 Hey everybody, I'm super excited to see you all here. My name is Vlad and I'm a former eBay product manager And today I'm going to talk about how to find your first product management job It doesn't matter if you're trying to get your first PM job break into product from other roles But I'm about to show you applies across the board and A little bit about myself. So I started off as a software engineer and then became a product manager I worked for many different companies early stage grow stage and big tech companies like eBay I'm very passionate about helping new PMs grow and Helping mid-level PMs to get to the senior and principal level and a few facts about me I'm originally from Ukraine and I really love calisthenics So we have a lot of ground to cover today First of all, I want to start off with explaining what product management is and why a lot of people actually want to become PMs, then I'm gonna tell you a little personal story about myself Covering how I became a product manager and why this choice changed my life also gonna also gonna talk about some common ways to get a job and product and How to fix a no experience no job problem because a lot of people think that if you have no experience You can't get the job, which is totally not true and I'm gonna tell about I'm gonna talk about how to fix that Also, I think it's very important to cover essential PM skills and also some what I call street skills of great PMs Some some of these skills Are more important for senior PMs, but I think More junior and new BPMs can develop them as well early on in their careers and For the dessert we have product management job search tactics I'm going to cover a few methods that will help you get PM jobs So first of all, let's start with Discussing what product management is and why people become PMs So there is a lot of ambiguity around This role and a lot of people confuse product managers with project managers and program managers so in a nutshell a product manager is the person who identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or a feature will fulfill and then product manager articulates what success looks like for a product and Leads a team to turn that vision into reality. I know it might sound ambiguous, but Product management is one of those jobs that has a lot of ambiguity, which is fine And this is I think this is one of those things that makes this job quite fun So why do people want to become product managers in the first place a Lot of product managers I met actually feel like they don't belong anywhere else They can't be designers. They can't be engineers or customer support or sales or marketers but they know a little bit of everything and most of them also have great leadership skills and A combination of these qualities makes them great product managers Also, a lot of people want to be like this guy Steve Jobs is actually regarded as one of the greatest product managers This world has ever known even before product management was a thing and as you know He wasn't an engineer. He wasn't a designer, but he really understood what his users actually want and He knew how to deliver it to them. So let me tell you a personal story. Here is how I became a product manager Early on when I was a kid I had a lot of interest in computers and in high school I hacked emails and video games with my friends and it was a lot of fun You know, we didn't do anything crazy, but you know, we were just having fun And it didn't cause a lot of damage so after that I started studying computer science in University in Ukraine and eventually I became a software engineer but over time I realized that I like building but I don't really like coding and Sitting and writing code debugging and testing stuff It's just not something I saw myself doing for the rest of my life And you know, it worked out well for a lot of people But I just realized that it's not for me. It's not something I want to do And at the same time I had a lot of interest in business and Design and a lot of other things and I was thinking Okay, what should be my next step? What what should I do? And back then I didn't even know what product management is So what I did I started talking to my CTO Back at the time and I told him hey, you know what I don't I don't I don't see myself You know being a developer forever So I want to try something else and he said okay, you know, we have a lot of customers and it seems like you Understand how the business works. So maybe you want to try yourself as a first product manager So basically what happened? I talked my CTO into promoting me to a p.m. And the rest is pretty much history now. Let's talk about some common ways to get a job in product First of all, a lot of people now have an opportunity to get the job straight out of college So if you go to college, if you study technical discipline of some sort You have a chance to learn the job as a p.m. If you know how to network and if you really really Know why you want to become a product manager. So Another option you have is to get promoted at your company like I did So you can start working for a company as a software engineer designer customer support Marketer or someone else and then when you start exhibiting product management skills And there is a business need in your company to Have a great product manager. You can start talking to your peers to your managers and managers from other departments and If it all goes well, you'll get promoted to a product manager and I've seen a lot of people going that route because it's just easier and Because you know when you're applying to other companies the process is a lot longer But once you're in the company making the transition is a lot easier, but again, as I said Your third option is to find a job in another company. So even if you don't have Experience you can work on side projects. You can build something with your friends or you can just Present your experience in a way that will position you better for p.m. Rolls And I think actually one of the best ways to become a product manager is to build something Like build a startup build a product get some users Understand how it works Work on your customer acquisition skills develop a strategy Vision and then when you start applying for jobs Demonstrate sound judgment and the skills you've built. This is probably one of the best ways to position yourself for product management roles Yeah, let's talk about one of the biggest problems that junior p.m.'s experience You can't get a job because you have no experience and you can't get any experience because You never had a job as a p.m. Right. So how do we fix that? so first of all probably one of the Easiest way to solve this problem is just to get personal coaching just work with someone who will Handhold you and Explain what you need to do in order to get the job as a product manager This process can be time-consuming sometimes it can be Expensive, but it's well worth it because as you know most most athletes and you know most great CEOs and VPs a lot of them actually have coaches and there is a reason for it because coaching is very effective So if you have a chance if you have you know If you have money if you know someone great you can work with you know try to get them to become your coach and That will that will make it a lot easier for you to get your first job in product management. You