an alternate career? Should I start creating content instead? Should I start a business which I know nothing about? How do I go through my life without an income? What about my old age?

Honestly, at this point, I need a saviour. Someone who can hand deliver an opportunity because I know I’ll outperform every other candidate they have considered for the role. I’m a quick learner and I adapt quickly. Tried and tested.

Pls suggest!!

Quick context- I’m a marketing & advertising professional with 9 years of experience. Throughout my career I have changed jobs multiple times- none of which is my fault. Most of the companies shut shop and I had to lookout. But it reflects badly on my resume.

I have done some great work in my career though but when it comes to applying, I seldom get interview calls and the interviewer usually expects me to have multiple skills (that of a marketing team) and hence I get rejected.

I took a break for 2 years due to miscarriage and then slowly started freelancing in this period. Now I’m back at hunting for a full-time role but NOTHING. NADA.

Makes me question my own worrh and if I have a future in this job market. I have too many questions- should I opt for an alternate career? Should I start creating content instead? Should I start a business which I know nothing about? How do I go through my life without an income? What about my old age?

Honestly, at this point, I need a saviour. Someone who can hand deliver an opportunity because I know I’ll outperform every other candidate they have considered for the role. I’m a quick learner and I adapt quickly. Tried and tested.

Pls suggest!!