 All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Product School, and today's topic is tips and tricks for breaking into product management. I'm Arjun Lalani. I will be moderating your session today and also answering some of the questions here. And I'm joined by some amazing guest speakers we have on the panel. So why don't we start off with some intros? Olivia, you want to kick us off? Sure. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm Olivia. I'm a product manager on the Alexa Kitchen team at Alexa within Amazon. I've been a product manager now for about five years, have worked at Netflix, Stitch Fix, and now Alexa. And I'm figuring out Alexa in this new LLM universe. So happy to be here and talk about product. Amazing. Jake. Hey, folks. Thanks, Arjun. Thanks, Olivia. Nice to meet you guys. My name is Jake Perring. I'm a senior PM at LinkedIn, where I've been for about the last six months. Prior to that, worked as a PM in the startup world of AdTech, which was fun, and then at Intuit on TurboTax for a couple of years. So jumping all over the place. Currently at LinkedIn, I work on our business productivity platform, which is essentially how can we use AI to make it easier to do business in and with LinkedIn. And excited to be here to talk about breaking into product management. I love the topic. So thanks for having us and excited to hand it over to you, Michelle. Thank you, Jake. Hello, everyone. My name is Michelle. I'm currently a product manager at Grammarly. I've been a product manager for almost three years now. I'm currently on our enterprise team, where I look at expansion. So taking our current self-serve accounts and thinking how we can grow and expand their seats and account value. Awesome. And I'm Arjun. I'm a product manager at YouTube. I work on the e-commerce side of things. So we're trying to make shopping happen on YouTube. And before that, I was working on hotels and so doing a little bit of like Google travel when you search hotels near me. Okay. With that, I will kick it off. I have some questions lined up for our panel here, and we'll also take some questions from the audience as there are any follow-ups. So, Olivia, let's start with you. Can you share what are ways people can start demonstrating their ability to be a product manager before they have the formal title of a PM? Yeah. I think something that has come up a lot in conversations with folks who want to become product managers is just how difficult it is to get the title of product management. There's this cache around it. And a lot of jobs have product management aspects to them. And so something that I always recommend is hone those skills and demonstrate that ability to be able to show the team that you want to work with or maybe you want to transition into a formal PM role. Demonstrate that you've done it and you can actually articulate here are the ways that I did that. I think the core way to do that is really just like understanding who is your customer and always grounding yourself in the customer problem. And that can be whether you're working on enterprise product or working on an actual end user problem. Just being really thoughtful about spending your time on synthesizing what is a customer issue and staying close to that and then making sure that whatever you're doing is addressing those needs. I think the best way to possibly get into product management if you're already doing things that sort of feel like product management is to find mentorship within the product community that you work with. So if you're in biz ops or product marketing, partner closely with PMs and provide insights and inputs to them and kind of try to be their buddy. And then you can demonstrate your value in a lot of the things that they're working on. And that's I think a more seamless way to then transition into that role because the elusive title sometimes is hard to come by. But I've definitely seen people convert roles and change job titles based on the scope of the work that they're doing. So it takes a little bit of your own gumption and effort to structure that. But it definitely can be done. Awesome. And anyone else want to add anything to that? I think that's very valuable piece of advice. Yeah, those are great points, Olivia. Maybe the only other thing that I would add is in addition to spending a lot of times with PMs and learning to think the way they do, ask a lot of questions like a PM might, questions that are, you know, more forward to hear their opportunities for me to assist as a product analyst or help drive something on the roadmap or be a part of making some of these database decisions or pull metrics that might assist. And I think by doing that, you'll get to do two things. You'll demonstrate ability and interest for the role. And then you also get to learn if it's actually a good fit for you, which I think is one of the biggest other things before, you know, you break into any field. You have this idea in your mind, or you know, someone who works as a PM or a software engineer or doing something and it sounds cool, but how do you get to experience that and see if it's something that'll be fulfilling or exciting, keeping engaged day after day? Pretty cool as well. Awesome. Jake, while I have you, do you find that MBAs have a better shot getting an interview? Can you debug that for us? And how do they do SPMs if they come in with like a little tech technical experience and not a bunch of computer science background? Great question. So yeah, it sounds like the question is, how does an MBA Master of Business Administration fit into the mix of breaking into product management or is it recommended? I think the unfortunate answer is that it varies pretty widely. MBA internships can be really helpful for folks who can land a couple of months trial run at big company, a tech company of any sort to act as a PM intern. Maybe one reason I like talking about this topic is because my personal experience was that I got an online MBA while working full-time from a much smaller school and it certainly helped get my foot in the door for some interviews, but the reality is that many successful PMs break in without that sort of degree on their resume. And so did it help me? Did it not help me? Probably survivorship bias? I'm not really sure. So my recommendation for friends or family members who think about that is if pursuing an MBA