How to get hired as a Product Manager
I love product management. Few other roles within a company place a single person at the nexus of so many different teams, and disciplines. For me in the software world I get to work with designers to create compelling user experiences, with engineers on how technology can be brought to bear on innovating new solutions, or making existing solutions scale, with marketing on how to best tell a product’s story, with sales on the delivery of products we build, and of course with customers where I can see how the products and solutions we build help them. It is sometimes hard to imagine doing anything else.
Finding a job as a product manager, even in the best of circumstances, can take its toll, because even the best candidates face stiff competition in the job market. For starters, product managers are one of the most critical hires a company can make, which means companies are highly selective when placing someone. Add to that the fact that there are simply more people pursuing a PM roles then there are PM roles to be filled, and everyone is bound to experience what I have a several points in my career: a grueling and unforgiving hiring process.
How we confront this challenge should tell us a lot about the kind of product manager we are, or are going to be. For me, I see it as an opportunity to apply my craft. My craft in this case is to devise frameworks, processes and tools that will lead me one way or another to a successful outcome.
When looking for a job, consider for a moment that you are the product. Your job as product manager is to bring yourself to market for a customer that would benefit from your unique skillset and background. You are in essence searching for your own product-market fit.
What follows is an outline of how I go about structuring my Product Manager job search, which over the years has served me well in landing a PM role at companies I respect and enjoy working for.
Know your value proposition
Perhaps the most immediate and measurable advice I ever received was from Adam Nash, CEO of Wealthfront, whom I approached years ago after having trouble getting my foot in the door at a number of companies. I had around 6–8 years experience as a PM under my belt at the time, all with good companies, and was confused why I couldn’t seem to get traction. Adam asked where I was applying, took one look at my resume, and quickly offered following assessment: the roles I was pursuing were not “aligned with my personal brand.”
As I saw it, I could heed his advice and adapt in one of two ways. First, I could rework my resume to better position myself for roles I wanted; or, I could focus on roles that were more closely aligned with the resume/experience I already had. In the end, I tried both; and it did not take long for me to see which strategy worked best, and why Adam’s advice was so perfect.
When we talk about “brands,” we are talking about something more fundamental than a logo or a resume in this context. We are talking about what is in your DNA as a product manager — about what makes you, you, professionally speaking. While there is no harm in customizing your resume to the job at hand, in the end you must be able to confidently defend your resume as well. So, when I started pursuing opportunities that were more aligned with my experience and passion, rather than trying to align myself with the brands I admired, the stories I told felt more natural, conversations started to flow, my confidence picked up, and I began to progress farther and farther down the hiring process.
It seems obvious in hindsight, but at the time it revealed to me that I was going about my search backwards. I was approaching companies whose brands I had a high affinity for, rather than structuring my search around companies that were aligned with my brand.
I start with this piece of advice because as product managers we understand that at the heart of most successful products is a well understood value proposition. That value proposition informs just about everything we do as a team in search of product-market fit. It informs what customers we seek out, what channels we use to acquire those customers, our pricing, and of course what features we build. Knowing your own value proposition as a product manager, will similarly inform every aspect of your job search.
Build your conversion funnel
When I am bringing a new product to market, one of my first activities is to figure out who my customer is. I typically start with a long list of potential customers, then through research, and trial and error, I slowly work to validate and invalidate my hypotheses, until I am left with is a better understanding of my target market and a profile of my ideal customer within it.
When looking for a job, I have a similar objective: to hone in on a profile of a company or product for which my personal brand is strongly resonate with. To help me measure this, I turn to a tool familiar to most product managers: a conversion funnel, which in a job search breaks down something like this:
While I may not employ my job search funnel in the same way I do a conversion funnel for an online registration flow for example, they still have enough in common conceptually to inform my overall process. I need campaigns to fill the top of my funnel with qualified leads, different channels from which to source leads from, and strategies to re-engage with people who churn out. Plus, tracking my funnel helps shed some light on where the weaknesses in my story and process lie, and point me in the right direction when making changes to any of the above.
