 Product management is the hardest job in the tech industry because it's super rewarding and it's the leadership position But it is also the hardest to get especially for people with no prior product management experience And lots of job openings saying that oh you need at least three years of product management experience with computer science degree And we hope you also come from Stanford University And all of this makes it feel like impossible for people to break into product management But I personally believe that it is definitely possible to break into product management with no prior experience and no computer science degree In this video, I'm gonna share with you how I land 3 p.m. Job offers within three months with no experience and no coding background Make sure to stay until the end of this video where I'm gonna share with you the free resources to get you started on your product management job journey right away Hey guys, this is Dr. Nancy Lee a director product and featured in Forbes I have helped hundreds people lend their dream p.m. Job offer in fan companies and unicorn startup and continue to get promoted as a Part leader if you want to achieve the same kind of success and go to p.m Accelerator.io to learn more if you want to learn the most effective way to become part manager Please make sure to hit the like button subscribe to his channel so that you'll be notified every time I post a new video every Wednesday Make sure to check out Instagram stories and inspirations and from people with very similar background just like you before we get started I want to remind everybody to go to this website and download the free product manager resume template to get your resume ready for your dream p.m. Job I started my product management career outside my PhD program And that was years ago when I became one of the youngest engineering PhD from Boston University My major was in material science and that was also during the 2008 recession It was so stressful because at the time Nobody was able to land a job because of recession and especially I was on H1B I felt very very stressed out, but I was like I was lucky. I was able to land a job and The systems engineer working for Shell Oil and I was saying wow I was so lucky it also sponsored my H1B But I literally hated my job because at the time I had no customer interaction And as someone who is frequently the only woman in the meeting room in the oil gas industry People really do not respect me and I tried to change my outfit, change how I talk, change how I look Change how I interact with other people. I almost tried everything else I just felt like I wasn't respected in the industry Something need to be changed and on top of that, I really like customer interactions But I was frequently being perceived as worker bee. People always be like oh Nancy you got a PhD Why don't you crunch some data? And I hate it. I totally hate it So I was very determined to change my career completely outside of oil gas industry And also do not want to be a systems engineer anymore And then all of a sudden somebody introduced a new term to me That was my boyfriend at the time and also now husband and he was like Nancy, have you heard of product management? I was like ding the libel moments. What is product management sounds so cool Then I started learning about what is product management. I was so Fascinating it was so amazing and I discovered that product management is a combination between business leader creating product impacting people's life and still working on technology product It is so fantastic. So I immediately fell in love with product management So the first thing I started to learn about product management is by looking up on YouTube videos and see what the day-to-day look like as a product manager and what did they do and this really Assured me that this is the totally the right career path for me And I also film the video to show you what does the product manager do in fan companies and unicorn startup You can watch this video right here and knowing the day-to-day is going to help you to decide if the right career path for you or not And after made decision, this is a career for me I immediately start to conquer my number one challenge, which is I do not have any product management experience But as I said all the drops were like one people with minimum three years experience become product manager in a company This is like impossible But I cool down and actually I studied those drop description and realized that There's a lot of roles and responsibilities are quite similar to what I did at the systems engineer for example those drops as for product requirements writing experience and Interact with customers on a send the pain point of customers and being able to work in the cross-functional team and interfacing with engineering team and All of this actually I did I did all of this, but I just didn't know I had those experience I was very Transferrable into product management So it was very excited to continue to dive deeper to understand how exactly I can talk about my experience to show them I did something quite similar and another very important resources I recommend everybody to study is the definition of good product manager versus bad product manager and there is a YouTube video where I'm going to link in the Description down below where people discuss in-depth regarding good versus the bad product manager after I have high level Understanding of what is product management? What is good PM and bad PM? I start to take some classes dive deeper into product management and all the hands-on skills I need to do better in my job and guess what I got very lucky and even before I discovered product management and I already took some courses from MIT where they teach me how to do systems design How to write requirement and how to do project management how to work in a cross-functional team and those like courses in MIT Actually is so useful and that can directly be used for me to train myself to become a product manager And lots of people ask me this question Nancy, do I need MBA to become a PM? I personally believe that you do not need to get MBA But you need to take different kind of classes to help you to gain PM skills For example for students inside a PM accelerator 95% of our students do not have MBA and 70% of our students do not know how to code They do not have computer science degree at all and 99% of them do not go to Stanford or Harvard to go to get any degree or use the alumni network at all but All of them are able to land amazing offers and some of the many offers from like fan companies like Google Met up Amazon and Tesla and also from unicorn startup. So therefore I personally believe that do not Waste this 200,000 dollars per year for the purpose of becoming a product manager. I personally Never come from a place with luxury I was actually very poor when I grew up and literally do not have the $200,000 to actually go to MBA school So that's why I decided to take several different classes at MIT that will help me to gain experience To speed up my success much faster But if you want to get MBA for the purpose growing your network of people and yes, you can take MBA After gaining product management skills, the next thing I did was conquer the technical challenge I was quite confused for lots of job description. They said, oh, we prefer someone with computer science degree But at the time my PhD was in material science and engineering I literally do not know how to code and I do not want to go back to school to get another degree in computer science Because it's just too much education for me. Just Not at the moment, but I did a shortcut and it starts to talk to current product managers and ask them How did you become product manager? Do you have a computer science degree? Why people want to talk about coding technical background in general and and I realize a majority of the product managers I talked to they said you don't need a computer science degree at all instead You just need to know how to communicate with engineers and the more they talk to them the more I realized that the better way to demonstrate your technical skills is by showing off your skills of designing system architecture diagram and being able to use the system engineering methodology to understand the entire system being able to communicate with Software engineers, even if I was building oil gas product knowing how the system design work for software Architecture is it would help me to show up my communication skills and knowledge in the tech space So therefore I highly recommend anybody to take any systems