 I would like to thank everyone for tuning in today. My name is Chris Gallagher. I'm a product manager at Zoom Video Communications. And today I want to talk about getting into a product management role from a non-traditional background. So I think, you know, it's a pretty common topic in these type of talks of how to become a product manager. But I think I wanted to bring a little bit of a unique perspective to it. I think most of the material out there about becoming a product manager, start with the assumption that you're already in a tech company or already in a product management adjacent role. So I wanted to talk today about the lessons learned that, you know, I learned coming from a non-traditional background into product management. And, you know, prior to becoming a product manager, I was a submarine officer in the US Navy. And so when I was making that transition into product management, I didn't really see a lot of resources really geared towards, you know, someone coming from that non-traditional background. So I was hoping to be able to provide, you know, provide some content to fill some of that gap. And just one note here. I think, you know, this talk assumes that you already have a bit of an understanding of what the product manager role is. And this is really just talking about sort of the career advice of getting into that product manager role. So I have two major objectives during this discussion today. One, I wanted to share my lessons learned. Having gone through this process myself, I wanted to share some of the key takeaways and lessons learned from my journey. And then secondly, I wanted to give actionable steps. And for each of these lessons learned, I wanted to call out at least one action item that could be taken today around that lesson learned to help someone, you know, in that journey so they can start taking steps today. And a brief overview of the agenda here. I'm going to talk a little bit about my path to product management and talk about four of the key lessons learned that I had in my journey. One, mentorship to translating your skills into the language of product management. Three, becoming an expert in a product and four, building your own product. So first, I'm going to talk a little bit about my career. I went to college at the United States Naval Academy and I got my degree in mathematics. And after graduating college, I spent seven years as a submarine officer. And from there, I held numerous roles from running a nuclear reactor in an engine room on a submarine to hoping a carrier strike group, you know, plan and carry out operations. And I got to live all over the United States as well as outside of the United States. And this experience really helped me grow being in a very dynamic, challenging and high an environment with high standards really helped me grow professionally as well as personally. And this gave me a lot of confidence when I decided to move, you know, move all my careers, I could really achieve anything and, you know, cut it in any other industry. So after seven years in the Navy and really with college, the first decade of my professional career had been completely focused around the Navy and the military. And I wanted to find something that I think would be equally as rewarding and challenging. And after a lot of soul searching and looking at the different industries out there, I honed in on product management and software product management as tech company, specifically. And, you know, this processing really rewarding to me, talking to customers, talking to users, leading a technical team in order to solve those, the pain points for those users and customers in that end-to-end processing really rewarding as well as challenging. And it really seemed like a place I could be at the center of shaping the, you know, the products and technologies that are gonna shape our lives in the next coming decades. So this, you know, really seemed rewarding and challenging to me. And I set my sights on after the Navy, that's what I wanted to become. And, you know, I was very confident and proud of my skills. However, when I went to try and get some of these, you know, jobs or get into, you know, some of these conversations, I felt like I'd run into a bit of a brick wall. And I was very, you know, proud of what I accomplished, but a lot of the times that felt like, you know, it meant nothing in this new world. And I was really starting from scratch, even though I had all this experience I brought with me. You know, a spoiler, I ended up being successful in finding a role in product management that I really love and really love the role. But, you know, it was definitely a large, you know, a large gap to jump across to get into that role. So I wanted to share the lessons I learned making that jump here today. The first one is mentorship. And I definitely put this takeaway first because I think it's the most important out of everything I discussed today. I think this is very obviously pretty common advice for everyone, not only those coming from a non-traditional background into product management, but I really think, you know, this is a huge gain if you can find a mentor that really values, that can be really valuable to you, especially those coming from a non-traditional background into product management. And there's a couple of reasons here. I think the first ones are pretty obvious, but, you know, having someone on the inside that can sort of give you a background of what's happening on the inside. I think every industry is a little opaque from the outside. And so having someone on the inside who knows of the ins and outs of how these organizations work and can give you the tactical advice of how to, you know, maneuver within these organizations and how to get, you know, to your desired location, your desired role as a product manager, you know, and they can also tell you what skills, when they look at your resume as a product manager, what skills need to be filled in and sort of give you that tactical advice of how to get your foot in the door. And secondly, but I think more importantly, you know, if you really have a true mentor, they'll be, you know, happy to introduce you to people, other people within the product management field and within the tech field or put in a referral for you. And I think when you come with that introduction from someone who's already a product manager who has a similar background to you, you get to inherit some of their credibility as a product manager. And, you