Product Management

February 4, 2023

Land a Product Management internship

Transcript

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About This Event

From learning product management online to becoming an Associate Product Manager, this EntryLevel student shows you the exact roadmap to reach your career goals.

The Panelist:

Hassanat Taiye Abubakar - Associate Product Manager at Prunedge

After taking a 6-week Product Management program with EntryLevel and learning online, Hassanat landed a Product Management internship. Within a few months, she was promoted to Associate Product Manager.

She shares her story and step-by-step guide for how you can land your first product management internship too.

Connect with her here:

https://twitter.com/AmeenHassana

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hassanat-taiye-abubakar-b708a1128/

About us

EntryLevel helps you learn and get experience so you can get hired. Our 6-week programs are taught by world-class mentors, so you can learn and build a portfolio of work.

You'll learn with a cohort of driven peers, and each lesson is unlocked after a set time so you stay accountable and finish the program.

Event key takeaways

Put yourself out there - always learn and share your learnings online (Twitter, LinkedIn)

Find peer mentors to reflect on your growth together

Work on portfolio projects with others in the tech community

You can product manage your life - treat your learning as a product itself

Be proactive (research and solve problems yourself), ask good questions, and follow up - these skills will help you succeed in the workplace

Event resources

Communities

Newbie PM (shadow product managers, learn, and work on task simulations): https://instagram.com/newbie_pm

Ingressive4Good: https://www.instagram.com/ingressive4good/

She Code Africa: https://shecodeafrica.org/

People in Product: https://twitter.com/peopleinproduct

Learning

https://www.entrylevel.net/

https://productschool.com/

Create a roadmap for yourself to learn more about your strengths and weaknesses

More advice

Previous events with mentors: https://www.entrylevel.net/events

Previous EntryLevel students: https://www.entrylevel.net/interviews

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Full event notes

How did you start your PM journey? Like what did you learn?

Learned project management first

Work on transferrable skills

Didn’t join Discord community, but did Telegram channel

Portfolio → prototype, used Canva at first to do it (doesn’t have to be complicated)

Project vs product management?

Project = project only, execution

Product = keep working on the product

Breaking into tech with a non-tech background

EntryLevel helped with breaking in

Mentor helped with guidance

How to find mentor

Mentor was friend

Messaged on LinkedIn (cold message) - some people said they weren’t in the right position to mentor

Senior mentor can help with your growth, but consider peer mentors as seniors aren’t available all the time

  • Goals, retrospectives
  • Invest in growth

Advice for someone on the fence / how to know if PM is for you? What if you don’t have a tech background?

Did project management

Skills and strengths

  • Know strengths and weaknesses

How to find strengths and weaknesses

Do research first

Focus on 1 or 2 courses first

Don’t keep taking courses - need to improve, evaluate

  • Do a retrospective

If you were to start over as a PM what are this first 5 things you should focus on learning ?

EntryLevel

  • Tasking but helped with learning skills, documentation

Design was weakness

  • Take course on
  • Collab on projects

Projects to work on?

So many problems

Few friends - work on something together for collaboration and communication

What skills did you practice to feel confident going into interviews?

Didn’t really prepare

EntryLevel helped with technical assessment

Had to document things w EntryLevel

Good to start looking for internships → some people stop learning and focused on learning

  • Important to keep on learning - learning never stops

Focus on open-source projects, build portfolio

Can go for entry-level or junior role

In Nigeria

  • Rare to work on projects

1-2 projects

Portfolio?

What companies look at

Give insight about what your skills are

Demonstrate how you think

Do market research, collab with friend (designer, no-code tools vs dev)

As a complete beginner, how to start a portfolio?

Who you are, what you do

EntryLevel course

Open source projects

Join communities, find people to work with

Can you land a job with just a certificate?

Mentorship

Put yourself out there - share your journey

Where do you find jobs?

What to put in CV?

Background in healthcare

Tailor CV around product management

PM your life, health, relationship, job search

How to find internships?

Put yourself out there to stand out

Don’t need to go for a big company - can do startup

Ask ppl to review your work

Networking - not just to get a job. Network for value

How did you stand out when applying for jobs?

Share work, social media, networking

Putting yourself out there

Tell your story

Join communities

How to find communities

By networking

Nigeria have good communities, supportive

  • Ingressive4Good
  • SheCode Africa
  • People In Product

What key things did you do to go from intern to associate?

They do evaluation

Determined person, did job well

Go as fast as possible

Ask questions, don’t wait

Proactively research

Dedicated

Follow up

Recommended resources?

Product School

Roadmap for self

Learning soft skills like communications?

Work on open source projects - experience working with ppl

Social media

Twitter, LinkedIn

Post 1 thing per month on Twitter and LinkedIn

  • Then 2 things per month
  • Just keep going
  • Start somewhere

Don’t need to focus on 1 audience

Portfolio

Use Notion portfolio - about self, background, experience, projects → send link

Presenters

Hassanat Taiye Abubakar

Associate Product Manager at Prunedge

After taking a 6-week Product Management program with EntryLevel and learning online, Hassanat landed a Product Management internship. Within a few months, she was promoted to Associate Product Manager.

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What is EntryLevel?
EntryLevel helps you learn and get experience so you can get hired in tech. Beginner-friendly 6 week programs guide you to create a portfolio you can show off to employers.
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