Want to Become a Product Manager? Join the Toronto APM Program
This blog was authored by Sihan Shi and Claudia Cornali-Motta.
How do you break into product management if there is no clear path?
In this blog post TWG’s Associate Product Managers Sihan Shi and Claudia Cornali-Motta talk about how they got into product and the APM program. If you missed our first blog about why we built Toronto’s APM program, you can read this blog by Toronto APM Co-Founder and VP of Product at TWG, Tom Walsham.
Practicing product development and strengthening communities
The Toronto APM program is incredibly important to the technology community in Toronto, and arguably to the rest of the country because it addresses the dire talent drought that we are seeing in Canada. Product management as a discipline is experiencing growing interest with more people choosing it as a potential career path, and more companies recognizing the need for it in their organization. The program benefits companies that are newly introducing the discipline and don’t yet have processes in place to train Product Managers internally, as well as those who already have an established Product Manager practice and are helping talented folks switch into product management.
A significant problem in the market is that there are no clear entry points into product management for new graduates or people like us who have built up years of relevant and related experience in other disciplines. The path to becoming a product manager in Toronto has a lot of twists, turns, and dead-ends but the Toronto APM program gave us a much-needed map to get to our destination.
What is the Toronto APM program?
The Toronto Associate Product Management (APM) program is organized and operated by nine product-focused companies. Each company selects one or two individuals to take part in a six-month-long training opportunity that helps them gain work experience as well as a sound understanding of product management principles. As APMs, we work with senior product managers at our companies and also attend weekly classes and workshops with the other APMs.
The weekly sessions rotate locations between partner companies around Toronto and follow a similar structure. Each starts with APMs presenting demos on products we’re working on or on common product challenges, then a guest-led or program mentor lecture, followed by a group exercise. Group exercises usually take the form of discussions ranging from working through that week’s concepts to hearing from program directors about their own (very different) experiences in product management. We cover a lot of material over six months with the goal of laying a solid foundation for a strong career in product management.
Here’s a bit more about us and our experience in the program
Our first three months at TWG have been incredible, from the onboarding materials shared before our first day to sitting down with folks throughout the organization in our first two weeks. Toronto APM and TWG really went out of their way to set us up for success through things like our intros at the company-wide standups, to checking in with leadership after our first month.
Claudia Cornali-Motta
“Meeting Rob Domagala (General Manager — Websites, Ecommerce & Branding at TWG) at a Branch.io dinner and finding out about the upcoming Toronto APM program was like a lightning bolt. I quickly followed up over LinkedIn and in two weeks I had started the interview process.
I was familiar with TWG’s work not only as a consulting company but also as a space that encourages difficult conversations about gender diversity in tech. Partnering with Saadia Muzaffar on the Change Together Report, they really showed their commitment to the work that they were doing internally and within the Toronto tech community.
Like many Product Managers, this is my second career, however, I’m not sure how many have come from the restaurant industry despite the stellar arguments presented here. After eight years of working in service, I completed a front-end coding boot camp and took on an internship at a bank as a project analyst, which complemented the project management principles I studied at school. While project management taught me to balance scope, budget, and timeline, what I really wanted to focus on was creating customer experiences across different mediums.
I transitioned to a telecom company where my work focused on user interaction within the website and customer rewards app. Navigating the heady worlds of contracts, government regulations and somehow managing to pull off a great customer experience was quite the balancing act and it helped me strengthen my own understanding of service design and UX. It also solidified my desire to create impactful products for users and to seek out a discipline where their needs were prioritized while still aligning with business goals.”
Sihan Shi
“Considering that the average person today will have five to seven different careers in their lifetime, I’m actually surprised that my second career in product management waited so long to reveal itself. I worked in client services and account management in advertising agencies for nine years before transitioning into product management. It wasn’t that advertising was wrong for me or that product management was right, I see the change as an evolution of my curiosity and desire to learn.
In my search for what’s next, I truly valued the experience I had gained in advertising and didn’t want to start from scratch. There are many skills that overlap between the two industries such as project management, user research, experience design, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement and many more. And it was these parallel needs that positioned me to be a successful APM candidate at TWG. I started working towards product management by attending BrainStation’s part-time course and while it provided great foundational knowledge, an even more valuable outcome of the course was how it introduced me to Toronto’s community of product managers. From the instructors to the meetups that we attended, it set me on the path I am on now.”
Curious to Know More About Toronto APM?
If you see us out at events or want to chat about product or the APM program, please come up and say hello. We’re always happy to share our experiences and other resources you may find helpful in deciding whether product management is right for you. We’re almost twelve weeks in and we have covered topics many topics like constructing viable roadmaps and building trust with metrics, yet there’s still so much more to learn!
The best part of our sessions has been sharing our experiences with one another and learning from them, whether this comes from mentors or fellow APM’s. The candor and camaraderie is something which helps in a field with no professional accreditation or specific schooling outside of boot camps.
We’re looking forward to our remaining weeks together as our relationships evolve and we discover new ways to apply our learnings. Product management is a growing discipline with a lot of specialization opportunity in the software industry, and the APM program looks to create the next generation of product managers in a supportive and inclusive environment.
If you’re thinking about being involved in product, the APM program or TWG, please reach out to careers@TWG.io. We’re especially interested in hearing from women and members of IBPOC, Queer and Trans Gender non-binary and non-conforming communities who are considering a career change and looking to make an impact on Toronto’ product community.
You can check out the Toronto APM website, and sign up for our mailing list to stay up to date on when applications will open up (Hint: it will be the beginning of July). Keep in touch with us as well by following @apmtoronto on Twitter.
If you’re interested in other opportunities at TWG, then please do reach out — TWG is hiring and would love to have a conversation.