architecture classes instead of PMX editor We teach system design and free YouTube videos. I recommend everybody to check it out I'm going to link in the description to show you all different kind of free system design classes You need to take right away I filmed the sacred training and teaching you how exactly do you need a tech degree or not And what kind of companies definitely require a tech degree. You should watch this video in-depth and learn different types of product management positions and their relationship was with tech degree as well now Comment on the chat and let me know what's your background when you think about transitioning into product management I love to learn from all of you guys comment below and let's talk The next thing I did is to create a product portfolio at the time a couple years ago There are not like standard way for you to become a product manager But I was so determined to show them that I have relevant experience and I'm able to do a kick-ass job in this new domain I Invented my own product portfolio where I highlight my end-to-end product management skills and experience For example in my portfolio, I have the old like PR news of the product I have launched to demonstrate my impact I also have examples of requirement written before and Also different kind of roadmap that I see how I build my product and everything inside my portfolio show others I'm able to do the job starting from day one when I try to show off my business skills. I told them, oh, I started a SC store I started the e-commerce store and trying to do marketing try to promote myself Here are different kind of strategies. I've used and different kind of go-to market strategies and marketing skills and bills through my SC store and Those it's also very relevant to show off that I have the end-to-end product management skills And even after I started my new job, my boss was like, hey Nancy, you are you still running your store? I was like, no, you're reality I didn't make money through my SC store at all. It was just like very hard to sell juries online But if you know how to do it, let me know but that experience and actually helped me To advance my career and put them together into a portfolio And I have a separate video teaching you guys how to use portfolio to break into product management Even if you don't have prior experience, you should definitely study this video right here to show off your raw talent This must do and which is a core principle of how we help our students inside a PMX character as well And I believe that everyone's resume should have two main sessions under your experience Achievement and roles and responsibilities Achievement is something to show off your raw talent and your impact to the business because The reason how you as a product manager is try to grow the revenue and grow users for the business So it's important to highlight your achievement to the company And then the second session is your roles and the responsibilities that's relevant for management I recommend everyone do not list all possible things as irrelevant Describe things as relevant product management on your resume under the roles and the responsibilities session And I filmed a free training teaching everybody how to write your product management resume and give you specific examples of What you need to say on your resume and what type of keywords you need to put on your resume So please make sure check out these two free trainings and go to this website to download your product management resume template and this has been used by over seven thousand product managers and Won't you use the same template then your interview immediately. Lots of people heard of the framework But the biggest challenge for all the candidates is that they don't know how to use the framework effectively and Create really outstanding design outstanding solutions For example when you apply the modified circles framework to design Uber app for blind people. Did you think about two-sided marketplace? Do you think about very broad in terms of their needs? And I have a free training and demonstrate how would I answer those kind of interview questions in product design interviews? You should check out this free training right now and on top of that I also invented my own framework when I went into an interview because I realized a lot of questions are not applicable using the circles framework So I invented my own my computer science PhD framework, which is very special for product execution interview So this is also the first time I gave away all my framework for free You can go to this free training right here I broke down my computer science PhD framework for product execution interview go here to study the product metrics and Using the same framework and our student was able to lend offers from meta Google Amazon those kind of big tech companies And so also make sure to share the free training with others and invent your own framework as well It will help you to stand out from all your competition significantly after my framework ready I started to do mock interview massively. I start to mock interview with Like existing product managers and some who spare them me and also find my peers and I was very selective regarding my peers I really is one someone who's very driven very motivated as me said I go really high and we both start work hard and Help each other to improve. So through those different types of mock interviews I had I quickly improved myself and I became a player and also my peers also became a player And then we all joined top companies together So I found out this like network and ecosystem is very important for people to continue push yourself to the next level So I land three offers in total and one from Verizon as the IOT smart cities product manager and the other one is from a B2C consumer product and the other one is Working for a startup and I joined Verizon because I love the product and also Verizon is very good foundation for me to quickly To speed up my green card and HMB sponsorship as well. Here are three tips I recommend everybody with no prior PM experience become a product manager to break in with the most efficient way It's a tip number one You need to start to build your product immediately and turn it into a product portfolio So that you're able to show that you already gain relevant experience tip number two is to learn how to write requirement how to manage roadmap ahead of time by taking some product management courses and training and If you're interested in PM accelerator You can go to this website and and go to our master class to get started right away Tip number three is master's product leadership mindset So it's important to think as if you are product manager before you even become one and in this influential product leadership podcast series I interviewed Niquel from Microsoft as a product manager He talked in depth regarding how he leveraged the thinking as if he's a product leader before he went into Interview with Microsoft and that land he spent offered within 40 days So you can learn more from this video right here and start to build your own product leadership mindset starting from today I also highly recommend different kind of free resources. You guys can get started On your PM job journey and first of all is the podcast from guy rise and named how I build it And I definitely love it and it is about how entrepreneurs and startups try to build their product And the real-life experience building product is so valuable for product managers So recommend everybody to listen to this podcast and really enjoy it free resource number two is that you're able to get Free mark interview from me and free coaching from me every Wednesday And during my YouTube live and you can find out the free mark interview Descriptions and requirement in the description of this video filling a Google form and request to do free mark With me every Wednesday and resource number three is that you go to different YouTube channels to start learning for free That's a lot of free resources I'm for example I have a playlist of how to nail product management interview and how to gain product management Experience you go to my playlist right here and you also go to different kind of like YouTube channel start learning for free If you like any of the free tips I share with you guys today or you have a different way to break into product management With no prior experience, please comment below and really love to learn from all of you guys Make sure to share this video hit the like button and I'm gonna see you next time This is Dr. Nancy Lee from PM accelerator. Bye