 Imagine what this looks like if you don't have technical background and you feel like you have no PM experience but you really want to become a PM because this is your dream company and your dream profession. You are actually love creating product for other people but there's a huge challenge in front of you in kind of technical background and also your own past experience. But what if I tell you that other people had actually made it happen within three months and you can do it as well. You just need to push through your dream and challenges. Today I had a pleasure to invite our alumni Tina Chan to share with you guys how she was able to conquer all the challenges and become a successful product manager within three months and even if she had no technical background, no PM experience but she was able to become one of those role models inspired millions of women's out there. Hey guys this is Dr. Nian City, a direct product and featured in Forbes. I've helped 100 people lend their dream PM job offer in fan companies and unicorn startups and continue to get promoted as a product leader. If you're interested in product management course, please go to PMExceler.io to learn more. To learn the most effective way to become product managers, you should subscribe to our channel, hit the bell button and like this video so you'll be notified every time we post a new video every week. Hi Tina, how are you? So glad to have you on our show. Hi Nancy, how are you? I'm doing great. I'm so glad to talk to you. Yeah, you graduated like a few months ago, feels like. Eight months ago. Eight months ago. Eight months ago, awesome. Yeah, feels like. Just like eight months have changed a lot, especially you have been doing so well for your new career. I'm so glad for you now share with all the audience and especially lots of women are out there or even men and women or immigrants that feel like they don't have as much of knowledge and background and you had a breakthrough. I'm so glad you're sharing this with us. Can you do a quick introduction of yourself? Hi everyone, my name is Tina and I am currently a PM at Zero. On the side, I love building products so I have an e-commerce store and I love creating stuff so I have a YouTube channel sharing my PM journey how I break in with no experience at all. Awesome. So Tina's YouTube channel is very popular. We're going to link it in the description of this video. Everyone needs to follow it. I am trying. I'm trying. I'm trying. You're too humble. Awesome. You're waiting to see the next YouTube star out of our alumni community. Awesome. Cool. So Tina, you mentioned that you actually came from customer success background. You have no experience. That sounds like huge challenges for all the aspiring product managers thinking about breaking into PM. Can you tell us regarding what are those top three challenges you have and how exactly you conquer those challenges? Right. The top challenges that I had is first, I always, when I'm in the program, I always see other students that have like great background. They have consulting, they are from big four and then they are like, they have computer science degree, they are data scientists and fun fact, my career started when I was a customer service and customer service and tech is just so irrelevant and my biggest fear is I don't have the skill set to break into it and that's like the biggest challenge. That's like first and then second biggest challenge is that whenever I send out my resume, I just don't have response because my background is all like very customer centric but then when you know like a lot of company they use the AI to filter out the resumes because my resume is very customer centric so when I send it in, I will just get like, I just have no response so I can't even land an interview. So that's my biggest challenge and my third challenge is that because I don't have experience, although I have like relevant experience like working on project with my previous companies around like PM stuff but I don't know how to package it in a way that it's going to make me stand out. So that's like my three biggest challenge, I cannot stand out, I don't get called from HRs and I don't have technical background. So Tina sounds like huge challenges and people will be scared but you push it through. Can you tell us how do you solve these challenges starting the first one? Starting with the first one without technical degree okay so I just have to tell everyone that this is like the biggest myth. You do not need to have technical background. I mean it's great that you have because you can talk to engineer, communicate engineer easier which is what I found at my job right now. I have the biggest style when I'm in my role, I talk to my managers, I talk to my PM peers, now like I get to know them more, I'm like hey I don't have technical background, is that okay? And they're like you are totally fine, you just need to communicate the customer pain point. So if you are like me, you are you need you have customer background, be proud because you can talk to the customers. Yeah exactly. Yeah we have seen a lot of people actually more than half of our students do not know how to code, no technical background at all, no even like no technical degree at all but they all like become a product manager. I think lots of people just think about because tech company, the name is like tech and they're like oh I need a computer science degree and then once you spend thousand stars on computer science degree, you still couldn't become a PM because you don't know how PM works. Yeah it's a myth. Yesterday I was talking to my colleague in the social event and then she was like I don't know how to reach out to customers, I'm so afraid to talk to them and then I'm like oh okay and then at that point I'm like okay yes I am worth it, like it's a worth, yes I have value so I think people