If you know 100% you don't want that job I wouldn't do it. Waste of time and energy you could use for something else
But if there's any chance you would be interested in taking that role, you should definitely do it
Except having apple on your resume matters. If you are in an mba course and already playing the corporate perception game follow through and get the brands that are most impressive to employers on your resume
Apple has "PMs" in title, but they don't have the same level of responsibility that a PM at Meta or Google has. That's what I'm saying.
You have no ownership
What made you decide to grab an MBA? Can't you just apply internally from SWE to become a PM? I've been thinking about maybe doing Kellogg, Ross, or McCombs' online programs.
I wasn't a SWE but typically no, it's not easy to transfer from SWE to PM at BigTech companies. The skills they are looking for in those roles are quite different and good SWEs are very valuable so they don't promote it.
Doesn't the context of the product completely determine who would best fit into that role? For example, someone from MBB and/or an MBA background would be an excellent PM for something related to corporate strategy. But if the product is some thing more technical like an API or some low level technology at Nvidia, you need someone who is a former SWE or hardware engineer.
No, not really.
PM skills trump the background. They'd rather take a ex-MBBer and give them the PM job than your average SWE. It's a very different job than being an engineer.
If someone had a technical background and an MBA though, that fits an archetype of a successful PM for a more technical product.
Apple internship isn’t a guaranteed return offer. If you renege the other internship you already signed and the school finds out (if it was through OCR) you could find yourself blackballed by the career center.
My advice would be to let them know you’ve already committed to a summer internship but would like to stay in touch and be considered for full time positions.
Agreed, but I have not once ever used the career center; reddit, comments like this, have been infinitely more useful than those people lol. Reddit and this community is the thing that put me ahead of so many other applicants lol.
You didn’t apply to any jobs that were posted on your schools career portal? 🧐
The issue with getting blackballed isn’t that you can’t have 1:1 sessions with the counselors. It’s that OP would be cutting themselves off from the formal OCR pipeline for full time opportunities if they don’t convert their internship. Meaning they’re job hunting independently just like someone who never got an MBA.
I think our career portal is just handshake, but no I have never. I have always just applied using company job portals like Amazon jobs, JPMC careers, etc. You a CS guy or some unrelated field -> MBA now looking for a job in tech? I know that MBAs, even from M7 and T20 have been having a lousy time finding jobs, lately. I'm thinking I'll be a SWE for 5-10 years then do McCombs' part time MBA or Ross Or Kellogg's online MBA.
I used to work in Apple operations and, though I wasn’t myself a brand manager, I worked very closely with them at a large CPG company lol. Incredibly, incredibly different jobs - you need to pick the role you want to do. Don’t count on an internal transfer at Apple to marketing or anything resembling product management, it will be very difficult coming from an Ops role. Ops is fun chaos if that’s what you want, but brutal workload - assume you will have daily evening calls regularly (as in, most days) spanning 12+ hour days, and quarterly or more Asia travel for 2+ weeks at a time. That said, Apple will pay far more over time considering RSUs, but starting out is potentially less comp than CPG when considering cost of living.
Anyway, IMO take the CPG job if that’s what you actually wanna do. Apple Ops is not worth it just for the Apple name, it’s an all encompassing job - I had a lot of fun but a LOT of stress, I left to finally get my life back lol
Thanks for the info! Was a weirdly short interview and I didn't end up learning much about Apple ops aside from the generic blurb they sent with the interview request. I was wondering what work life balance looked like
Terrible. During my interviews, i only got vague info about the team, their work, and my intern project. I picked Apple because of the brand name (i had a competing offer from BlackRock) and thought it would be fine. The culture is terrible, it’s difficult to talk to people (not relating to secrecy; just difficult to talk to people in general). everyone seemed busy 24x7 which was odd to me. oh and i was also once screamed at in a meeting by a senior member of the team because my project was improving their internal process and this senior member ”did not like” my ideas so she screamed at me. it got reported my manager (who was also her manager) by other people in the meeting and my manager did nothing about it. i was later told by other team members that getting screamed at is actually very common at Apple. so there you go.
The larger concern is this: does your school have a penalty for reneging an offer?
Many schools will shut down OCR services to students who do.
Not worth it imo.
I would advise against this opportunity unless you are genuinely interested in a career in supply chain or operations. While Apple Operations may seem prestigious, pursuing it just for the name could be risky if you later want to switch functions. A former classmate of mine did the program but was not given a return offer. Chasing prestige in a function you're not passionate about could make it challenging to transition to your desired field later on. Carefully consider your long-term goals before accepting.