know, they are sort of a manifestation and living proof tangible evidence that you can also be successful in product management. And not only can you be successful, but they could sort of see how that person's unique background makes them a great product manager and, you know, sort of assume that you will inherit those same advantages when you become a product manager. So once you have someone that you can sort of inherit some of their credibility, it really helps you get in the foot in the door. And I have one quote here at the bottom that has rung true for me throughout my time here or throughout my transition into product management. But, you know, and it goes, if you want advice, ask for a job. If you want a job, ask for advice. So just another quote that I've seen a couple of times and it's definitely been true for me. And so for my action item for this particular takeaway, is to find someone on LinkedIn who has your background, who's currently a product manager in tech. And I think, you know, a lot of people might be thinking that it's a, there's no one with my particular background who is a product manager. But I definitely think with the power of LinkedIn, I can almost guarantee you can find someone. So, you know, investing the time to really, you know, learn and use and dig deep into LinkedIn search and filtering tools, you can definitely find someone who would be able to, you know, fit that profile and you can start reaching out to them or the multiple people you find on LinkedIn, setting up those coffee chats and start building those relationships. Next is translating your skills. This is something I ran into a lot in my transition. You know, my current, or sorry, my previous job in the military was an industry filled with jargon, buzzwords and acronyms. And, you know, I found my new industry was also now filled with different sort of buzzwords and jargon as well. And so, you know, bridging that gap was not a trivial task. And I felt a lot of the hesitation I ran into was simply a lack of understanding of what I had done in my previous career. Not that there wasn't respected or, you know, thought of as good experience. It just wasn't really understood. And it couldn't, you know, the hiring managers or people I talk to could not translate that into what that would look like as a product manager. So for myself, you know, I first sort of took this in two steps. First, I learned the language of product management. So I did that through subscribing to podcasts, reading books, you know, attending some virtual industry conferences. And I really think the most insightful one is reading job descriptions. Because, you know, in those job descriptions and in those recs, they really spell out the sort of the skills in the language that everyone understands within that organization. Because a lot of organizations also have their own. Each company has their own language as well. And so, you know, really being able to see what language they expect through those job descriptions and, you know, these other sources helps you set, you know, the target you're going for. And then the next steps I sort of, you know, next I took sort of my material and translated it into that new language. And so my material was my resume. So looking through my resume bullets and, you know, filtering out all the military stuff and putting in, you know, what that meant in the terms of, in terms of product management, sort of making that translation really helped my resume gain more traction. And then additionally, the stories I told doing the same process. So going through and writing out, you know, sort of the stories of valuable experience I had that I would tell in an interview or in a coffee chat and then making sure I wrote it out in the new language that I had been learning. So yeah, your action item here is sort of what I just said is taking your resume once you subscribe to some podcast and read some of this material, which obviously you're doing if you're watching, you know, this talk, translating those resume bullets into the new language that you have learned and then also writing out your stories and translating those into the product management language. Next, which I think is a very sort of undervalued, a very powerful tool and a undervalued tool is becoming an expert in a particular product. As you are, you know, assume you're aware at this point, the product manager is supposed to be the voice of the user and the voice of the customer within the software company that's building it. And so who better to act as the voice of the user than someone who's a power user of that product and really understands how it's being utilized, you know, in the real world. And I really think in this regard, individuals outside of tech even have an advantage over those people trying to move roles within tech because you bring that diverse experience and that diverse perspective is really a valuable insight for an organization that's building products. I definitely see, you know, I think a lot of tech companies are very insular and you know, there's a lot of testing and use within tech companies, but a lot of times I think there's a disconnect and a lot of companies get disconnected from their users and a little bit isolated in sort of this tech bubble where, you know, what they think is valuable to their users might not be actually used on a day-to-day basis and you can get some of that through analytics and telemetry on the product, but truly understanding, you know, what it's being used for, it takes interaction with the customer and the user and you can bring that diverse perspective as being an outsider. So how does that translate into actually getting a job as a product manager? I think that becomes becoming a power user or sort of a certified expert in a particular product. So whether, so I would find some, find some software products that you're interested in and really get to know them, if there are certificates around them, you can get that certificate program or especially if you have industry specific products that you use, become an expert in that and things that come to mind like healthcare, law, the defense industry where there are really unique workflows that a lot of tech companies don't truly understand and they don't understand the limitations that are in those industries. And so if you can bring that insight from one of these unique industries into a tech company, you would bring value right away. And then the second, you know, if it's a