Good morning. Have you ever dreamed of being hired by a tech giant like Apple or Samsung? Well, so have I. You’ll be pleased to know that there are positions in tech that don’t require coding! But, full disclosure: they’re still pretty difficult. Find out how Sagar Kumathe scored an internship with Samsung Semiconductor, what he did in that role, and what he thinks you should do to score an internship too.

—Sean Sebers

In today's edition:

🏆 What earned him the role?

📊 What he does

📝 Quick Takeaways

📈 Give us more!

Sagar Kumathe

Product Marketing Intern

Sagar Kumathe recently completed an internship with Samsung Semiconductor as a product marketing intern. This branch of Samsung primarily deals with the SSD and DRAM chips that you’ll find in your phones, televisions, and sometimes, refrigerators. Yes, even some of your iPhone parts come from Samsung, so stop with the Apple elitism!

Sagar is also a senior at UC Berkeley pursuing a bachelor’s degree in data science with an emphasis in business and industrial analytics. He is expected to graduate this Fall 2022. Prior to transferring into UC Berkeley, Sagar was a student at Sacramento City College studying computer science.

What earned him the role?

Sagar started applying to internships in the Fall of 2021, roughly six months before summer started. He sent out over 100 applications to product marketing, product management, and project management roles across several job sites/apps. He made five separate resumes that emphasized certain experiences more or less depending on the industry he was applying to. While scrolling through Handshake in class, Sagar applied to several Samsung internships at once and unknowingly scored himself his product marketing role.

According to Sagar, there were two things that got him hired: 1) he had prior internships in the field of hardware, and 2) he had knowledge of the industry and of how Samsung's products worked. Sagar’s interviewers could see that he had just come off an internship with Intel that was directly connected to the chip and data storage industry. Ultimately, his knowledge gave him a competitive edge, and created the perception that he would need less initial training.

Dating back to his freshman year at Sacramento City College, Sagar has had 4 prior internships that included…

• An Internet of Things (IOT) internship—tech engineering with R Systems

• An IT internship—office tech help with the CA State Treasurer’s Office

• Two product marketing engineer internships with Intel in 2020 and 2021

What he does:

As a product marketing intern at Samsung, Sagar helped with general marketing collateral and extensive note taking during meetings. Trust me, it’s more difficult than it sounds.

At Samsung, there are many large stakeholders involved which increases the liability and confidentiality associated with every decision. Due to this, Sagar was mostly tasked with support roles, but his understanding of Samsung and product marketing increased widely.

Sagar explained product marketing as a highly knowledge based role. Your knowledge of a company’s products or offerings has to be accurate, you have to understand how competitors and new legislation impact your company’s products, and ultimately, you need to communicate all of this to your sales organization team and executives. This process is what allows products to be strategically updated and marketed.

So, as an intern in this process, Sagar was able to implement some of his knowledge by creating marketing collateral (flyers, product descriptions, etc.). He also had the opportunity to sit-in on many meetings with employees and stakeholders. Taking thorough and significant notes was necessary for his own understanding of Samsung’s products and also for reporting to colleagues/managers afterwards.

Overall, Sagar had a great experience. He especially valued going into the office and learning how to communicate effectively with professionals in the marketing/tech industry. He’s looking forward to graduating and pursuing a career in product marketing!

📝Quick Takeaways:

• Product marketing involves in-depth knowledge of products, markets, and industries.

• Depending on the company, the knowledge you’ll need can vary.

  • At Samsung Semiconductor, an emphasis on technical/engineering knowledge was needed because of how complex their products are.

  • Companies that are less technologically focused will be more accessible.

• Ranked within the industry, product marketing is one of the most difficult forms of marketing because of its broadness.

📈Give us more!

💼Want to hear more from Sagar?

• Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel linked here.

🔍Connect with Sagar!

• Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

• Follow him on Instagram @sagar_kumathe

• Reach out and ask him anything through email here: [email protected]

📢Advice from Sagar:

Speaking of internships in general, don’t worry about somebody else’s path. At UC Berkeley, there's a culture of showing off. When you're a freshman who has had no experience working for a tech company, and you see your peers in CS classes with apps in the App Store, it can be crazy intimidating.

Sometimes if you worry so much about internships, or if you try way too hard, you might be taking away from your ability to remain authentic. In interviews, it gets to a point where hiring managers know that you have the right knowledge, but they want to see who you are as a human being. There's the element of being a smart person and capable of doing a job, but then there's the other element of being compatible with a team. So bring that authenticity and bring that personality. Especially in the interviewing phase, I think those things are very important. Don’t be a robot, be dynamic, and be able to show who you really are. —Sagar Kumathe

*Edited for clarity*

✋Get involved!

The New Intern team is always aiming to write for its readers. If there's anything you liked, disliked, or wished you could have read in this issue, please let us know!

• Reach us by replying to this email

• Know someone we can interview? Reach out and get us connected!