is something that fits into your overall love for learning or desire to network or feels like a good career break for you to refocus on some things, then by all means I would recommend it. And it realistically probably opens some doors maybe at any role to get in the interview position. But whether or not you need one to become a successful PM, I'm not totally sure. What are the rest of you folks think? I also have an MBA, so I can provide a bit of my take on that. I don't know that an MBA is necessary for the product job. Some folks I've talked to are currently product managers and they're like, oh, I'm considering getting my MBA. And when I ask what do you want to do after, they're like, oh, I want to stay in product. I'm like, you already have a job. It's a very expensive commitment. It has a lot of pros, but it's also opportunity cost of time out of work and of course the actual dollar cost of going. I will say, though, that what I think the MBA affords is like a point in time to pivot. So if you're pivoting careers or you're going from like, I have plenty of colleagues who used to be teachers or worked in like an operations capacity or something totally different from like a more technical big tech role, the internship opportunity really does give you that time and companies are recruiting folks that they know or maybe in between different opportunities. So it does give you that option to test something out and being an intern is a more risk-free hire for a company. So I think they're willing to take a bet. Something that you could also do if you're not pursuing an MBA is reaching out to companies and doing some product management work on the side in the form of like a consultant. I've seen folks do that too where they say for, let's say you have some friends who work at some startups and startups are always looking for for free help, reaching out and saying, hey, I'm willing to do some help provide feedback on your onboarding flow or whatever your skill set might be or what your interest is. So that could be an opportunity also. But yeah, the MBA, I wouldn't say it's required because there's so many folks who can get into product without it. But yeah, I think to Jake your point like it does, it gives you a skill set that if that's valuable to the company you're interviewing with, then you can lean into, but it's not required. Yeah, and I can give like my take on this. I came in without an MBA into Google and all my managers have an MBA. So the existential crisis always is like, do I need to get an MBA to get to where you are? And their short answer has always been like, no, not at Google. So I know it does not apply here. But if it's a place that I would want to go network and have some fun, they always say like, go do it. Because there's like a great experience for them. So that's been like the two cents. Okay, there's a question from the audience. We want to be able to take all of them. So I'll just pick one or two at random. But Paloma asks, what does a day to day look like for a PM? So Michelle, you want to, you want to give us a day to day? Yeah, I feel like I'm going to give the most canned answer. It varies. I think, you know, someday, so I'm a growth PM, which is a subfield of product management. Some PMs are more front end, some are more features, more infrastructure. So on my day to day, it can vary. Like, I definitely have frequent check ins with my engineering team, because in growth, the cadence is so much faster, we can maybe ship experiments and under like a few weeks, two weeks. So having a close cadence standups, they're called with my engineering team is something that happens several times per week. You know, I could also be spending my days, like writing product specs requirements or meeting with cross functional stakeholders to make sure that they're okay with the scope and the complexity and the timeline we have for a feature or an experiment. And I also spend some time also like interviewing users and figuring out, you know, what type of do they like this experience. So we conduct usability tests and synthesizing those with our product marketer or user researcher is something that I also do. So I'm sorry, the can responses, it does vary. But I think if you think of the stereotypical skill sets that PM has around cross functional coordination, cross functional coordination, writing products, specs, kind of execution, user research, those all happen in different days. Yeah, totally agree with all of that. That seems like a difficult day for me. Okay, Jake, tell us about big tech courses, startups, where do you think one could go to demonstrate that their interest in the PM craft, like what is easier, what is the difference and maybe walk us through some of your experience there? Yeah, definitely. And it's a good question. I would say, generally speaking, breaking into big tech as a PM is going to be a more difficult path. So many big tech companies like LinkedIn or Intuit where I work previously have a fairly hard requirement that you need to have worked as a product manager for about five years to be hired as an experience hire. There are other avenues which are June, you could probably tell us about through the PM internship, or you kind of came up as a PM, which is awesome. But I think for many folks, if you're looking to break into PM and you're not currently an undergrad or pursuing maybe the MBA route, which we talked about before, one of the better opportunities is going to be to find a role within a startup or a smaller company, whether as a pure product manager or a product owner is some time a role embedded within a scrum team that works closely with engineers to prioritize features or build a roadmap. And I think the beauty of that is, well, first of all, there's a lower barrier to entry. So if you have an inclination towards strategy, communication skills, working well at an executive level, and really good collaboration, I think there are ways to break into that even with relatively little product experience. And then you'll also get really deep exposure to a lot of different parts of the product management craft. And so that can be a cool experience as well. Thinking about, you know, as Michelle mentioned, am I more interested in building really delightful customer experiences on the front end or data structures or growth or different things like that? Big tech product management is