product that you love that's not industry specific, a second action item would be to write out your own roadmap for a product that you really like. You know, once you sort of made yourself a power user of that product, really explore the ins and outs of it, you know, think about and just go through if you were the product manager, what would you do? And I think that does a couple of really powerful things. One, you know, it shows that you could build a roadmap which, you know, proves to the individuals are talking to that, hey, I could put this person in the seat today and they would be able to map out a reasonable roadmap for this product. Two, it really shows some initiative and the ability to think, you know, in the way a product manager can. And yeah, so I think, you know, having that and having that prior to going to these networking events or going to an interview is really valuable material. Oh, and the last lesson learned I wanted to bring up here is, you know, build your own product. I think one of the largest hurdles to overcome as someone from a non-traditional background is this person can be able to sit in the seat and operate in the day-to-day, you know, software development environment. Are they gonna be able to work with a scrum team? You know, are they gonna be able to triage bugs? And really, you know, the day-to-day things, there's a fair amount of to learn in a unique environment and will this person be able actually to execute? And I think that's a big hurdle. You might show a lot of skills from your previous background, but can you execute in this new environment of actually building a product? Because, you know, the theory to practice of, you know, what you should do to actually getting a product built, there's definitely some unique, you know, there's definitely a delta between the theory and practice. And so the hiring manager and the recruiters really wanna mitigate the risk of bringing in someone from an outside background. And I think one of the biggest risks are they gonna be able to operate in, you know, practically operate in this environment. And one way that you can really mitigate this risk for the hiring manager and the recruiter is to build your own project, set up a side project. And it really boosts your credibility that you can do this as well as shows initiative that you're willing to go outside of your day-to-day, your nine-to-five job and, you know, take this initiative, shows you really want to be in this role. And I think, you know, one of the biggest lessons learned, I think, you know, it's pretty obvious advice, but I think one of the biggest lessons learned for me in this process was how easy it could be to set up, you know, your own sort of environment to build your own product. So I think there's a couple of ways and the action items I have for this is a couple of ways you can do this. One is volunteer time. So whether it's, you know, an industry-specific organization, a nonprofit organization, you know, all of them are looking to, you know, have some sort of software product these days. And so if you can volunteer time as part of the nonprofit group or even within your organization, you know, there's always some sort of software development in there or some sort of product being built. But, you know, volunteer your time and it doesn't have to be as like the product manager just figure out how you can be a value and get into, you know, really just sort of get into the weeds of building this product. So one, yeah, I think volunteer your time, find somewhere where they need help, doesn't necessarily have to be as a product manager. You could be project managing or bringing whatever unique skills that you have and volunteer your time to get involved in a product and get involved in the actual building of a product. And the second one is, you know, take a couple of small funds aside and there's a lot of really tools for low-code or no-code environments where you could at least set up a website. Think about a user problem and how that could be solved via a website and then, you know, spend a little bit of money just to build that website, get some feedback from customers and users and, you know, take the lessons learned. It doesn't have to be a home run. You don't have to invent the next Facebook but if you're able to go out there and, you know, build something and then take the lessons learned from that I think is really the key thing, to be able to articulate what you learned through that process will give you a leg up and really show your initiative and value to the people in the product management org. Cool, well, that's what I wanted to cover today. Just to recap, I think the four keys that I took away in my transition from a non-traditional background to product management were finding a good mentor or mentors, translating your skills into the language of product management. Three, become an expert in a particular product and, you know, be that voice of the user and really understand that what those products are being used in the real world to bring a diverse perspective into the organization and then lastly, build your own product. You know, these are four things that really helped me gain traction and gain credibility in my journey to become a product manager. So, yeah, hopefully this was valuable to you and hopefully you can take some of these action items. I definitely wanted to restate that I truly think individuals from outside of tech can, should almost have an advantage when becoming product managers and looking for product manager roles because I think you're in a lot of ways more in touch with the user coming from that unique background and you bring some diverse thought into that organization. So I definitely think you have a unique and truly valuable perspective and then the last key to success I think is perseverance. You know, definitely no matter what you do there's gonna be a lot of rejection and a lot of failure in this journey. So you have to be a little bit stubborn in your pursuit. You know, be stubborn in your vision of becoming a product manager and, you know, don't take no for an answer. Just you'll get rejected a lot but, you know, keep up the good fight and keep going for it. And I definitely think if you're persistent and take some of these steps you'll be able to reach your goal. So yeah, thank you for your time today. Hopefully this provided some value to you. And if you want to reach out my LinkedIn is below here. But yeah, thank you and have a good day.