Fill your funnel
My search begins by me creating a spreadsheet to track every company I am even remotely interested in speaking to. As I learn more about each company, I begin to sort them based upon their personal appeal, and my confidence that I will be perceived as a good candidate for a role they have open.
I build my list of companies from a small hand-full of sources:
- LinkedIn. My first source for leads is almost every company where a friend, or former coworker of mine works, or has recently worked. I research the companies I have never heard of, and add to my spreadsheet the name of every company that catches my eye.
- HireClub. HireClub is an Facebook group dedicated to helping companies and people looking for work find each other. Its strength lies in a community atmosphere where people are genuinely interested in helping each other out. I frequently visit HireClub to browse its feed where individuals post jobs they are hiring for. It is a safe assumption to make that anyone posting there works for a company that is actively growing. So even if people are not posting about product positions specifically, I still make note of their company in my spreadsheet.
- Techcrunch and VentureBeat. These are the leading news sites of the technology and start-up world. The news sites relevant to you may vary. I consult them to see which companies have recently received funding — a strong indication that they are also growing, and to get exposed to a lot of new companies you may not be familiar with. Again, I make note of any company that sparks my interest, and queue it up to be researched more thoroughly later.
- Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and other job sites. Job sites are also very helpful. I search them specifically for product management roles, which saves me time down the road by helping me to qualify my leads by ensuring that the companies I am interested in, are also hiring product managers.
I let myself get a little lost in this phase of the process. Learning about what is going on in the industry helps me down the road when interviewing, as I am better able to demonstrate some working knowledge of the industry I am interviewing in, not to mention the competitive landscape as well. More importantly however, the more companies I put into the top of my funnel, the more that will hopefully come out the bottom.
Qualify your leads
Once I have a list of companies, I need to see which ones are hiring for a role I am interested in. I make note of the role in my spreadsheet, and the URL of the job posting so I can return to it easily. I also like to make note of my interest level in the position, e.g. low/medium/high, and some kind of score indicating how strongly aligned the role is with my brand. These extra fields will help me to prioritize which companies I reach out to first, and where I will devote more of energy.
If a company I am interested in is not hiring product managers, I still keep them on my list. I just make note, and move them to the bottom of the list. You never know when a company’s hiring needs change, so from time to time, I will revisit my list of companies to check.
Get noticed
Once I have a list of specific job opportunities to follow up on, now I need to get my foot in the door. My goal here is simple: find a personal connection at the company and get in touch with them personally. Making these connections is where the bulk of my work resides in my job search. It is incredibly time consuming, but it is without a doubt the single most valuable work I engage in. If done successfully, I will have an advocate at the company where I am applying to buoy my candidacy with a recommendation, or at the very least have someone to submit my resume on my behalf — bypassing the company’s public website where most resumes go to die.
Finding my “in”
Successfully finding someone at a company to talk to and refer you depends largely on the size of your network. Bear in mind that your “network” here should encompass not only the people you are connected to on LinkedIn, but should include all of the communities you belong to, like your neighborhood, your alma mater, schools your kids may attend, and other communities, clubs and organizations. If your network is still relatively small, then devote time to growing it by getting out there and meeting people; but I think you will find, that when you take a more encompassing view of your network that it is larger than you give it credit for.
LinkedIn is my tool of choice for finding my “in” with a company, because it allows to search for companies, view a list of employees, view their job titles, find how I am connected to them, and message with them (even if I don’t have their email address). Therefore, I start by searching LinkedIn for each company in my spreadsheet, and then viewing a list of its employees, filtering out all but my first and second degree connections. If I have any first degree connections to an employee there, that is the person I will reach out to, as chances are they know me personally and can also serve as my advocate.
If I don’t have any first degree connections, which is often, I see which of my friends might know someone who works there, giving preference to fellow product managers. I then reach out to my friend asking if they might make an introduction.
If all else fails, I invite the company’s recruiter to connect, or turn to Facebook and ask my friends directly, “do any of my friends know anyone who works at the following companies: …?”
