{"id":7820,"date":"2019-08-28T03:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.brainstation.io\/?p=7820"},"modified":"2020-11-24T19:07:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T00:07:52","slug":"how-to-get-a-job-as-a-product-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/blog\/how-to-get-a-job-as-a-product-manager","title":{"rendered":"How to Get a Job as a Product Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

Product Managers<\/a> are increasingly important to the product development process and have been called the \u201cunsung heroes of the tech world,”\u00a0<\/span>the \u201c<\/span>glue that binds user experience with technical and business requirements,<\/span>\u201d and\u00a0the new dream job for MBA students.\u00a0<\/span>In fact,\u00a0a Product Manager was most likely involved in the creation of your favorite product.<\/span><\/p>\n

To find out how to land a job in this fast-rising field, we spoke to a number of Senior Product Managers. <\/span><\/p>\n

Product Managers Need to Commit to Continuous Learning<\/span><\/h2>\n

Some jobs require a specific, tailored education path (read: you\u2019re not becoming a brain surgeon without going to medical school).<\/span><\/p>\n

Product management is the opposite. Across North America, Product Managers come from a variety of backgrounds, including degrees in communications, marketing, and engineering, among others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“There’s no undergrad degree you take, and then you become a Product Manager,\u201d notes Nahla Salem, a Senior Product Manager at Loopio, an RFP response software. \u201cYou need to be strategic and plan out your career in a way that leads to it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Increasingly, this strategic plan involves continuing education. According to a <\/span>survey of 2,500 Product Managers<\/span>, 71 percent of respondents held at least one professional certification in addition to an undergrad degree, and 76 percent considered continuing education very or somewhat important to their career. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are good reasons for this focus on continuous learning: the best Product Managers often have to know more about their industry than anybody else in the company. On top of that, they\u2019ll need to be able to speak the language of Developers, Engineers, Designers, Marketers, and more. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey wear many hats, using a broad knowledge base to make trade-off decisions, and bring together cross-functional teams, ensuring alignment between diverse functions,\u201d management consulting firm <\/span>McKinsey once wrote<\/span>, adding that \u201cproduct management is emerging as the new training ground for future tech CEOs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Know Your Industry and Develop a Diverse Skill Set <\/span><\/h2>\n

Most PMs agree on one thing: It\u2019s not an entry-level job.\u00a0<\/span>Many of the skills a good PM requires \u2014 management abilities, problem-solving, cross-functional teamwork, and decision-making \u2014 come from experience in the workplace. Fittingly, according to the 2019 BrainStation Digital Skills Survey,\u00a0\u00a0over 80 percent of product respondents are working in an intermediate or higher position level. What’s more,\u00a088 percent<\/span>\u00a0of product management professionals started their careers in a different field.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ll hear a lot of PMs say they were doing the job of a PM long before they had the job title,\u201d <\/span>notes <\/span>Phillip Gornicki, a Senior Technical Product Manager at Rubikloud. \u201c<\/span>That’s because leadership and interpersonal skills play such a vital role in product management.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brian Yee, Head of Product at Rangle, a\u00a0Digital Transformation Consultancy<\/span>, says landing a role in product management involves gaining a sense of several main areas: Business, technology, and customers. <\/span>\u201cA Product Manager is trying to understand where those three intersect… to build a really great product,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is good news for those looking to make a career change; the role requires a number of transferable skills, with being able to work cross-functionally among the most important. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be able to understand how to work with technical people, how to work with internal stakeholders, to really be able to move a product along,\u201d says \u00a0Kim Phelan, VP of Product at ChefHero, an app that allows businesses to easily order wholesale restaurant supplies.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also helpful to have a solid sense of industry trends and customer needs, Phelan adds \u2014 along with the problem-solving savvy to develop something people will want to buy, use, and support. <\/span><\/p>\n

But just like education, the skill set needed for PM roles vary widely company by company, says Gornicki<\/span>.<\/span> \u201cIt’s important to be very deliberate about your search and the types of companies you’re applying for,\u201d he says. <\/span><\/p>\n

Network Your Way to the Top<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sure, you\u2019ll find Product Manager roles all over online job boards \u2014 they\u2019re a dime a dozen on LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and even a quick Google search.<\/span><\/p>\n

But PMs say networking inside or outside of your own company, be it inviting a colleague you admire out for coffee or attending a mentorship event, can be a better bet than applying cold to a job posting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNetworking is, to me, the number one thing to do … if you don’t go to the meetups, if you don’t actively find the right mentor and get critical advice on where your resume or job experience is weak, you’ll find it hard,\u201d says Jack Sadler, Director of Product Management at <\/span>Rangle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phelan agrees, saying there are lots of solid meetups for budding PMs \u2014 like the <\/span>Toronto Product Management Association meetup<\/span> or <\/span>Product Mana<\/span>g<\/span>ement New York<\/span>. \u201cGenerally, when I’ve hired before, it’s been internally or people with experience,\u201d she adds.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that while making industry connections and diversifying your skillset will help set you apart, there\u2019s no singular route to landing a job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t need a cookie-cutter path to product management to be a successful product manager,\u201d says Gornicki.<\/span><\/p>\n

Find out more about BrainStation’s Product Management courses<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While there\u2019s no one-size-fits-all strategy to landing this kind of role, there are strategies you can use to get that dream job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1066,228],"tags":[306,531,150,229],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Get a Job as a Product Manager<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Product management is emerging as the new training ground for future tech CEOs, but how do you get started? 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