So you've finally decided that product management is the next career step for you. That's terrific! As someone who has officially been a product manager for the past four years, PM is truly an exciting and fulfilling field. But now the hard part. How do you break in especially if you don't have a product background? This is a question that many aspiring PMs face because there is no defined path like there is for many other industries. Most undergraduate colleges don't even offer a product manager degree of any kind.
From my experience, here are three main ways for you to get your first product manager job, including the pros and cons of each:
1) Go through an Associate Product Manager (APM) or similar rotational program
Some companies, mostly in the tech space, offer Associate Product Manager programs that are geared towards new grads or professionals with only one to two years of experience who don't necessarily have any product manager background. Generally these programs are two years in length and upon completion, you receive a full-time offer as a product manager. The most famous examples are the Google and Facebook APM programs.
Pros
- Amazing learning experience: you will learn all you need to be a successful and productive product manager.
- Fantastic support system: you will have many mentors, workshops and events to support you.
- Guaranteed full time product manager offer assuming you don't do anything stupid during the program.
- Usually pretty prestigious and well known in the industry.
Cons
- HIGHLY competitive and selective: everyone and their mom guns for these positions meaning you are competing with the best of the best from all across the country. Furthermore, there are only a very limited number of slots open so it is very difficult to get accepted. As reference, Google accepts roughly 0.55% of applicants for its APM program meaning it is almost 10x harder to get into Google's APM program than it is to get into Harvard!
- Not that many available: only larger companies with deep coffers can afford to start and maintain an APM program meaning most firms out there don't even offer one to begin with.
2) Work in a group adjacent to product and try to lateral in
Another option is to first try and find a position on a team that works closely with the product team and then try to lateral over after a certain amount of time. Basically, you are building up your product knowledge and skillset indirectly so that over time, you can claim you have the product experience to actually be a product manager. Some of the best teams to do this from include engineering, product marketing, design, customer success, and even quality assurance.
Pros
- Generally it is easier to get a job in one of these adjacent teams than it is for the product team especially if you don't have that much direct product experience
- Interview process tends to be less stringent when doing a lateral move internally as hopefully, people already know who you are and what you are capable of
Cons
- Going this route is essentially playing the long game. You will have to spend at least one year or two in this adjacent role before trying to make the transition to the product team.
- No guarantee it will work out: the company may promise you that after X amount of time they will allow you to move over to the product team but promises can be broken quite easily. The last thing you want is to grind for 12 to 18 months only to be told that the company has decided to find external candidates instead or that the team doesn't need anyone new and you will have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time.
3) Apply for product manager roles directly
The last way is to just go for it and apply for product manager roles directly online. From personal experience as well as from helping our clients, this method is the most effective way of landing a product manager job in the shortest amount of time. Most of you reading this probably don't have the luxury of months or years to land your first product job so applying online is actually the most efficient, straightforward way to achieve that goal.
Now you might be saying something along the lines of "I've never been a product manager before so wouldn't applying online be useless?" While that sentiment makes sense, if you are applying online with the right resume that sells you in the right way, you will see results. We are certain that even if you may not have had the formal title of product manager before that you've done activities PMs normally do. The key is that your resume needs to be painting you as a product manager first and foremost with the experience you do have.
Pros
- Quickest and most efficient way of getting product manager interviews fast
- Completely in your control
- Only method of finding a PM job that is truly scalable
Cons
- Will take time and effort: you will need to apply to a lot of companies to start seeing the results that you want
- Rejections will come in fast and furious simply as a by-product of applying online. However, this is something as a job hunter that you need to be able to deal with. Every candidate will receive rejections as part of the process but the candidates who are most successful are the ones who don't take rejections personally and keep moving forward regardless.
If you are interested in breaking into product management or are having trouble landing interviews and/or offers, 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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