can also buy a course but the problem I see with a lot of courses that the knowledge is very surface level and In most cases very limited so you can just pick some bits and pieces, but it's not enough to Get you the job you want also, you can enroll into a quality product management program again, this is somewhat like a mix between coaching and buying a course because you get a lot more quality content a lot more attention But in most cases it still leaves Certain gaps, but again, it's it's definitely better than buying a course and also It can be pricey You can also get an MBA. This is probably one of the most expensive options on the table and in my experience It's not worth in most cases because like why would you pay? 80 or $100,000 to get an MBA get yourself into that just to get a job in product and you know I don't have an MBA. I got a job in product. So It's not another big deal if you don't have an MBA, right? and the best way to Fix the no experience problem is to work in a site project as a PM as I described build something yourself or create a startup with friends Create a vision strategy build a few prototypes test them with real users work in customer acquisition and just Demonstrate sound judgment after you do this. You can't present this experience as As a real product management Experience on your resume and this will position you well for PM roles So now let's talk about these skills. You need to become a great product manager and In many companies and I'll probably say in most companies PMs are doing something Like like you see here in this picture. You're juggling a lot of things at the same time working on conflicting priorities So It's really important to understand how to manage the chaos you're getting yourself into And first of all, you need What I call hard product skills. So execution strategy Sense, you need to know how to lead and most importantly you need to understand how to prioritize features and initiatives Project management skills are also important. But again as a product manager You will be doing some project management work, although you're not a project manager But again, it's still important to know how to communicate how to track things how to manage priorities and you know manage people up and down and You know, just just make sure that things don't fall apart and get delivered Also, it wouldn't hurt to understand technology things like API is difference between back and front and system design architecture and just general technical lingo I would say for most roles, it's not really required But again, since you'll be working with engineers quite a lot When they say something I think it would be much better for you to understand what they're talking about because you know You can't manage something. You don't know and you don't need to be an expert engineer or architect you just need to know enough to be dangerous and number four in the list is design skills and again, you don't need to be a Great designer. No one expects you to crank out per pixel perfect designs But what you need to have is an understanding of What good design is and the differences between good and bad design again? A lot of that comes with experience You know and once you become a PM you will learn a lot about the users what they like what they don't like and how to Make their life easier and that's When you will develop an intuition for good design You also need to know how to make prototypes and wireframes again This is just one of the ways to communicate your ideas to a larger audience. So learning tools like Figma and Belzamic would benefit you a lot Also knowing how to analyze data measure success Measure feature adoption and just doing quick estimation is really important for all the pms Because again your goal is to launch a product and if you don't know how to measure success of the product you're launching You're gonna be in big trouble later also for For many Industries, it's really important to understand the specifics. So for example, if you're working for a company that builds I know CRM systems CRM system for sales people, right? You need to know Enough about the sales process about how these people Work with the CRM system you're building about their challenges Problems and you need to have a general understanding of the market like who are your competitors. Are they better or worse? What's the market landscape? How? The industry like is the industry growing or the growth is declining these types of things and I can go on and on about it But you need to know, you know, at least you need to get the basics, right? So and the last skill probably last but not least one of the very important skills is communication and My personal take on this is I think you can only be great at one of these so written verbal or visual communication I rarely see people that can clearly Communicate verbally and also they're great writers and they can create great presentations. Obviously these people exist, but They are very rare unicorns, but what you can do you can identify What's your bad? What what is the communication style that you're good at? For example for me, it's visual communication, you know I can write specs. I Can explain things verbally, but I'm much much much better when it comes to presentation, you know building prototypes conveying my ideas visually and you know presenting to a large Audience when I have, you know, some visuals in front and that's why that's why you see me Using a lot of memes and images in this presentation because again, it helps me get my point across but again, you need to pick which one you know is better for you personally because every person is different and Yeah, also want to mention a few Street skills of great p.m. Again, some these are some of the skills that people normally don't talk about but I think it's really important to Understand and apply them in your day-to-day work. So first of all As a product manager your output is not code or design your output is decisions So you need to learn how to make Right decisions most of the time and this can be achieved by thinking more than doing I like using snake analogy, you know, like a snake when the snake is trying to catch a mouse or a frog She's patiently waiting and thinking and Planning her move and then she attacks So I think a lot of great product managers have the same approach. They think a lot They spend a lot of time clarifying, you know, making sure that What they're working on can actually benefit the customer and you know, they they polish The presentation they're working on they're just doing a lot of a lot of thinking a lot of work behind the scenes and once They know that the plan they developed is correct and that The feature they envisioned is gonna benefit the users. That's when they start doing Because the last thing you want is to quickly, you know, create something on the napkin Turn it into a plan and hand it off to your designers and engineers. That's a recipe for disaster. So again, spend more time thinking rather than doing and Yeah, you'll be a lot more successful in your PM journey Second skill is empathy and by empathy. I mean empathy for users and their needs and empathy for your Executives your managers and their needs as well Because it's you know as a PM you have two goals first is Build something that your customers will love something that will