How to break into product management

Use code PM0413 for a discount on an EntryLevel course - it expires on April 30, 2024.

Connect with our speaker on LinkedIn.‍

Tomisin's PM newsletter: https://musingsproduct.substack.com/

Notes

What is PM - day in the life of a PM?

Provide value for businesses

• Help them serve their mission

Day starts with a 15 min standup meeting

Half of day can be meetings

Tomisin’s company works Agile - they do sprint planning

Backlog grooming

Documentation

Do you need to like meetings to be a PM?

It depends - I like meetings, especially if it’s within 1 hour

• Longer = attention span decreases
• People start getting anxious

Meetings = you get alignment a lot faster

How do you know if PM is for you?

Started working in customer success, and as a product specialist

Felt like I was no longer growing

Working in customer success = feel customer’s pain point

If you’re able to look at something more than the obvious

Good communication skills

If you like working in a group

• Your success or failure is determined by your group

Empathy = working w people

Most important skills to learn?

Written communication

• Documentation

Curious

• Asking questions

Data analysis skills

• Being data-driven PM
• Read numbers, making sense of them
• Make dashboards

As industry grows, there’s a need for more speicalized tools (AI tools)

• If you know to ask questions
• Know a bit of design and engineering

Do PMs need to know how to code or design?

No

But if you do know how to do that, it’s very good

• Manage team better
• Communicate better with team
• Get value a lot more

You can develop these skills

Data analysis skills are important too - for any job

• Can justify decisions based on evidence (data)

How to get these skills/practice/learn?

Soft skills = get better by doing it (writing, speaking, empathy)

Hard skills = courses like EntryLevel.net

How to get soft skills experience

Keep in mind not everyone is the same

Be careful of cultural differences when working remotely across different countries

What are the major things to have in mind as a product manager?

Don’t agree that PM is the easiest way to break into tech

• You have to have curiosity, ask questions
• Question things that seem normal

Breaking into product isn’t as straightforward as other careers

• It’s more soft skills and product thinking
• Less measurable

Customer obsession → curiosity helps w this

Do you need a degree or the PMP certification?

No

It’s nice to have it, but you don’t necessarily need it

Real life experience is different from textbooks

Certifications are good, but realize experience might be different

Tomisin was attending a bunch of networking events, while also taking a certification

How to begin a PM career? Especially if you’re transitioning from another career or if you’re a complete beginner?

If you don’t have a job right now

1. Get your foot in the door - try to make yourself seen
2. Your first internship doesn’t need to be a PM - you can look for adjacent roles like business analyst, QA tester
3. You can switch careers after the company hires and trusts you

If you have a job right now

1. Switch jobs in your organization (to PM)
2. Express interest in another role

Tomisin was in customer success at first

• Said she’s done courses, networking, spoken to head of product
• There was no opening at the time
• But afterwards, there was an opening so she switched

Be audacious, send emails to CEO or PM of the company you’re interested in

If you do have someone who’s a PM

• Ask to shadow them
• People might think you really want to be a product manager, but you see the reality and might not like it

How to stand out in the PM job search?

Depends on company

Try to build a startup to break into PM

• That experience becomes very valuable
• But not everyone’s able to do that

If your friends are doing a project

• You can volunteer
• That experience becomes very valuable
• Transferrable skills

If you work in marketing

• Promoting the product
• Emphasizing you have transferrable skills
• Show you can do something

How to get experience with no network in tech?

What are problems you face right now?

• Ex) bus is never on time
• Think about how to create a solution for that

You can also volunteer

• Shopify APM apprenticeship program
• Google has one too
• Search for apprenticeship programs different companies have
• You need to stand out

Building product sense, ask questions

• Pretend you’re the PM for an app you use
• How would you improve it?

Write and put yourself out there

Building skills before you get into the role

How to learn tools used as PMs? What tools are used?

Google Docs, Sheets, Meet, Calendar

Notion for documentation

Jira

Asana

Azure DevOps (Microsoft’s version of Trello and Jira)

Mixpanel

Fullstory

Microsoft Clarity

Figma

You don’t need to know all tools

• Just 1 can help you learn another (transferable)

How to find mentors?

ADPList

LinkedIn - PMs from all over the world

Ask your friends

Can just ask a mentor questions here and there (doesn’t have to have regular calls)

Reach out to ppl and ask questions

Future of PM (growth, demand)?

Yes, it does

But demand for PMs is growing but is changing as the market grows

Market is really competitive

Lots of PMs are generalists (do everything)

Now some companies are looking for more specialists

How to start learning?

Look at market and current skills - what’s important for you

How to know which career is best for you?

Reflect on pros and cons

Research

You can transition to any career

But it’ll take time

Speak to people

• Do research
• Ask questions

AI is the trend, so everyone’s trying to become some AI expert

• You can also ask ChatGPT about your career plans

Any other advice?

Be kind and patient to yourself

Embrace failure

• It grounds you, helps you learn

Resources

Take a quiz to learn which tech career is best for you: https://www.entrylevel.net/quiz

Free mentorship: https://adplist.org?ref=ADP-EN-BYM20

See salaries of different roles: Levels.fyi

Student success stories:

• Jennifer landed her first internship by standing out with her portfolio project‍
• Eric shared his work online and got hired by a recruiter
• Melvina shared her learning journey on LinkedIn daily and landed an internship in 4 months
• Christiana was persistent and used feedback from cold outreach to improve her LinkedIn, and got recruiters reaching out to her for jobs
• Michael landed a remote tech job by showing off his EntryLevel soft skill badges (on his certificate) during an interview

LinkedIn tips: https://www.entrylevel.net/events/using-linkedin-for-your-job-search

Remote job boards:

• ‍https://blog.entrylevel.net/p/find-remote-jobs-5-secret-sites-tips-applying‍
• https://blog.entrylevel.net/p/find-remote-tech-jobs‍
• https://blog.entrylevel.net/p/5-remote-tech-job-boards

EntryLevel's Discord community has job postings: https://discord.gg/3RpSSkCvux

Tomisin's po

• UX design
• Data analysis‍

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EntryLevel's resources

Our website: https://www.entrylevel.net/

FAQs: https://intercom.help/entrylevel/en/

Contact: support@entrylevel.net, jennifer@entrylevel.net

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