The Quest to Find an Internship in Product Management — Part 2: Resumes, Career Fairs, and Online Presence
Advice from a college student for college students.
Hello!
If you’re here, you’re a college student trying to land your first role in Product Management. Check out part 1 of this blog for other PM internship search advice. Because there’s so much material floating around for PM hopefuls on Quora, Medium, and the rest of the internet, I’ve collected some of the best, most-actionable resources that I know of in this blog series.
The second part of this series will focus on utilizing your strengths to polish your resume, conquer career fairs, maintain an online presence. Again, I’ll offer this disclaimer: I’m not a recruiter or even the full-time employee of a company. I’m a college student who would like to share some advice on finding a PM internship.
With that in mind, read on.
1. Make your resume readable — and not just for humans.
I’ve heard it said that recruiters decide within 6 seconds of looking at your resume whether its going into the “yes” pile or the “no” pile.
It follows, therefore, that you should make your resume easily readable. If you’ve got an eye for design — which you should for product management roles — ask yourself: is this information easy to visually interpret?
Humans are very visual creatures. Making things easy to read is more than just choosing the right words — fonts, colors, and shapes can help turn complex pieces of information into beautifully-designed, easily-digestible material.
Here’s what my resume looks like:
That being said, don’t make the mistake of prioritizing style over substance. Sure, the look of your resume might draw someone in, but it’s the material that your resume describes that will get you that interview. Other people more experienced than I have written better blog posts about writing a stellar resume, so I’ve collected a few of my favorites here:
If you haven’t had any work experience in the tech industry yet, you’ll want to include a “Coursework” section underneath your education and list relevant courses you’ve taken. This will allow recruiters to quickly gauge your familiarity with essential material — data structures, user interface design, web programming, systems programming, databases, algorithms, etc.
Don’t let a low GPA discourage you from applying to tech companies. In the tech industry, we have a luxury wherein many employers aren’t too concerned with your GPA. Ultimately, it’s your choice whether or not to put your GPA on your resume. That being said, if your GPA is under a 3.0, I’d advise you to leave it off of your resume entirely. Besides, that little number will matter very little a few years down the line (unless you’re planning to go to grad school).
As mentioned in my previous blog post, check out the stellar Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie Bavaro. It’s worth every penny — especially the chapter on writing your resume for a PM job hunt. In the words of the Cracking the PM Interview:
“A resume isn’t read; it’s skimmed. A resume screener will glance at your resume for about 15 seconds (or maybe less) to make a decision about whether or not to interview you. This forms the guiding principle of resumes. A resume should be optimized for that 15-second skim.”
After you’ve put together a first draft of your resume, go to your school’s career services department for a resume critique. Note their critiques, but be wary of naive advice; some university career services departments offer ‘umbrella’ critiques under the assumption that all industries should use the same sections on their resumes. As a result, I’ve been told some misinformed advice in a few of my school’s resume review workshops. (e.g. “Why do you have such a large ‘Projects’ section on your resume? You should take that off.” This is just plain wrong for people wanting to get into the tech industry.)
Better yet, find a friend-of-a-friend who is already a PM and ask them for a resume review. No one can give you a really good critique like a professional from the industry into which you hope to enter.
If you’re not able to find someone who can review your resume, you should know that some tech companies will go to schools to hold “office hours,” where recruiters and other employees will review resumes and answer your questions. These can be incredibly helpful in your career search.
Once your resume is up-to-scratch, it’s time for the most dreadful part of a job search: career fairs.
2. Career Fairs.
Yes, I know they suck. But career fairs can be invaluable when it comes to networking and getting your resume out to recruiters.
I despise crowds. I was absolutely petrified when I walked into my first career fair, mainly because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, other than hand someone my resume and talk to them.
For virgin career-fair-goers out there, here’s a rough outline of the kind of interactions you‘ll have with the representatives from different companies. You’ll wait in a long line, and then, when it’s your turn to speak to the recruiters:
- Shake their hand with a confident “Hello, pleased to meet you! I’m ________.”
- Hand them your resume and go straight into your introduction, telling them your major(s)/minor(s), year in school, any prior relevant work experience you’ve had, why you’re interested in the company, and what kinds of roles that you’re looking for. This should last no longer than 30 seconds.
- End your introduction with some form of question so as to segue into conversation with the recruiter. (e.g. “I saw on your website that you hire PM interns. Are you currently looking for candidates for that position? What are traits that your company looks for in potential candidates?”)
- Have a back-and-forth conversation with recruiters about the opportunities at their company. Listen — really listen — to their responses, and hold a genuine conversation with them.
- Ask for their contact information / business card, thank them for their time, and head to the next company.
In general, this is the format each of your conversations with recruiters will have. Don’t be afraid to jot down some notes during or after your conversation with a company; after the fourth company, the conversations that you’ve had with recruiters will all start to blend together.
Some recruiters will hand out their contact information; follow up with the ones who do. Write them a thank-you note once you’ve gotten home for the day. Briefly recap who you are and why they should listen, then give an ask on what exactly you want.
