Here at Product Manager Dojo, one common phrase that we tell both prospects and clients is that finding a product manager job will be more of a marathon than a sprint. Very few people will be able to land a PM role in just a week or two. However, one approach you can take that will help you achieve success faster is to treat your search from the perspective of a product manager. "Product manager-ify" your job hunt if you will. What this means is that you have to consider both you and your resume as Minimum Viable Products (MVP) and that it's your responsibility to keep iterating and improving until you achieve product market fit (aka securing the offer).
There are two pieces to this MVP approach:
1) Applying
Many folks make the mistake of thinking and waiting for the perfect time to start applying for product jobs. Maybe this is once they finish a class or complete a certification. However according to this approach, the most important thing is to update your resume (your MVP in this case) as best as you can and start applying as soon as possible. That way you can get market feedback quickly and figure out what you need to change.
If you apply and interviews begin rolling in, then congrats, your resume is terrific! But if you apply and can't land a single interview, that is the market telling you that something is wrong with your resume. This means you need to go back, iterate, make some modifications and start applying with the new version of resume. Rinse and repeat until you start seeing some improvement. The big drawback of this approach is that it takes time especially because most companies suck at getting back to applicants in a timely manner.
2) Interviewing
Whereas for applying, your resume is the MVP, when it comes to interviewing, you are the MVP. You should go on as many interviews (real interviews, not mock interviews) as you can regardless of your interest in the company in order to gain valuable interviewing experience and feedback. Especially if you are new and looking to break into product management, there is no way that you will be able to interview perfectly initially. Therefore each interview you go on is an opportunity for you to identify areas of weakness and where you need to improve. That is why it is so important that after every interview, you write down the questions you had trouble with and research how to answer those questions better so that they will not trip you up in any future interviews. It is perfectly fine to stumble in your first several interviews; in fact, it is probably expected. But as long as you are honest with yourself and use each interview to improve yourself piece by piece, you are well on your way to landing a product role quickly.
If you are interested in learning how to have the best product management resume or want to break into product management, please schedule a free call via the Contact page. We would love to chat and see how Product Manager Dojo can help.
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