who have customer background you guys need to be proud. Oh this is amazing and especially verified by your co-workers. Yes and then I used to work at Uber so I work at Uber, I work with the UXR to do like survey, to do like interview with the customers and that's like just up level of me, you know even though I don't have legit PM titles but I have projects where I can showcase myself, I can improve myself, I remember when I was joining this program then see I was talking to you, I don't have experience and you're like Tina like you need to move away from this mindset, like if you just keep having this mindset like you're not be able to land a job because I think I don't have experience but all these little projects actually count for me to come to the customer like just do random stuff, not random stuff but like valuable stuff, it helps. Yeah exactly lots of people actually do have the relevant experience but they never speak, yeah but they don't know, they don't know until they start to learn the end-to-end product management by methodology is like oh right but I think I had it. Yeah I think what's like different in your program is because you like talk to your students one on one every time, it's not like you come to class and then you teach the course and advise you later, you're like okay here let me help you tell me your story and you're very good at picking out a student's story and then tell the student hey Tina like you're actually good at this, this is really important, you should help the students to realize what they are good at, I think that's like different, so I know what I'm good at because before I'm like oh I know nothing, I'm not very good, I don't know anything, I cannot get a job, yeah. Now I was like whoa highlight your customer experience, you're all in this. Yes, yes, awesome, I didn't know it was worth it but yeah. Awesome, so now talk about not able to learn interviews, how do you get 30% jump? So again like I touched on, I had relevant experience working on projects but I don't know how to use like the PM link for example, I do like customer interview but I don't know that's all user research, for example I talk to the customer and they want something and I share these like whatever feature they want to the product team and that's filing or sharing pain points, that's pain points and I just don't know like I need to use this like keywords and after you know like working with you and then working with the recruiters in the program then they help me to, they teach me how to write it in a PM way versus me just writing it as me like writing up bullet points, more effective and more efficient and more like able to highlight my experience in the PM field. Yeah exactly, actually we have a YouTube video about different kind of keywords people need to put on the resume and you guys can check it on top of this video once you switch the mindset, immediately increase the success rate, like 30% more right away, awesome. So now let's talk about your third challenge which is you said you don't have experience, we kind of mentioned earlier right? Yes, yeah the third challenge is also like my biggest worry, I was worried because I think I don't have experience but I think what, how I overcome with this challenge is that one tips I found really helpful is I go on LinkedIn and I look at different job posting and I will highlight each job posting's requirement and keywords, I'll be like oh like this, I think I know how to do this, I did it before and then I just kind of like use that keyword and then make portfolio, product portfolio, which Nancy like you really helped us to you know create a product portfolio, highlight all the experience that other job posting has and then showcase it and send it to hire managers, send it to like the HR to showcase even though I don't have experience but I've done something similar before, trust me. So that's like actually help as well and also like practice, doing this actually helped me practice my PM skills in the job. So one of the things that Nancy touched on before in the program is creating product persona, customer persona and then you touch on that so much and I remember the first time I created Nancy like no this is wrong, I do this and then you give me so much feedback but I learned and then the first three months when I first hired at zero, I created customer persona for my company, my manager was impressed, he was like oh my god this is great, so I learned, thank you. Awesome, mind blown, yeah I love seeing all of you guys just improve massive real skills, I think that's a fun part, learning a job, getting paid it's not about just getting paid, it's about actually you love the product and then starting from day one you create amazing customer persona, this is beautiful, awesome and so Tina can you tell us what's the biggest mindset shift that you had to push you to the next level? I think the biggest mindset shift that I had was when I started getting interview calls and then when I started like passing like first rounds of interview and second rounds of interview and then coming back to the program and keep like mock interviewing with you and then with other mentors and then just keep improving and then knowing this is actually doable and then this is just like a numbers game, I remember you mentioned this a lot like it's not just us, it's not just like a company looking for candidates, it's us looking for right fit as well so I started to have this mind shift where I think that it's okay if I don't get a job because this job is not meant for me, I'm also looking for my for my own job and that's when I started to feel more confident, I'm like I'm also looking for my fit, it's not just they are looking for their fit and then I like started to present more confidence and and then and then just it just worked out because I'm like presented more confident and then yeah