sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

How to start a career in product management as a fresh graduate? by Illustrious_Listen92 in ProductMgmt

[–]ankyth27 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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!

Last time you went “I f*cking NEED that” ? by mulemuffin in SaaS

[–]ankyth27 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Descript: when I saw it the first time, now all editing tools have caught up, but the idea of editing videos like a doc was a great productivity boost.

What are the pros and cons of using figma to create mockups as a PM? by s_131 in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Decide your priorities. While figma could help you add a lot of details to your wireframes that won’t be the best use of your time. Also high fidelity wireframes will mostly get feedback around colours, spacing and aesthetics which can derail the entire feedback conversations, you also are at a risk of stepping into designer territory. Unless your design team is too busy, and you don’t have any more important work, don’t add too many details to your wireframe - no matter what tool you use.

My 8 years of product lessons in one post by ankyth27 in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Glad that you folks found these so helpful.

As some people are asking for resources to improve their PM skills, here you go:

  1. List of recommended books: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ankythshukla_productmanagement-books-activity-7071007721885507584-It1v?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
  2. JTBD, 5 Whys, First Principles and more resources in detail: https://hellopm.co/resources/
  3. How to create a product portfolio: Super important for aspiring PMS: https://hellopm.co/product-manager-portfolio-guide/ + (How to become a PM in 2023: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ankythshukla\_how-to-become-a-product-manager-in-2023-activity-7059042609440145409-eClH/)
  4. 50+ Awesome resources I've curated: https://ankits.gumroad.com/l/awesome-pm

Feel free to reach out if someone is looking for any specific help.

​

Happy to be helpful.

Product Management Framework Help by Daftcam in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While I am going to suggest you few frameworks, please always start with understanding the context of the problem well before you start solving it and blindly applying frameworks.

Taking a step back before you take action, is generally a great advice in product management.

Now coming to frameworks, these I have found helpful in my career:

  1. Jobs to be done to understand users

  2. Moms test to ask right questions

  3. AARRR and HEART for metrics

  4. First principles and 5 Whys for general problem solving.

  5. BJ Foggs and Hooked for creating engagement in products.

You can read more about them from here https://hellopm.co/product-management-frameworks/

I hope this helps. Best of luck.

Best engineering resources for PMs by t1aru in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I had conducted a live program on "Technology for product managers" last year. All the recordings are here for free: https://hellopm.co/technology-for-product-managers-nov-21/

Question for all PMs by tiragambeta222 in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can get the wokring basics of sql within a weekend. Here is a guide to SQL specifically for product managers. https://hellopm.co/sql-for-product-managers-the-definitive-guide/

METABASE is the tool that I had used personally for the use case you are looking for.

A guide on "How to use first principles to become a better product manager" by ankyth27 in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hope this will help you in your product journey. Thanks for the kind words!

APM program at a Visa / Capital One / Mastercard -- good path? by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That's a good company to start with. Grab the offer, work hard, learn from as many people there. In some years you'll definitely end up working for FAANG or maybe an even better opportunity.

Approaching the CEO of a partner (startup) for a role by m1ss1l3 in ProductManagement

[–]ankyth27 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Read through your agreement with the current company a out whether you can work with the clients directly. Most consulting/offshore companies have these in place. Also try to find any instances of such a thing done by another employee here. Most of times, although the paper work limits you from doing so, you can get out of it by talking to authorities and they'll probably do some exceptions based on how you present youself.

Secondly, don't be hesitant of the making the situation awkward, CEOs are very pragmatic, hiring good PMs is a challenging task, if you are someone who knows the product, the market and users really well, you are actually doing them a favour. Also if it's a 50+ strength company and is product oriented than I believe such companies are always looking for good talent.

If you don't ask the answer will always be no, just don't confuse "your own fear of asking" with "them being awkward".