💻 Why Is It So Hard to Get a Job as a Product Manager?
Three roadblocks in the path to Product Manager
Hi Product people, happy Friday! Carlos here. Product Management is a very hot role right now, listed by Indeed as one of the best jobs of 2023. It’s the perfect blend of technical knowhow, creativity, and leadership, making it perfect for those who want to build great products without necessarily having a CS degree or coding expertise.
Unfortunately, this means that the recruitment landscape for Product is highly competitive. This means that lots of highly qualified people are going for a small pocket of jobs, and companies can afford to be picky about who they hire.
If you’ve been struggling to land that interview, or get through to the next stage, you’re not alone. Getting a job in Product Management is challenging! But once you’ve understood why, you can come up with an action plan to help you get your foot in the door!
Problem 1: The Skill Gap
What happens to many people time and time again, is that they spend years at a traditional college or university, and come out with traditional skills like computer science, finance, and marketing.
These are a great starting points, but unfortunately, as you walk side by side with your fellow classmates on graduation day, you’ve all been equipped with the same skills. Product Management is not a traditional job, so there is no traditional training.
Most universities don't offer Product-focused course material, and those that do don't have the same flexibility as Product Management training. You can take Product Management certifications outside of formal education, before, during, or after your studies; these trainings are specifically designed to help you identify and target areas of Product skills growth.
Anyone who wants to be a Product Manager has to take their own initiative and learn the necessary skills in their own time. Or, organically, by taking a variety of different positions. A few years in UX, one in marketing, a quick coding course…the path can be long and winding! Taking a certification helps you focus on breaking into Product Management in one comprehensive course.
Problem 2: The Gray Area of Product
Product Management is not as cut-and-dry as some other roles, which have very clear paths. If you want to be a doctor, you go to medical school. If you want to be a great painter, you buy an easel and enroll in some classes.
However, Product Management is not so easy to define.
Product Management is often referred to as the intersection of business, technology, and user experience, and each year it encompasses more and more. It doesn’t hurt if you also know a bit about Product Marketing. And maybe a few coding skills. Being a good public speaker and the ability to lead teams is also a huge plus. So as you can see it’s a multi-dimensional role!
That also makes it complicated for the hiring managers who are tasked with finding the next Product Manager for their company. It’s hard to write a specific list of requirements, as Product Managers come in all shapes and sizes.
A candidate with a degree in computer science who spent the last year as a UX designer, might be just as qualified for a role as a front-end developer with a background in finance.
There are also a lot of very specific methodologies.
How to get around it: The best way to make yourself hirable is to diversify! It’s much better to have a little bit of experience and knowledge in a lot of things than be deeply experienced in only one thing.
If you have a variety of skills – there is a job out there for you in Product.
Solution: Read Between the Lines
Try to see beyond the bad wording of the job title. If it’s a reputable company, with a large Product Team, there should be information online about how they do product. Interviews with the VP of Product, AMAs their Product Managers have done…all of these will shed light on their practices.
Don’t get hung up on the specifics. If there’s one thing in the job description that you don’t know how to do, apply anyway and learn it on the job.
Problem 3: The Recruitment Process
There’s a standard recruitment process across tech, that anyone who is job hunting will be painfully familiar with. It starts off with a screening interview with a recruiter – someone who has been briefed on the job that they’re hiring for, but without an in-depth understanding.
Make it through the screening interview and you’ll get another phone/zoom interview with someone from the product team. Depending on the size of the company, you’ll go through various online interviews with a variety of potential future colleagues and management.
Then you’ll make it to the onsite interview. For companies like Google and Apple this will probably involve a full day of group interviews and one-to-ones. There may also be some homework tasks along the way.
Just going through this process once can be intense and stressful, which is not something that is discussed enough in the tech world. Doing it three times, or four, or however many it may take to land that job takes a toll on your motivation to keep applying.
Trying to keep attending interviews without arousing the suspicion of your current bosses is also a delicate balancing act! Using all of your PTO to attend interviews for jobs you don’t get is certainly a bitter pill to swallow!
Solution: Change up your process
You can’t change the application process yourself, it’s a problem that the tech industry has to solve together. But you are in complete control of your process.
If you’ve been going for BIG jobs at Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc, and keep finding yourself rejected at the last hurdle, you can do one of two things.
You can scale back the size of the company. It might be that you don’t have the level of experience that these big companies are looking for, or you’re nervous in the interviews because of the prestige of the job. Go for more achievable jobs which will both be more attainable, and also have a less stressful application process!
Get networking. In Silicon Valley, and in the global tech scene, who you know is just as important as what you know.
Check out some of the previous issues:
How to Product Manage Your Product Management Career