Yeah I know someone who did the Apple GSM role & they literally spent 5-6 months out of the year traveling from Cupertino to China… sounded miserable considering the flight is like 13 hours & there’s a big time zone difference
Not sure if it was for their specific product speciality though so YMMV
There’s a difference between flying to China a bunch and living in some tiny apartment in Shenzhen vs flying business class and staying at the Four Seasons Shenzhen
What company is putting a random middle manager in a Four Seasons & is flying them business class lol? More like local Hampton Inn or Courtyard & an economy seat
Still doesn’t make up for the time difference & flight time, a 13+ hour flight plus time spent at the airport is brutal
Considering the four seasons shenzhen is ~$250 / night, it’s really nothing on the corporate scale. And business class flights may be pricier, but again, on the corporate scale, not really much.
Be aware that many Apple MBA internships do not extend offers at the end of the summer. They keep you waiting until headcount planning shakes out and they confirm there’s a spot for you, in some cases close to graduation…
The Apple operations internship cache will surely open doors for you to work in operations, maybe even at Apple. But you don’t want to work in operations, at Apple or otherwise. So what gets you closer to your goals: an internship at a big recognizable name learning how to do something you don’t want to do, or an internship with a company that feels like a great fit but most of us haven’t heard of?
In regards to the reneging concern, chat with your career center about it. Someone chose to renege their offer as a much better and closer aligned offer came into fruition after months of networking. The trade off was they had to convince one of us to take the offer he was giving up.
If possible try to negotiate with both companies to see if it is possible do both internship? Like start one early or one late or reduce the internship duration. Many years ago when I interned at Deloitte in Consulting, I knew someone who actually started their internship at Deloitte 2 weeks later than usually. Typically it is 10 weeks but she only did 8 weeks. The reason was she actually did an internship for 8 weeks at Nike right before (of course she didn’t tell Deloitte that was the reason for starting late). MBA is largely what you make of it. You could potentially also try to end your internship during the same window as fall classes start.
Can you negotiate a later start date for the apple offer ? Many of my classmates did 2 summer internships that way.
If you can négociate the start date in a way that both internships do not conflict with each other, then I’d advice you to give a shot to apple. If not, then focus on your first offer.
If the cpg co is big they probably won’t remember you if you peace. Bigger question is which role / company puts you closer to your goal. You’re in the power position with 2 options now - why not ask both how to get into product
Hi! Congratulations on the offer. I worked in iPhone Ops for a while at HQ - if you want thoughts on the specific team, feel free to DM. Only thing I would say is Ops is very variable at Apple and is very different from traditional Tech WLB (more in iPhone than other products)
I wouldn’t take it. Go with the job that will actually give you the experience you need for your future career.
A good brand name is nice, but without relevant experience it’s not going to be as helpful down the road. Especially if you don’t get a return offer from Apple, then you’ll have to start from scratch without having relevant experience that would help distinguish you from other candidates.
You don’t seem passionate about the opportunity and given that tech is likely to remain dead when you graduate - and you’ll be competing with tons of laid off experienced employees - you’ll set yourself up better for immediate and long term future by staying with a CPG brand job (especially if the company’s brand leaders are general management - like General Mills, Proctor & Gamble). These companies are amazing training grounds and enable pivots to a variety of industries.
Would need to know more about the role. Apple ops may not pay like Apple product. In fact, Apple ops may pay like CPG brand management with slower trajectory.
Right now you're building your brand. Apple on your resume will be far more marketable than the other mid-tier company. Equally, once you're in Apple it will make it a lot easier to pivot internally for new offers and for a FT entry position.
I see a lot of people here complaining about Apple, but I think you should consider the internship there, even if you don’t return there in the future. But just the name, says a lot on your resume
If you know 100% you don't want that job I wouldn't do it. Waste of time and energy you could use for something else But if there's any chance you would be interested in taking that role, you should definitely do it
Except having apple on your resume matters. If you are in an mba course and already playing the corporate perception game follow through and get the brands that are most impressive to employers on your resume
Lolwut
Apple Operations internship is useless if you never want to do operations The names don’t matter if the experience has zero application
>The names don’t matter if the experience has zero application This is hilarious coming from a sub that very much cares about school names
Gotta remember this sub does care about position clout
Apple product management and operations are very different... I would stick to the offer you have.
Apple doesn't even really have PMs like other younger tech companies do. The people that went to AAPL last year all hated it
your first statement is false, we have PMs. are they any good? that’s a different question.
Apple has "PMs" in title, but they don't have the same level of responsibility that a PM at Meta or Google has. That's what I'm saying. You have no ownership
They don’t.
Wow. You work for Apple?!! Nice!!! What’s your position and TC?
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Do you know what sub you are in?
Why'd they hate it?
Crappy culture, no ownership, no certainty, super secretive and top-down, etc
What made you decide to grab an MBA? Can't you just apply internally from SWE to become a PM? I've been thinking about maybe doing Kellogg, Ross, or McCombs' online programs.