definitely a more unique adventure. You're collaborating with dozens, if not literally hundreds of individuals to try to build into a complex roadmap because you're part of a massive company that has shifting goals, as we've all seen in recent years. So there's a lot of compelling things about big tech, but that's been my experience overall so far in the smaller company versus larger. We'd love to hear from some of you other folks on the panel. What do you think? Yeah, I can go. I mean, I've had only the big tech experience I've spent most like after college, most of my career is Google. And it has become a lot more like coordinating headwinds, right? Like it is, I started off with a simple project and doing simple things. And now it's a lot more complex where I'm working with at least like 15, 20 p.m. at any given moment, trying to get things on roadmaps and coordinate. And I think the clear advantage there is just that you have access to so many customers, right? And that's amazing. And distribution is like an inbuilt advantage for us. And getting the right thing out can sometimes take a lot of iteration for us. So I think there are like the trade-offs where you probably don't need a ton of marketing to get things out, but you do need to think about the experience end-to-end and nothing can be like an incomplete journey. And so we spend a lot of time refining and perfecting things. And sometimes that can take us a while to like get to launch because we're like perfecting a lot of stuff and making it fit in like a coherent timeline. So I think there are like the trade-offs that come that do come with it. Okay, I will turn to Michelle on the next question here. So how do you track your personal and career growth in the p.m. role? And after that, I'll take an audience question. Yeah, great question. I think when I first transitioned into a p.m., I was just trying to get my bearings. So I think for people who are interested in transitioning to become a p.m., I think I spent my first year just focused on execution, like just not taking maybe an open end. The problem itself was defined, but the solution was open-ended. And so that was kind of where my skill set was and where my competency was. And I was just focused on like how do we create the best solution possible for this already defined problem. So it was much more concrete that way. And so I feel like I measured my own personal career, like career growth just on getting the lay of the land of what a p.m. is. But I think as I become more senior, I have started to tackle more ambiguous problems. So things that aren't clearly defined where I have to interview users to find the problems, set our goals, so for growth, a lot of it is based on revenue or bookings, and then build out a roadmap based on that ambiguous business problem. So I think at a high level, that's kind of how you think about, like as a p.m., it's like you start off more junior and you're just focused on execution. And I think this can apply to any role, even outside of product, but as you get more senior, the work you do, especially on the IC track is much more ambiguous. So I know there's a lot of great frameworks out there, like Reforge has a really good one. I think there's like 12 dimensions and competencies. And definitely I think I look at those, but I think if I just take a step back and summarize it, it's like every year, are there problems I'm tackling more ambiguous, more open-ended? And how do I build the skillsets? And also get the buy-in, because I think the more ambiguous it is, the more up for debate things are. So then you have to really flex your soft skills and negotiate and compromise or just get to the best optimal solution with the stakeholders involved. So that's like at a high level, how I track it. Awesome. I am seeing a lot of questions around certification. So maybe we can take this one by Sophia, who's echoing other questions here, but her question is, are certifications such as Scrum Master or Scrum Order actually useful in order to land the first product roll, especially for industry hires who are not new grants? I can take a stab at this one. I've worked with folks before who had this distinction. I would say do this if you think it will help you and you're interested in it. Like I wouldn't do a program just for like, oh, my expectation is out of this, I'm going to get a fancy new job. If you can find a program that has a recruiting or networking component where as part of your certification or program you get access to companies or job fairs, I think that would be worthwhile. So I would like temper your expectations. I think in all of the rules that I've had, no one talks about certifications or like college or business school or anything like none of us talk about it because it's just like what work do you do. So that is at times like hopefully comforting, but also a bummer if you've spent a lot of money on getting fancy degrees and certifications. But yeah, so I would say like consider for yourself like how much you want to participate in a program like that and then try to find ones that have added value services for the people who partake in it. So if they offer recruiting and career support too, that would be a good opportunity. Awesome. And my common piece of advice on this, which a lot of students come to me and like, hey, how do I break into like product or other folks that advice? My usual answer, which can seem a little high effort, is try to start something and try to grow it and try to get people to like basically be a PM without needing to be an official title given to you. And so for example, I have friends who like sell cupcakes and I'm like, cool, like you make good cupcakes, just sell it, like try to get customers, try to grow that business. You don't need to make it like massively successful. But if you can do something that just creates a product and you can get people to buy it and grow that like marginally, you will start thinking like a PM and that experience will be actually really valuable. Does not matter if it's like a software product or hardware product or like something as simple as like t-shirts or whatever, right? And then just try it. And that is like probably the best way I have seen people build the mindset. And then you will start learning that, okay, like user research is important. I need to know what customers want. And you're defined