Sometimes, certain companies prefer not to hand out contact information to candidates at career fairs. If this is the case, don’t worry about them declining your request for more contact information — it’s just some companies’ policy, and they’ll follow-up with you if they find a fit.
Do a bit of research beforehand. Look at which companies are going to be at the career fair. This will give you a bit of information ahead of time — which companies are looking for PM interns, which company recently had an important product release, etc. This will help you think of questions to ask each recruiter ahead of time.
Remember that 30-second introduction that I mentioned earlier?
You’re going to want to be able to recount that in your sleep. Make sure you rehearse it before the career fair, with a clear outline of all of the information that you’re going to give to recruiters. My showerhead knows my introduction REALLY well these days.
When you first get to a career fair, do not start out by talking to your top choice companies. You’re going to mess up your introduction a few times, and you’ll definitely want to get those mess-ups out of your system with companies that are lower on your priority list.
Finally, check with your school’s career services center to see if there are any casual-dress career fairs, or any career fairs that are catered towards the tech industry.
Usually the department of computer science at my school has two per semester, both of which are specifically for computer science, computer engineering, and electrical and computer engineering majors. I feel much more at ease in my casual clothes than I do in my suit and tie — for me, going to the casual-dress career fairs was much more worth my time and effort than the full-fledged career fairs.
3. Online presence.
Make sure you’ve got an up-to-date, polished LinkedIn profile. Recruiters headhunt candidates on LinkedIn, so you’re really shooting yourself in the foot if you haven’t gotten one already. (LinkedIn is also very valuable for keeping track of your network, so make sure to utilize it there as well.)
Your LinkedIn page doesn’t have to be anything fancy.
You can (and should) simply copy-paste material from your resume to your LinkedIn profile. Include links to your finished work / publications / videos / websites. Your LinkedIn page can be slightly more fleshed out than your resume, but don’t overwhelm readers. The same ‘15-second skim’ principle applies here as well.
Here are two superb posts about the purpose of LinkedIn in today’s career search climate:
Next, start writing. Blog about products you use. Show the world you have strong opinions about tech. Write insightful reviews of products.
“A blog can definitely help a lot with getting an interview. Recruiters regularly search the web for candidates, and it helps you get noticed.
If someone stumbles across your resume from somewhere else, they might check out your blog to get a better feel for who you are. Your blog can be used to demonstrate writing skills and technical skills.
If you go this path, use it effectively by not making it just a blog. Post a link to your Github, screenshot of projects, your resume, and other relevant information.” — Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Finally, I’d recommend putting together a personal portfolio website for yourself. Use it to showcase your experience and some of the previous projects that you’ve created. Make it slick.
Andrew Chapello, a product manager at Recurly, emphasized the importance of having a well-structured LinkedIn page, a personal website, blog, or Twitter account with good content. “I didn’t even use a resume in my latest job search,” he said, “so for many tech firms they are not the only method used for recruiter research.”
4. Strengthen your email game.
PMs are entrusted with a lot of responsibility, so present yourself as someone who is ready for that responsibility. Make sure you don’t drop the ball on an email when you’re going through an interview process; it will reflect poorly on your follow-through and organizational skills.
Start getting good at writing emails. Keep them brief. If you have to ask multiple questions or include a list of dates and/or times in one email, bulleted and numbered lists are your friend. They’re much easier to visually interpret, and the recruiters with whom you will be communicating will thank you for it.
Here’s a fantastic post about writing good emails (check out #2):
If you’re setting up interview times / dates via email, be sure to check your timezones. (If you use Gmail, Google Calendar is really nice about automatically converting event times into the correct timezones if you add them from a desktop email.) This might sound like a common-sense piece of advice, but it’s important. I once had a recruiter call me an hour earlier than I was expecting because I didn’t specify which timezone I was in — fortunately I happened to be at home at the time.
Remember that if you don’t get a response from a recruiter in a timely manner (~7 days after an interview) it is perfectly acceptable to send them a follow-up email to see if there have been any updates to the status of your application. I’ve seen too many friends eat themselves alive while they wait for recruiters to get back to them after three weeks or more. Just ask. Not obsessively, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with a brief follow-up email.
Here’s a great flowchart that illustrates when it’s appropriate to follow up with emails.
Also, don’t make any assumptions about what response time after an interview might mean for your application. Some recruiters are busy or downright disorganized. Recruiters are humans, too, and they sometimes simply forget to follow-up with candidates. They don’t bite (99% of the time).
Finally, I’d strongly recommend creating a “Internship Search 2017” label (or something of that nature) in your email inbox and filing all recruiting emails for that particular year under that label. You’ll thank yourself later when you’re trying to find the email address of the friendly recruiter that you talked to at Microsoft a few years ago.
With your online presence in check and a sexy new resume in hand, you’ll be ready to hit up career fairs and take your job search by the horns. Before you know it, and you’ll be snagging interviews left and right.
Coming soon: Check out part 3 of this blog series, focusing on how to nail the PM interview.
In case you missed it, here’s another link to Part 1 of this series:
