A Guide to Landing a PM Role in 21 Days
Action items to better network, interview prep, and show initiative
Note: we have moved most of our content, and will be posting our latest articles on our Substack! Come check us out there.
I like the exercise of building a 21 day plan to land a PM role because it has forced me to prioritize the most important tasks that align with the goal — getting that job offer.
It is important to recognize that some of the experiences that make a great PM candidate take months to build up over internships, projects, and initiatives. With that said, we won’t worry about your background much in these 21 days, with a few exceptions. Instead, we want to work on the highest impact areas: networking, interview preparation, initiative.
Week 1
Networking
Okay, I’ll admit it: LinkedIn is one of the only social media platforms I use, and the only one besides Strava (a social network that you can post bike rides and runs to) that I currently have downloaded on my phone. Despite having tons of time from not being on TikTok to spend on LinkedIn, I still underutilize it. It has never been easier to connect with people that have already walked the path you intend to. These people can offer advice, insights, friendship, and referrals to companies that have ultra-competitive hiring processes.
Most of your network will not come from reaching out to people you do not know on LinkedIn. Your network will come primarily from people you meet through classes, clubs, teams, internships, or otherwise. This is the first group we are going to work with: these relationships have been built up more organically, and will offer the most value in terms of landing a role.
Action items this week:
- If you know anyone that is a PM, reach out to them to schedule a chat and ask them about their experience! How did they land their role? It may be most helpful to talk to a PM early in their career, as they may be able to better relate to your position and provide more relevant advice.
- Search LinkedIn for people you may be connected to and forgot about or are 2nd connections with, and reach out to them as well.
Aim for 2–3 calls this week. Your goal through these calls is to better understand what you can do to prepare for a PM role, build relationships in the space, and potentially have someone to refer you to a position, or keep you informed when new positions open up!
Interview Preparation
We will start with the most common, most bang for your buck when it comes to interview questions. These questions are the low hanging fruit, so don’t skip them. You will get asked these, and there is no excuse for not having a well thought-out answer.
Question 1. What is your favorite product and why? How would you improve it?
- I have been asked this question in some shape or form from nearly every company I have interviewed with
- Come up with three software products you know well, and potentially one hardware/physical product
- In the past, I have picked Strava because I use it nearly everyday and it also shows that I have a unique interest in triathlons, which I thought was something that added some depth to my persona. I have also used Quora, since I used to often write on the platform and so got to mention that hobby while discussing a product I was very familiar with.
- This is really a product design question: does the product fill a need? Does it have the “wow factor? How does it compare to its competition or other supplementary products?
Question 2. Why are you interested in product management? What would make you a good PM?
- I would stray away from answers that are too general here such as “I like working in a team,” “I would love to build things that people use,” etc. You want to share something memorable and specific.
- Especially if you come from a non-technical background (studied political science, business, architecture, music, english, etc.), nailing your story here is key!
- Here’s a good example answer: “I came to UC Berkeley intent on becoming a doctor, but eventually felt I needed to explore other options before committing to such a long path of education. I was glad that I took that time to explore! I soon joined a consulting club and found that I really excelled at condensing user feedback into high-level recommendations for additional features and marketing strategies. While working on a project for Venmo, I discovered something that surprised me through a series of focus groups — college students highly valued the aesthetic nature and color of the card, even more so than its other features! This interest in understanding and empathizing with customers has led me to want to work in product management, driving forward a product with a clear focus on user needs and filling those.”
Initiative
This is the most open-ended of the three key aspects of this 21 day challenge. You can do whatever you want (which potentially may make this the hardest one to accomplish), as long as it is not a required task for a class, internship, or job. It’s something you decide to do on your own because you enjoy working on it, and believe in its purpose enough to spend your free time on it.
Why is this on here? Product managers are tasked with driving a team towards a buttoned-up, crisp deliverable through trust and influence. They often work through uncertainty and unforeseen challenges with their team to produce a clean final product. The best way to learn how to drive a project through these hurdles is to practice, practice, practice. From my experience, great PMs first start off as great leaders.
I love this quote from Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last (originally from John Quincy Adams):
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
I recommend picking one thing at the beginning of the 21 days, and sticking with it throughout the challenge to get the most out of your personal project. As such, I won’t have action items for this category for week 2 and 3 — you know what to do!
Here are some ideas for you.
Non-Technical
- Write an article on a topic of your choice. Post it to LinkedIn and/or Medium. Especially impactful articles often bring a new perspective to an important topic, clearly explain a complex idea, or can curate resources on a specific area
- Do case studies and post them on a personal website or Medium. Examples could be running through your process to better monetize Spotify or your proposal for a new feature on Venmo to convert more users to Venmo debit card holders
- Start answering questions on Quora
- Write a letter/petition for something that you believe should be changed
- Do some design work for an idea you have (could be designing running clothing, an app, etc.). You can use Sketch, or Figma, both fairly easy to learn design tools.
Technical
- Design and build your own website. There are a ton of great personal websites out there to get inspiration from! This is a win-win: you can also share it with potential employers.
- Build a ML model to solve a problem that you are interested in. If you want to have the best bracket in your March Madness Tournament, you can build a model to help predict upsets!
- Code a simple game or app.
Week 2
Networking
LinkedIn can get a little dull after a while of doing the same type of cold messaging. It is easier to meet people through events that may be focused on product management or recruiting.
If you are on Clubhouse, I just attended a really interesting and informative panel on product management headlined by the CEO of Ancestry (and ex-Facebook Marketplace Head) Deb Liu. Seek out these kinds of opportunities! Attending smaller, less-attended events can also open up more chances to connect with current PMs. Product School hosts webinars on a regular basis. Aim to attend at least two webinars or clubhouse sessions this week! Reach out to the speakers or people in the audience after if you feel something they said resonated with you.
Interview Preparation
The Product Design Question. Product design questions often come in the form: Design X for Y. I walked through an example here: How To Answer a Product Design Question. Work through a few examples by yourself and a few with a friend as your interviewer!
Week 3
Networking
Polishing up the Resume. I want to interview some recruiters that work specifically on finding great candidates for product roles and write a whole article on this section, so stay tuned for that! In the meantime, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- PMs need to be proficient in a lot of things, but make sure you know what traits/experience is sought after and craft your resume around that
- PMs also are often fairly data driven — let this speak through your resume by making sure you provide metrics on your impact
- Spend time improving your resume, but don’t obsess over it. I’d prioritize working on getting referrals, building your network, and your personal project!
Interview Preparation
The Product Execution Question. Execution questions typically come in the form of: “How would you measure success of X?,” or “X metric is down 10%, what do you do?” They are pretty metrics-based, so you will want to brush up on common metrics such as DAU (daily active users), churn rate, etc.
Learn a framework (or two) that you feel comfortable with, and then practice so that you are comfortable applying it in varying situations.
Here are some questions you can practice on:
- You are the PM for UberEats; cancellations on orders are up 15%. What do you do?
- How would you measure the success of YouTube shorts?
- How would you measure the success of Coinbase Earn?
First Round Follow-Up. Referrals, your resume, and your application will get you to your first round interview. After your first round interview, you should follow-up with a thank you. However, as a bonus you can include a few page document outlining a feature suggestion or project for that specific company. The follow-up can go something like this:
“Hi [name],
I hope you’re having an awesome morning and a great start to your week! I wanted to send over the mini-project that I told you about during our call last week. This has been extremely fun to do, and it’s taught me a lot — very eye-opening. I definitely have a huge amount to learn and hopefully I will get better as time goes on. I added a personal reflection about my experience at the end as well.”
Here are a couple of example mini-projects from Bin Pande, an incoming APM at Coinbase:
Thanks for reading, and please share any thoughts or feedback you have with me by shooting me a DM on LinkedIn!
