The ultimate PM job-hunting guide for 2024
Whether you’re looking to break into PM or transition to a new PM role with prior experience, here is your strategy guide for 2024!
The Strategy for 2024
With a job market barely crawling out of misery and an economy more obsessed with product management than ever before, of course, the road will be challenging.
Undoubtedly, the “product manager” position has blasted off in popularity. Based on statistics by Steve Bennett on Webinarcare, interest in the search term “product manager jobs” has increased by 270% since November 2014 (over 9 years ago). While popularity has become more widespread, here are my 4 tips to stay unique in the job hunt.
1. Don’t overthink the product management interview.
While leveraging frameworks and mental models has always been “PM tradition” in an interview, I’d recommend an alternative way to approach your questions, especially product-sense ones.
People get anxious about tough “product-sense” questions which often get thrown their way like a curve ball. Stuff like “What’s your favorite product? How would you improve it?” or “Solve the problem of food waste by designing me a new product” can cause goosebumps.
My suggestion: don’t think too much about one specific type of question; you’ll never know what the interviewer has in store for you. You really don’t. Yes, you could practice all types of questions hundreds of times so you could be ready for anything, but that still doesn’t guarantee you’ll dodge a curve ball. Instead, adopt a more holistic approach: learn the various frameworks (such as the CIRCLES method), but don’t just memorize product-sense answers; try to gain first-hand experience building a product for a specific problem. You could join a product hackathon, build your own side project with a case study for it, or help a start-up (there are millions!) with product management work.
The key here is that getting the experience yourself rather than memorizing a bunch of frameworks may help you more across interview situations. You’ll obtain experience in problem-solving with product design and strategy in mind. You’ll also be able to touch on customers, marketing, technical analysis, and other practical areas that an interviewer may not necessarily ask explicitly in an interview, but may be implicitly hiding in the way they ask their questions.
Now obviously I won’t forget to mention the other typical pieces of advice: keep up to date with the latest tech news so you can draw from a larger pool of knowledge when answering. Also, practice product questions by starting small (solve the easier ones first!), and then keep practicing different questions until your line of thinking and mental model becomes natural. Finally, explore the different product-related questions you could be asked, not just “product design” ones. Strategy, estimation, and marketing are all on the table!
2. Join various communities, learn, and stay humble.
Online and local communities, such as the fantastic PM group I co-founded here in Vancouver, are game-changers, and that’s an understatement. When you’re diving into product management, the larger your network and support system are, the better. The key here is to join groups that hold regular online or in-person coffee chats or networking events!
Resume reviews in these tight-knit communities are incredibly easy to find. Likewise, you can come across opportunities for mock interviews and learning sessions much more easily. You also learn about new mental models, methods, and techniques that have helped others reach the finish line. However, I believe what’s most important is having a “tight community.”
No matter how ubiquitous the other benefits are, having a strong network of like-minded techies (current and aspiring product managers) boasts many other benefits. Not only does it create a support system for all things product job-hunting, but it also promotes a mindset change. When you network with other hard-working product managers, you adopt their best practices and learn from their mistakes. But most importantly, you start realizing that even the most successful product managers and techies are still human. They may be folks whom you want to be in the shoes of, but you may also discover that you have more similarities with them than you initially thought. They may have more experience, but they still encounter failures from time to time.
Some of the smartest product managers I’ve ever met are ones who always demonstrated a growth mindset. They’re always doubting themselves and reflecting hard about their experiences. Striving to learn from others comes as a no-brainer. Identifying and having these types of people — product management experience or not — in your network will help push you to adopt a stronger growth mindset. You’ll feel motivated to soak all experiences and lessons like a sponge.
3. Build while demonstrating a product mindset via case studies.
Not every product manager boasts an online product portfolio to show off, so this is your chance to develop or polish yours.
Similar to how software developers keep a small portfolio of projects on their site or GitHub, product managers can do the same. Instead of building code-based projects (you can still do that if you have the skills), you can take a case study approach: a portfolio of different strategy documents for every product idea you have for actual problems you’re passionate about. This is where showcasing your product sense is key. Dig deep into a problem space, identify your market, know your user personas and pain points, and finally, design solutions to solve the problem (with trade-offs attached for each). Tools like Balsamiq and Figma are beginner-friendly for designing basic mock-ups, so there aren’t many excuses!
If you’re still stuck on getting started, an example to follow (and I know, it’s not great) is my own. I used a Notion template to create my portfolio, where each page features a case study and design on a problem I’ve identified in day-to-day life.
Finally, I want to mention the difference between product strategy/discovery and product delivery/execution. It’s possible to show both in case studies within a product manager’s portfolio.
With product strategy, it’s all about depicting the way you did your problem exploration. User research, customer market analysis, and even iterating on early user feedback are key components of product management that could be reflected in one’s side project.
Likewise, execution isn’t only about building out your project and showing the results — key tasks such as listing out dependencies, performing cost-benefit analyses on key product or technical decisions, and even showing your actual roadmap or schedule within the project document are helpful.
4. Books are great but keep up-to-date with the tech landscape.
Books such as The Lean Startup, The Lean Product Playbook, Inspired, and Swipe to Unlock are some of my favorite product reads of all time. They’re game-changers and can completely shift your mindset.
Complementing these product books are some more self-help titles, such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Deep Work, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and Atomic Habits.
There, I just gave a starter kit for anyone who wants to jump into product management yet stay productive and impactful. But…
It takes a little bit more to always keep up with today’s ever-changing tech world, and it’ll only progress faster than ever. There are other ways you can stay informed and demonstrate everlasting quench for curiosity:
Subscribe and read a few tech and business newsletters: Morning Brew, Wellfound, The New York Times, TLDR, and Tech Crunch.
Read a few tech news sites every day, including Tech Crunch and Wired.
Take some cheap (or even free) online PM classes that include resources for interviews and mental models. I’d personally recommend Exponent!
And of course, never stop going to in-person or online meet-ups!
The journey to becoming a product manager is arguably one of the toughest in tech. But stay relentless and passionate. You’ll find your way.