solve their problems But at the same time you're working for a company you're working for a business and all businesses need to make money, right? And it's really important to understand what drives The behavior of your users and I know people you work at your company with so Yeah, another skill which is which becomes more important if you work for a big company or you become more senior is politics again a lot of people hate politics, but I think You know as the company grows politics are pretty much unavoidable. So you need to know how to navigate your way Through the corporate letter and how to build relationships with your co-workers really important Number four in the list is knowing how to do quick analysis and estimation again. This is linked closely to the Skills to the skill I talked about before which is knowing how to analyze data. So again once you understand How to run quick analysis how to do estimation on the napkin After that you can actually a plot start applying thinking and then thinking turns into doing but a lot of great ideas just start with quick Analysis again, just just to make sure you don't begin working on something that doesn't make any sense Another very important skill is knowing how to summarize and distill your thoughts again. This is very closely tied to thinking and doing So again it when you spend a lot of your time thinking You will get better at understanding how to summarize your thoughts and how to communicate them to the audience you're working with again your goal is to make right decisions most of the time and Another goal you have is to make sure that everyone in the room understands why and how you make these decisions and This can be achieved through clarity and clarity is achieved by saying no to many things first of all and By trimming the fat. So again, you can you can start with a brain dump you know writing a lot of your thoughts thinking about things, but at the end you want to end up with a crystal clear summary and crystal clear bullet points that can help you convey you know help you carry the point across and Yeah, the last sweet scale is knowing how to keep things on track again At the end of the day your goal is to ship the product satisfy your users and you know keep your internal stakeholders happy as well so This will require you to understand how to keep things on track and make sure that things don't fall apart and And For dessert, let's talk about some product management job search tactics, right? And I Can give you a minute to think about what? Three tactics. I'm gonna talk about based on these pictures But okay, I think for now we should skip that so the first tactic is Sprint pray actually this is The last the last image on my list so this is a tactic that Most people using their job search. So what they do they would go to websites like glass door indeed and just you know spam the resume Blast a bunch of companies, you know and hoping at a response and I would say this is probably the least Efficient tactic, but the fastest because you can I know I actually know some people who created bots and hired assistants to do It for them. I know they hire someone for $3 an hour and this person sends resume to a bunch of companies and again in some in some cases it works Because it's fast, but again, it's still It's not very efficient because you're in most cases you're sending out resumes to companies that have no interest in hiring you The second tactic is what they call phishing that so this is when you identify a specific industry or specific types of companies You want to work for so this tactic is Somewhere in the middle. So at the same time, you're not like you're not spreading yourself thin You're not blasting your resumes to random companies But you also have enough Focus and you know what you're doing for example if you want to work for only for e-commerce companies and Your resume positions you better for you know consumer E-commerce roles you'll have a lot more success with these companies But again, if you if you know that this is what you want to do And you just start spraying and and praying again You're probably just gonna get a lot of rejections and it's not gonna get you anywhere. So again tactic number two is Probably one of the best ones and I would highly recommend a lot of people Use it again. Just identify and decide decide for yourself decide what you want You know, what types of companies you want to work for why and then tailor your resume and fill in the gaps in your skills and Start applying for jobs of these companies And I can almost guarantee you if you use this tactic, you'll have a lot more success And the last tactic is what I call sniper or sniping a lot of people Want to get a job at a specific company in most cases. These are Fortune 500 or fan companies like I know Google Netflix eBay Amazon Square and so on so these companies are Different and what I mean by that they have very specific hiring practices. So as you probably heard Google is notorious for having a lot of interview rounds and you know team-matching a lot of hard technical questions and all that so and Facebook for example really focuses on product execution and leadership. So if you apply the same tactics that you know, you use for startup jobs if you start applying them to These big companies is just not gonna work. So what you need to do is you need to act like it's not Sniper you need to Prepare well, you need to make sure you understand exactly what these companies are looking for how they hire who they hire Why they hire and then just take a shot, right? like a sniper it takes a lot of preparation to You know for a sniper to get into right position, you know, make sure that you know There is no way and or make correction, you know, whatever correction here She needs to make and yeah, then a sniper takes a shot and that's that's the same tactic you Should use when applying to these, you know big big companies and I know some specific roles The last thing I want to leave you with is this quote product manager is a leader and a janitor at the same time and I personally think it's true because You're a leader, right? You're leading the team you make sure that the team delivers team builds the product and the product satisfies the needs of your users and That's your you know, your executives are happy business goals are met, but at the same time you're Also acting as a janitor and whatever your team needs help with whether it's, you know Sometimes writing a spec thinking about some edge cases that you forgot or just helping with testing or Designing, you know in most cases You will be the person that is gonna help them fill in the gaps and achieve success so it's really important to remember that you're a leader and a janitor at the same time and Yeah, guys, I hope you enjoyed this presentation and obviously I can't lay out the whole p.m. Job search strategy and teach you all the skills you need in 30 minutes But I think everything I laid out in this presentation should be good enough to just get you started and point you in the right direction and As always happy to connect with everybody. So if you have any questions, let's connect Reach out to me if you need help you can find me on link it in Twitter and Instagram my user name as VL Gassan or you can just search my name Thank you, and yeah, I hope you have a great day. Bye. Bye