Remember, at the end of the day all I am trying to do is avoid having to submit my resume via a public website. I don’t need to be close friends with the person, I just need a loose enough connection for them to feel comfortable submitting my resume on my behalf. In my experience, anyone I get in touch with is happy to refer me because they will probably get a referral bonus if I get hired. So I don’t sweat it, and just reach out. I have nothing to lose.
Do your research
It should be a given that you will want to research the company, and its product before talking to anyone. Going into any interview not knowing these basics is just bad form. So before I hop on the phone with an in-house recruiter, and especially a hiring manager, I take some time getting to know the company’s product as best as I can. I search Google News for the company to understand what industry dynamics may be shaping it. I get to know the company’s competitors, and develop a perspective of my own to share with the people I speak with.
All of this should be a given, because failing to demonstrate this knowledge, or at least an honest attempt to be prepared will reflect poorly on me as a product manager whose job it is to be expert in these things.
For the companies I am especially excited about joining my research doesn’t stop there.
Positioning yourself for “fit”
Teams are going to evaluate candidates on two key axes. The first is based on their skillset and experience. Does this candidate possess the ability to do the job we require of them? Do they have experience with our technology? Have they used our tools and processes before? How deep is their knowledge of our problem and solution space? And so on. If you been diligent in pursuing companies strongly aligned with your brand, then scoring well here should come quite naturally.
The other axis they are evaluating candidates on is “team fit.” For a product manager, how you get along with others is key, but what team fit is usually about is culture. It is about your style, and approach to problem solving. It is about how you complement the team, and what you bring to it that is different.
I can guess at these things by going in cold to an interview, or I can do what a good product managers do when trying to better understand the needs of their customers: talk to them, get to know them, and understand how their teams work.
So, before I am to be interviewed, I like to interview someone at the company first. To get the best and most candid insights, I try to talk to someone I might work alongside, rather than going directly to a hiring manager. I talk to them about what it is like to work at the company, and figure out if it is a place where I would fit in, and be happy at. I am also trying to assess their needs as a team and company, so that I can better position myself as a solution they are looking for. Here are some things I specifically inquire about:
- Company culture. I ask about the company’s values. Understanding these helps me to understand what they are looking for in a candidate beyond their hard skills, and prompts me to find ways to reflect these values through the stories I tell.
- What makes a PM successful there? I like to ask what traits are possessed by successful PMs, and are most valued by others on the team. If there are things the team is well known for, then I want to do everything I can to position myself as someone who’ll help preserve, and reinforce them.
- Current challenges. A strong tendency for interviewers is to evaluate how a candidate they are speaking to will help them address problems they are facing in the right now. In addition to understanding the product challenges I will be tasked to solve, I also try to ascertain what challenges exist with regards to team dynamics and process. If I can present myself as a possible solution to those challenges, I will increase my perceived value to the team ten-fold.
Learn and iterate
As a product manager, you understand the importance of the iterative cycle of learn/measure/build. This is the process we engage in to focus our efforts effectively to build great products that best service the needs of our customers, and has equal relevance to our job search.
Every engagement I have with a company is a chance for me to learn, and to improve how I present myself. With each phone call and conversion, with each iteration, I get better at telling my story, I get better at explaining the philosophy and methodologies that drive me as a product manager, and I get more fluent in connecting past experience with the specific questions I am asked. At the end of each interview, I consider what went well, and think critically what didn’t feel or go as smoothly as I would like.
Fail early, fail often
Early on in my job search, my goal is to get myself out there talking to companies as quickly as possible. I am in a sense my own MVP that I am working furiously to hone.
Just like with real products, there is often a right time and a wrong time to engage a customer segment to adopt your product. Sometimes you hold off on introducing your product to them to ensure that the product has time to mature; and to increase your confidence that their first exposure to your product will be a positive one.
I do the same thing in my job search by first pursuing opportunities with companies that are not at the top of my list. That way if and when I don’t get a job offer, I won’t feel the loss as profoundly. This also gives me time to learn and grow in how I answer questions, and tell my own story, so that when I start engaging with some of my favorite companies, I will be more practiced and mature.
