IPM Reviews
Puneet Sharma

Client Case Study

Puneet Sharma

Staff Product Manager at Walmart

Walmart logo

Before & After

Mindset
Before

Puneet was experiencing enormous emotional exhaustion and overwhelm from constant rejections, feeling defeated before even starting interviews. His self-belief had eroded to the point where he struggled to keep applying or showing up to interviews with confidence.

After

Through mindset coaching, Puneet rebuilt his self-belief and adopted a 'Warrior mindset,' approaching interviews with the conviction that winning was the only outcome. He was able to re-engage with his search with positive, action-driven thinking.

Interview Performance
Before

Puneet initially believed product management interviews were a matter of luck or a numbers game, and lacked a structured approach for handling unexpected or curveball questions.

After

Through rigorous mock interviews and structured coaching, Puneet developed both the science (structured mental models) and the art (practiced intuition) of interviewing, reaching a point where he trusted himself to think on his feet in any interview scenario.

Job Search Strategy
Before

Puneet was following outdated, spray-and-pray advice of submitting 25–30 applications per day, treating the search as a numbers game. This resulted in applications disappearing into the void with no responses.

After

Puneet shifted to an intentional, targeted approach β€” understanding that each application must clearly convey a specific 'why' tailored to the role and recruiter, rather than relying on volume alone.

β€œYou can't win a fight thinking you're going to lose β€” you have to approach it with that warrior mindset of 'I'm here to win and that is the only outcome'”

β€” Puneet Sharma, Staff Product Manager at Walmart

Puneet Sharma's Story

I'm a product leader with about fourteen years of experience in analytics and the ad space. Before joining the program, I worked at Google in product operations, where I learned how planet-scale products are built and shipped. But my job search experience was one of enormous overwhelm and emotional exhaustion β€” constant rejection, sending applications into the void and never hearing back.

The old advice of "apply to 25-30 jobs a day, it's a numbers game" is horrible advice in today's market. Each recruiter gets 200 to 700 applications. My first aha moment was working with the narrative and mindset coaches. Through the mindset coaching, I realized that getting into a positive, action-driven mindset reinstated the self-belief I needed to show up to interviews with confidence.

The second aha moment was realizing that interviewing is both science and art. The structured preparation helps you build a mental model, and the art is practicing until you can think on your feet when an interviewer throws a curveball. The coaching team was rigorous β€” these are people currently interviewing candidates at companies like Google and Meta.

What made the biggest difference was that this is a team effort where you're never stuck or left alone. You're searching within a community of people who are two steps ahead, two steps behind, or exactly where you are β€” so you're never alone.

If Puneet's story sounds familiar…

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