success metrics to grow this. I need to like work with a talented team, blah, blah, blah. It's more of a CEO mindset, but I think that's okay. Cool. Let's go. Can I jump in with one here, Arjun? Because I think the question that a lot of folks are asking in the comments is, hey, I've decided that I'm interested. Maybe I have a certification. Maybe I don't. I think the question that I might have would be, okay, if I'm Arjun and I've worked for five years and I sell insurance, but I decide I want to pivot into product management, literally, what would you go do today? What would be your next steps for how to get in front of a company smaller big? Would you get certifications? How would your network, would you cold apply some of those like kind of really practical tips that hopefully can help some of the folks have tangible next steps? And Michelle, Olivia, would love to hear from you guys as well. How would you literally today try to break into product management if you didn't already work in the role? Yeah, I feel like maybe I can maybe comment on a similar experience I had. And hopefully that's hopeful. I think if I had no idea, I would first reach out to my network on LinkedIn or my own personal contacts just to understand what the role is like for other product managers to see if it's something I'm interested in. So I think that's the first step, just understanding what a PM is. There's also a really good book by Melissa Perry, The Escaping the Bill Trap, that I read. It's pretty short. So it's actually a very good book. It has examples and case studies of what PMs do, good and bad practices. So I actually read that it was very helpful and enlightening just to understand what PMs do. And I think from that point on, it's like, I think talking to people in that book gives you an idea of what the competency areas are for a PM. And you can try and get those a internally for your company, like there's a product functioning your company, saying, hey, I'm interested, meet with a manager in that work, try to see if you can craft out a project to do that kind of test if you like being a PM. I think internal transfers are easier because you may not have the PM skill set, but you already know the company. So the hiring managers may be more likely to do that trade-off. It's like, I don't have to onboard them about company practices. And if they're smart and they're hardworking, I think they can pick up some of the PM crafts. I think that's at least was my experience. I was in BizOps before and I happened to work with the head of growth product on some projects. And we clicked. We worked well together. When the role came up, he offered it to me because he knew I expressed interest and I networked and reached out to him about me, the interest at MPM opportunities. That being said, if that's not available to you, I would go with what Arjun is saying, like with there's so many tools out there now to build your own idea, like no code stuff. And also with chat GPT, those LLMs, it's so easy. The barrier has never been lower to build your own website or product with no code or low code solutions. And I will say there's also pretty good books out there. So if you want to know, how do you identify a problem? How do you interview customers? The mom test is really good. Continuous discovery habits by Teresa Torres is also good. I think I read those too to teach myself how to properly interview customers because as a growth team, I don't do that as much, but I really wanted that discovery customer problem interview skill set. So there's a lot of resources out there too. If you wanted to self teach yourself how to do some of the PM skill sets, if you don't get that at work. Yeah, I think just going back to something I mentioned a few minutes ago, I think the sort of volunteering to take on product type roles or projects rather, that's not your day job. So in Jake's example, you sell insurance, you want to become a product manager, what can you do to support your own product experience building and portfolio? Think of it like building a portfolio and becoming a product consultant of sorts. So reaching out to maybe it's like insure tech companies and saying, hey, I'm like really good at insurance. I know the product super well. It's very technical and like very nuanced. I would love to give you some product feedback on your website or something about their customer experience. I think that is always like really welcome, like everyone loves to get some free advice and free help. And that way you can start building out those experiences and having things to point to so that when you do interview, you can say, I've consulted on these product areas, I've provided guidance on like building out a mini roadmap for a team or providing a prioritization of the next five things that they should do to improve some metric. So I think that is a good way to demonstrate and like if anyone here like one of my I like have very strong bias for action. So if it's frustrating for anyone else to be like, oh, I have to like take a class or do this thing like to just start doing things like that is a good way to just start figuring out like a if you like it and be just to grow your your portfolio is reaching out to places and providing your your input and guidance as well. Totally. Yeah, I echo with all those points and something that helped me as well when I was trying to get into PM was I just did a lot of coffee chance with like, I was interning a bunch of companies and I was like, hey, PM's like, I'd like to just get get coffee with you and talk to you about your role and understand it and see what you do what projects you have and if you haven't like and if I can work on something you have don't have bandwidth, like, I would love to help right and most cases they're like, okay, here's like something you can pick up and if it went well, there was a cool line to come back as a product intern next summer. Okay, that sounds good. Now, obviously, that doesn't apply if you're already in industry, but Google has like a 20 20% thing where you could do like a 20% project and your manager can't stop you. Maybe something similar if you could take on and be usually joked that it's like 120% because you're doing 100% of your work plus the 20% it's never 80 20. So kind of if you can flex your like, work week a little bit and take on some product work like that will definitely help.