Learn
Be prepared for companies to pass you up. The process is competitive, and hiring practices have been honed to look for very specific candidates. When I learn I am not a good fit for a role, I do two things. First and foremost, I express my gratitude to the recruiter or hiring manager for giving me so much of their time and for the opportunity to learn more about the company and job opportunity.
Then I ask for feedback.
Sadly, most companies have policies prohibiting them from sharing their rationale with job candidates. While frustrating, there are good reasons for companies to adopt this policy. I ask for feedback anyways, expecting few will tell me anything, in the off chance some may provide me with valuable insights.
If I was referred into the company via a friend, I ask them if they might follow up with the hiring manager or recruiter, and relay what they learn back to me. If I don’t have an advocate who can do that, then I simply ask. I try to keep my request simple, and I avoid any hint that I am wanting to engage the recruiter in a debate about their decision — their worst-case scenario when interfacing with a candidate after they have been rejected. Here is an example email I might send asking for feedback:
Thank you for letting me know, and thank you so much for the opportunity to learn more about <company name>. I enjoyed speaking with the team.
Out of curiosity, is there anything more you can tell me about why the team felt like I was not an ideal fit for the role? I like to gather as much feedback and data that I can to assist me in my job search.
Thank you so much for your time!
Then, no matter what I hear back, I do not reply except to say thank you. The most important thing you can do is be professional, and be grateful you received any feedback at all.
Humble yourself
If you are lucky enough to get feedback, the next thing to do is figure out what you can learn from it. Sometimes the feedback will help inform things you can do before the next interview — like learning a new technology, process methodology, or toolset. The hardest feedback to hear however is the kind that hints at an assessment you feel the team got really wrong. You’ll known when you hear it, because you will feel really defensive about it.
Here is some feedback I received after my first interview in my latest job search:
Unfortunately, the team is going to pass. We are looking for someone a little more analytical for this role.
My first reaction was, “are you kidding me?!?” Because honestly, I consider myself to be a relatively successful product manager, and it is hard to spend 10+ years doing this job without being analytical. My instinct was to reply back to plead my case.
So I shut down my email client, took a deep breath, and asked myself, how could they have arrived at this conclusion? The answer is almost always the same: I failed to communicate effectively in my interview. So in this case, I humbled myself, took myself back to square one, and searched on Google for, “how to demonstrate analytical skills in a job interview.”
I took literal and mental notes as I did more research, and prepared myself to do better next time.
Persevere
Without a doubt, the hardest part of this process the longer it takes is dealing with the steady stream of disappointment. Jobs you are really excited about get filled, sometimes while you are interviewing for them. You learn that a company isn’t moving forward with your candidacy, sometimes after having invested hours and hours of your time in phone calls, onsite interviews, and take-home exercises. You give everything you have to offer, and get absolutely nothing in return, not even feedback that can help you learn from the experience. Sometimes you just have an off day, and the answers you give in an interview are not as crisp as their should be. The margin of error is very small, and the process can be heartbreaking, can make you question if you are even product manager material, and can at times lead to legitimate depression.
I have been there. More times than I care to recall. It is hard to offer advice to anyone who finds themselves in this place, as no matter how many others have also struggled and commiserate with you, it is still an incredibly lonely place to be.
What I can say however, is that hiring processes are highly selective for a reason: a company is trying to find the best candidate to be their product manager. They want the person they select to succeed, and they want them to fit with the rest of the team. So when the day comes when you do get an offer, it is because they see you as someone who will be successful at their company. That should bode well for you, and means that no matter what you ended up at the right place.
Hopefully, you will find some of the advice from above helpful to you in some way. Even if the process above doesn’t match your style, don’t forget: in a job search, you are the product. You job search therefore is just another opportunity to apply your craft, and to keep up on the skills that make you a great product manager. If you are not finding success, then do what any good product manager would do — do the research and analysis to understand why, and keep learning and iterating.
