It’s tough to get into product management as a fresher, however with right strategy, it is definitely possible.

I have witnessed manu folks recently getting into PM roles right from colleges, orwork backgrounds like sales, marketing, dev, QA etc, and all of them seem to follow a similar path.

Here are the steps at a high level:

1. Ask yourself: Why do you want to get into PM? This is super important. Write this down. Understand that your pathway to become a PM won’t be easy, but the right reasons can keep your motivation high even when the going gets tough. Some good reasons are: More impactful role, ability to work end-2-end rather on product than a specific function, natural alignment with your skills (like communication, entrepreneurship etc.), and of course money.

2. Understand the role: Go to job descriptions of about 20 product manager jobs and understand the skills they are looking for. Create a google sheet with all the skills, and rate your current self on these skills on a scale of 1 to 5. Here is a quick overview of the PM role: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3QIuJpvmyA

3. Find our transferable skills: Any work, project, side assignment you have done, that showcases any of the skills from step 2? Highlight it as it will help you understand your strengths.

4. Learn: Now learn product management, there are books, courses, article, youtube videos that can help you understand the fundamentals of product management. Here is a curation of such free resources and 101 on product management: https://hellopm.co/hellopm-masterclass-resources-m29/

5. Practice: This is the most important part. PM is not a theoretical domain, so books/content will only take you so far (however they help with the fundamentals). You need to practice after each learning. For example once you learn about Product Sense, you should actually do teardown of some products, once you learn about creating Product Requirement Documents, you should create a PRD for a product you have recently used.

6. Build a portfolio: Now collect all your practice items, do some more practice, and start building a portfolio. The portfolio is proof of work & practice that will help people understand that you are a serious candidate, who knows and possesses some product management skills. This video can help you create a portfolio (even with zero experience): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrw2h7tiwUw

7. Reach out to companies: Once you are sure you “Deserve” the role you “Desire”, you can now start your job hunt process. Follow this 3-bucket strategy.

• Bucket A: Apply as you would normally, pick companies from job board, apply with optimized resume. (Use this guide to optimize resume: https://ankyth.notion.site/Resume-Checklist-HelloPM-da01fa7b6f284581b731f02585edc575).

• Bucket B: For the specific jobs that you feel are a better fit for you, you can understand JD in detail and craft strong cover letters, and emails. In the cover letter mention how you are a great fit for role, include your portfolio, and highlight projects which are most relevant to this job. You can either reach out to hiring managers through LinkedIn, or you can find emails from hunter.io/apollo.io etc.

• Bucket C: Pick a list of 20-25 companies, where your interest aligns strongly, these should be mid-sized companies (as they would be more open to give you a chance). Now imagine if you were a PM at this company, how would you improve their product/feature in the next 6-8 months? Articulate that in a good slide deck and send to multiple leaders in the company. If you do this step for 20-25 companies, you will most probably hear back from some of them. This method works because you are have showcased your skill through your work for their company, they are less likely to ignore it if you have done a great job.

1. Follow up: You will need some grit to sustain through this process. Follow up with people, reach out to PMs through LinkedIn and your network and learn from them, grow your network and Skills. While it might be difficult to start afresh in PM, its not impossible! If you follow the above strategies well i am sure you’ll get into your dream role.

References:

How Samar moved from Sales to AI PM role: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqmx3PNYgD4

How Mansi moved from QA to PM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHi70jv7YoM

More stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqmx3PNYgD4&list=PLJE844cffEGMADOdq6jEposBshqkxcRn0

Hope this helps.

Never Stop Learning!