Sylendran Arunagiri, an international student from India managed to land his dream job in Nvidia after facing rejection previously. Arunagiri said the U.S. job market is far more challenging than the job market in India.
Arunagiri’s plans were to move to the U.S. in late 2023 to begin a master’s program in product management at Carnegie Mellon University, and land a Big Tech internship for the summer of 2024. He hoped this would pave the way to an AI-related role, ideally in Nvidia, which he saw as his dream company due to its role in the AI technologies he wanted to work on.
However, he faced challenges due to the current landscape of the U.S. job market. Openings had plummeted from highs reached a year earlier, and industry layoffs were increasing competition for available roles.
Arunagiri had grown used to the job market in India, where he had earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from top institutes, and relied on campus job placement programs for employment opportunities. He found out that things worked differently in the U.S. where job fairs were more like networking events than recruitment opportunities.
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“You’re completely on your own,” said the 30-year-old, who now lives in San Jose.
The U.S. hiring landscape has become increasingly challenging amid economic uncertainty, the early effects of generative AI, and a broader push to streamline operations. However, Arunagiri managed to push through and land his dream job at Nvidia.
Arunagiri first landed an interview with Nvidia in November 2023, at a time when tech companies were conducting summer internship interviews. He said the interview had gone so well he stopped attending other internship interviews, however to his disappointment, he learned he wouldn’t be getting a role after his final interview in February. “I had to start from scratch, but by then many of the applications had dried out,” he said.
Arunagiri was able to land an AI product manager internship based in India at the tech company Informatica. However, he was unable to let go of his dream of getting into Nvidia. He decided to reach out to an HR professional from Nvidia to get insight into where he fell short, and they agreed to jump on a call with him. While they didn’t provide specific insights into his candidacy, he said they recommended he try to connect with people at Nvidia in current roles, including hiring managers and interns, to get insight into the kinds of projects they were working on and how he could better align his profile.
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He eventually reached out to five interns from the company who had provided useful insights. Those conversations helped shape the personal AI-related projects he began pursuing and sharing on LinkedIn in hopes of standing out.
Arunagiri’s efforts finally came to fruition by December 2024. After submitting a cold application for a technical product marketing role in agentic AI at Nvidia — a role he described as his “dream AI role” at his dream company — he was asked for an interview. Around the same time, he was also invited to interview for a more junior product management role at Microsoft. He ended up receiving offers from both companies, and accepted Nvidia’s offer.
Arunagiri said the key to getting successfully hired is finding “something that sets you apart from others.” He recommends sharing tangible projects publicly rather than quietly applying and networking.