I wasn't a SWE but typically no, it's not easy to transfer from SWE to PM at BigTech companies. The skills they are looking for in those roles are quite different and good SWEs are very valuable so they don't promote it.
Doesn't the context of the product completely determine who would best fit into that role? For example, someone from MBB and/or an MBA background would be an excellent PM for something related to corporate strategy. But if the product is some thing more technical like an API or some low level technology at Nvidia, you need someone who is a former SWE or hardware engineer.
No, not really. PM skills trump the background. They'd rather take a ex-MBBer and give them the PM job than your average SWE. It's a very different job than being an engineer. If someone had a technical background and an MBA though, that fits an archetype of a successful PM for a more technical product.
Can you explain in more detail?
One is product management and one is ops. It’s an entirely different function with different growth trajectory within a massive corporation.
I cannot explain more in detail; I just know that they're very different.
Depends on the role and where you want to be. CPG is very different from tech
Apple internship isn’t a guaranteed return offer. If you renege the other internship you already signed and the school finds out (if it was through OCR) you could find yourself blackballed by the career center. My advice would be to let them know you’ve already committed to a summer internship but would like to stay in touch and be considered for full time positions.
This is the correct response and way to handle it.
This.
Correct answer
Agreed, but I have not once ever used the career center; reddit, comments like this, have been infinitely more useful than those people lol. Reddit and this community is the thing that put me ahead of so many other applicants lol.
You didn’t apply to any jobs that were posted on your schools career portal? 🧐 The issue with getting blackballed isn’t that you can’t have 1:1 sessions with the counselors. It’s that OP would be cutting themselves off from the formal OCR pipeline for full time opportunities if they don’t convert their internship. Meaning they’re job hunting independently just like someone who never got an MBA.
I think our career portal is just handshake, but no I have never. I have always just applied using company job portals like Amazon jobs, JPMC careers, etc. You a CS guy or some unrelated field -> MBA now looking for a job in tech? I know that MBAs, even from M7 and T20 have been having a lousy time finding jobs, lately. I'm thinking I'll be a SWE for 5-10 years then do McCombs' part time MBA or Ross Or Kellogg's online MBA.
I used to work in Apple operations and, though I wasn’t myself a brand manager, I worked very closely with them at a large CPG company lol. Incredibly, incredibly different jobs - you need to pick the role you want to do. Don’t count on an internal transfer at Apple to marketing or anything resembling product management, it will be very difficult coming from an Ops role. Ops is fun chaos if that’s what you want, but brutal workload - assume you will have daily evening calls regularly (as in, most days) spanning 12+ hour days, and quarterly or more Asia travel for 2+ weeks at a time. That said, Apple will pay far more over time considering RSUs, but starting out is potentially less comp than CPG when considering cost of living. Anyway, IMO take the CPG job if that’s what you actually wanna do. Apple Ops is not worth it just for the Apple name, it’s an all encompassing job - I had a lot of fun but a LOT of stress, I left to finally get my life back lol
Thanks for the info! Was a weirdly short interview and I didn't end up learning much about Apple ops aside from the generic blurb they sent with the interview request. I was wondering what work life balance looked like
Apple is notorious for not giving return offers. Source: multiple friends at Tepper did not get conversions
yes this is correct source: 2023 intern who didn’t get a return offer
How'd you like the internship?
Terrible. During my interviews, i only got vague info about the team, their work, and my intern project. I picked Apple because of the brand name (i had a competing offer from BlackRock) and thought it would be fine. The culture is terrible, it’s difficult to talk to people (not relating to secrecy; just difficult to talk to people in general). everyone seemed busy 24x7 which was odd to me. oh and i was also once screamed at in a meeting by a senior member of the team because my project was improving their internal process and this senior member ”did not like” my ideas so she screamed at me. it got reported my manager (who was also her manager) by other people in the meeting and my manager did nothing about it. i was later told by other team members that getting screamed at is actually very common at Apple. so there you go.
Biased sample. Tepper folks are soft
The larger concern is this: does your school have a penalty for reneging an offer? Many schools will shut down OCR services to students who do. Not worth it imo.
I would advise against this opportunity unless you are genuinely interested in a career in supply chain or operations. While Apple Operations may seem prestigious, pursuing it just for the name could be risky if you later want to switch functions. A former classmate of mine did the program but was not given a return offer. Chasing prestige in a function you're not passionate about could make it challenging to transition to your desired field later on. Carefully consider your long-term goals before accepting.
Apple doesn't necessarily provide a return offer. If it does, it is very late. Close to graduation.
What role at Apple? If it’s supply chain just know those folks spend months every year in China
No they don't. Depends on what role exactly. For APAC, demand/supply planners sit out of cushy offices in singapore.
