How to Get a Job in Product Management Out of College

As tech is booming globally, product management has become a fairly sought-after new grad career. It’s high-visibility, gives you some limited experience in management, crosses lots of skillsets, and can be high-impact.

No product manager enters the function the same way, and I definitely don’t have all the secrets, but there are some clear things that will help you along the way.

Before I jump in to practical suggestions I have for you to prepare yourself during college, let’s quickly overview what makes a good PM.

Skills of a Product Manager

There four key skills I would argue make a PM candidate. You should aim to develop some knowledge of each of them.

1. Engineering knowledge: A PM will work closely with her engineering counterparts as they develop the product to the PM’s requirements. Knowing the technical architecture makes those conversations far easier, and allows the PM to deeply understand tradeoffs, have empathy for engineers, suggest new approaches and even push back when needed.

2. Business Acumen: A product manager’s role is to make a product successful, and 90% of the time that tracks to making money for a business. To that end, you have to understand the business implications of product divisions. This often means deeply understanding…

• The business model
• Competitors
• P&L
• The market / customers

3. Design Chops: While most product teams will have a product designer, a PM should be fluent in good design just as she should be fluent in engineering. She should be able to spot good and bad designs, critique designs, and work together with a designer to refine the product requirements.

4. Leadership & Communication skills: While relevant at many jobs, this is a bucket that is essential and often overlooked. If a PM is only successful if the team is successful, and so needs the team to be happy and effective. This involves ensuring that people are bought in and excited about a vision, that there is cohesion and support in the team culture, and that people understand what they should be working on and what the expectations are.

One well-known director at Uber said during my onboarding that the job of a PM is to ‘first and foremost just take notes’, and this can definitely be super-power.

Practical Suggestions while in College

These are a list of things that I often recommend people to consider if they’re interested in getting into PM. They’re in no particular order, and you should take it with a grain of salt that there’s no particular path into PM — you should take the approach that works for you.

• Major or Minor in Computer Science: While not all new-grad PM positions require a technical background, almost all do. You should at the very least minor in CS if you’re interested in getting a PM role out of college.
• Take design courses: While there are fewer, considering taking human-computer interaction (HCI) or design courses. They’re fun and you’ll learn a lot.
• Network: This word has a lot of negative connotations because it’s often used to reference superficial connections, but I think that’s only one type of networking. To me, networking is trying to create stronger connections with people (generally in a professional way) and can be a make-or-break resource to learning about PM and applying to roles. During internships, school events, conferences, outings / parties where you meet interesting people or people in PM, just ask if they’re willing to grab a coffee where you can learn more about their roles. (Expect a blog post on this soon)
• Build / Design a Product: This is by far the best way to prepare for PM. A product doesn’t explicitly mean build a software product (though this is helpful). More the concept of bringing an idea that helps people solve a problem to life. This lets you practice super relevant PM skills like user research, product design, market analysis (if you make money) and potentially software engineering.
• Have Leadership Positions: These are a given for any new-grad role, but help with PM applications as well.
• Do a PM Internship: Intuitive, but helps a lot during post-grad applications.
• Do a SWE / Design internship: Also incredibly relevant (as I referenced above) and can be good compliments or replacements for a PM internship.
• Do another relevant internship: If you aren’t interested or able to get the above internships, consider doing another tangential position like consulting, data analytics, product marketing, or strategy, or anything else in tech. While in these roles, consider speaking to PM’s at your company and trying to see if they would let you join a project as a part-time PM, or just doing odd jobs for the product team.
• Work at a Startup: Working at a startup often lets you take on a number of roles and get a ton of diverse expertise. Definitely a good way to learn and stand out.
• Don’t follow any guides: As cliche as it is, chart your own path. If you want to do PM but want to major in English Lit, you should do that. Don’t abandon your other interests for a job.

Other Resources on PM

• What Is a Product Manager, Actually?: Super high-level and quick read on product.
• The evolving role of product management: I find this is a great in-depth overview of PM
• Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager by Ben Horowitz: While old, this is still a relevant resource for core skills of good PMs