I think that's yeah this is awesome and I do like the insight you shared regarding it's like dating process yes yeah it's you need to choose the other guy you cannot let the guys choosing you it's up it's wrong we want to take out the power in dating the same thing as for job hunting as well so yeah I think this really helps like I think I remember before I went on all my interview before before I like hop on the zoom I just I really like take a deep breath it's okay I'm also finding my fit it's fine if it doesn't work out you know like the universe it's gonna send the right fit for me it's totally fine and then that just like calming down and then making more confident this is awesome it sounds weird but yes it works yeah yeah later on I told others a new trick which is very funny was about during the during the pandemic oh sorry during the layoff seasons we're going through layoff season right now it's an arranged marriage match not just random match like become an arranged marriage match have a perfect match but it's still a match process um yeah change your mindset change your life hey guys like this is a golden tip you had today and so Tina you have been a part manager for eight months already so tell us what do you do like a p.m like 30 seconds what do you do at the p.m every day people are very confused I think what I do as a p.m it's literally what Nancy's program mentioned we write user story we write acceptance criteria we create customer persona we prioritize the roadmap and then we make decisions based on you know different criteria that we learn in the program impact risk all that thing you know we communicate with stakeholders you'd be a really good collaborator and communicator so then when you are shipping and launching product you don't step on each other's toes and then just launch reiterate ab testing awesome sounds very simple but you do need to watch her day in and life as a product manager I'm gonna put right here it's also on her youtube video which has all the details behind scene stories and actually I really love the pace in the music very chill on Friday night when we don't watch like Netflix videos watching what you're doing awesome I gotta put it up there so Tina what advice do you have for others who want to start their p.m career especially have just gone through the process yourself um if they want to start a p.m career what advice I would get if um I will give advice to people who are similar to my background which is having no p.m experience or or only have like small relevant product p.m experience which is just keep applying keep mock interviewing and keep working on side projects because side project is where you can practice it's not just like showcasing the product to the to the interviewer it's own it's also for you to practice how can you be a good product manager creating portfolio pick a product you're interested in and then going through like the product lifecycle I think that it's what really improved me the most I learned from not knowing how to write acceptance criteria to know how to write acceptance criteria and this is what I need to do on my job day to day each product that I build I need to write acceptance criteria how to create a persona a custom persona it's not just like ascension like as you mentioned Nancy it's not just about right finding a job it's about can you do the job once you land a job too so doing creating product portfolio not just helping you to land a job but also helping you to you know not get fired after you have a job exactly actually have to actually get promoted also what one of my students uh oh Mimi got promoted within a year in her new job you have four months to go you might get promoted as well she started to manage people now she became a good manager in a year wow good for her yeah awesome we have great chance to continue working on the great job this is amazing Tina awesome okay great so everybody thank you so much for joining us and thank you Tina for sharing all the amazing advice with other people and actually Tina brought in a very important part I want to highlight this for everybody it's very important you exercise the pm skills before you even start your pm job and also get feedback regarding writing requirement not just writing everyone knows how to write but most people do not write good requirements right so people need to learn how to do better um so we have the product portfolio methodology and one can just use the same methodology we have like free training on product portfolio free tools I'm going to list all the free product portfolio tools in this video and also in the description of this video and you guys should just get started right away started for free awesome oh anybody who is interested in pm exciter feel free to go to our website pm exciter.io to learn more I'm looking forward to see all of you guys being a successful product manager in the long run awesome awesome so Tina thank you for joining us and so great to see everyone here in any last minute tip you want to give others and also how others could find you in the future you know you guys can do it even without experience because I did it so you guys can do it to believe in yourself be confident and you know just off you go you will be great and if you want to have questions more questions from me feel free to connect with me on linkedin and also I have a youtube channel I share about everything about pm highlight a job my journey day to day stay in life go check it out awesome so we're going to link it in the description of this video and if you find this video very valuable make sure to like share this video with any expert and product manager and comment below let me know if any other questions I'd love to see all of you guys become successful product manager in the future and this is dr nancy from pm exciter die on we'll see you in the next time bye guys bye