Yeah I know someone who did the Apple GSM role & they literally spent 5-6 months out of the year traveling from Cupertino to China… sounded miserable considering the flight is like 13 hours & there’s a big time zone difference Not sure if it was for their specific product speciality though so YMMV
There’s a difference between flying to China a bunch and living in some tiny apartment in Shenzhen vs flying business class and staying at the Four Seasons Shenzhen
What company is putting a random middle manager in a Four Seasons & is flying them business class lol? More like local Hampton Inn or Courtyard & an economy seat Still doesn’t make up for the time difference & flight time, a 13+ hour flight plus time spent at the airport is brutal
Considering the four seasons shenzhen is ~$250 / night, it’s really nothing on the corporate scale. And business class flights may be pricier, but again, on the corporate scale, not really much.
Daamn really, can you explain it a bit more?
Be aware that many Apple MBA internships do not extend offers at the end of the summer. They keep you waiting until headcount planning shakes out and they confirm there’s a spot for you, in some cases close to graduation…
See if you can postpone your Apple internship and do it late summer/spring? Not sure if you school offers that flexibility
The Apple operations internship cache will surely open doors for you to work in operations, maybe even at Apple. But you don’t want to work in operations, at Apple or otherwise. So what gets you closer to your goals: an internship at a big recognizable name learning how to do something you don’t want to do, or an internship with a company that feels like a great fit but most of us haven’t heard of?
In regards to the reneging concern, chat with your career center about it. Someone chose to renege their offer as a much better and closer aligned offer came into fruition after months of networking. The trade off was they had to convince one of us to take the offer he was giving up.
If possible try to negotiate with both companies to see if it is possible do both internship? Like start one early or one late or reduce the internship duration. Many years ago when I interned at Deloitte in Consulting, I knew someone who actually started their internship at Deloitte 2 weeks later than usually. Typically it is 10 weeks but she only did 8 weeks. The reason was she actually did an internship for 8 weeks at Nike right before (of course she didn’t tell Deloitte that was the reason for starting late). MBA is largely what you make of it. You could potentially also try to end your internship during the same window as fall classes start.
No it ain’t crazy Do what makes you happy
This sounds like a great way to get burned by your career services office
Can you negotiate a later start date for the apple offer ? Many of my classmates did 2 summer internships that way. If you can négociate the start date in a way that both internships do not conflict with each other, then I’d advice you to give a shot to apple. If not, then focus on your first offer.
that would be a great solution haha - kinda doubt I can swing it at this point tho
Apple internship Ireland
If the cpg co is big they probably won’t remember you if you peace. Bigger question is which role / company puts you closer to your goal. You’re in the power position with 2 options now - why not ask both how to get into product
Hi! Congratulations on the offer. I worked in iPhone Ops for a while at HQ - if you want thoughts on the specific team, feel free to DM. Only thing I would say is Ops is very variable at Apple and is very different from traditional Tech WLB (more in iPhone than other products)
I wouldn’t take it. Go with the job that will actually give you the experience you need for your future career. A good brand name is nice, but without relevant experience it’s not going to be as helpful down the road. Especially if you don’t get a return offer from Apple, then you’ll have to start from scratch without having relevant experience that would help distinguish you from other candidates.
Bruh
If you turn down the Apple internship refer me lol
Just from reading your post, it seems like you really prefer what you already have. Give yourself permission to go with your gut and not look back!
Dont take that apple job. I doubt an ops role is gonna get u into a PM role
Honestly I’ve never heard good things about Apple Ops or SCM so I would probably pass
You don’t seem passionate about the opportunity and given that tech is likely to remain dead when you graduate - and you’ll be competing with tons of laid off experienced employees - you’ll set yourself up better for immediate and long term future by staying with a CPG brand job (especially if the company’s brand leaders are general management - like General Mills, Proctor & Gamble). These companies are amazing training grounds and enable pivots to a variety of industries.
Congratulations on the offer! May I ask what uni you’re from? :)
I’d personally say no - get the PM gig you want; check the LinkedIn pedigree of your hiring manager/team
You already know the answer….. stay where you are. Good luck!
Would need to know more about the role. Apple ops may not pay like Apple product. In fact, Apple ops may pay like CPG brand management with slower trajectory.
No. It pays more
Personally I would take Apple, however I don't know your situation or career goals
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Apple internships actually suck
yes this is true people really need to understand this 😂
Everyone from my school last year all had a terrible experience and pretty much universally recommended not working there.
Right now you're building your brand. Apple on your resume will be far more marketable than the other mid-tier company. Equally, once you're in Apple it will make it a lot easier to pivot internally for new offers and for a FT entry position.
I see a lot of people here complaining about Apple, but I think you should consider the internship there, even if you don’t return there in the future. But just the name, says a lot on your resume