Mastering the Product Manager Job Search With Colin Murphy

Have you heard? My new book Continuous Discovery Habits is now available. Get the product trio's guide to a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery.

This post is part of the So You Want To Be a Product Manager series. 

I have a few more interviews lined up for what’s turned into an ad hoc series on how to find a product manager job. After that, I’ll shift focus back to writing about how to develop product skills.

Today, we are going to hear from Colin Murphy. I worked with Colin at Become.com.  It was his first job out of college and he impressed everyone from day one. At Become, Colin was an account manager but he helped out on a lot of product initiatives as well. From there, he went on to other account management type roles. Recently, he decided he wanted to make the switch to product management full time. He’s in the middle of his job search, but based on his thoughts below, I can’t imagine he’ll be looking long.

What have you learned during your search for a product manager role? 

Colin: Going through this experience myself, I can definitely say that there are some strategies and tips that would have been helpful to understand at the outset.  Primarily:

Highlight the appropriate things on your resume and sell yourself: This should go without saying because it applies to job searching in any field.  However, I think it’s particularly important for product management, where you have candidates with a range of backgrounds.

If you were previously an electrician, and have that on your resume, chances are you’ll get your foot in the door for an electrician interview.  The same can’t be said for product management.  Future product managers are hiding all around us, in sales, marketing, engineering, and support positions… so just having those job titles on your resume doesn’t convince a hiring manager that you’re qualified. You must sell your skill set and your ability to perform the specific job.

Additionally, most people will assume nothing about you other than what is easily accessible at first glance (on linkedin, your resume headlines, feedback from a mutual acquaintance).  More than several hiring managers have been (pleasantly) surprised when I tell them I know HTML+CSS+SQL (something which you could figure out with just a little digging through my resume and website).  Some people may just assume I’m a “business guy” and not a “technical guy” because they don’t see a CS degree on my resume.  I’ve learned to be preemptive and highlight important, applicable skills. Bottom line: If you want a potential employer to know something about you, put it right in front of them.  Write your own story and sell it to them.

Build a portfolio:  When I began my job search, I didn’t even think I had a portfolio (though I’d worked on lots of products and projects).  I thought a typical portfolio was more for designers, photographers, etc.. Then I realized I could at least scrape together a few videos of past projects (tutorial or marketing videos I had made that were already publicly available) and that would be WAY better than nothing.  It worked great.

I recently added a personal website that I built for my wedding.  I realized that if I could showcase even my basic HTML skills, that was better than simply mentioning I could “code” and certainly better than never mentioning it at all.  There are a number of ways to build your portfolio.  LinkedIn has a “projects” section which you can add to your profile and sites like Behance give you more tools to polish your portfolio (including publishing to LinkedIn).  Finally, you can always throw together your own website to display your work, which brings me to my next point:

Have a website:  This can be a purpose built career / resume site, or a section of your existing personal site.  There are tons of services out there, like LinkedIn and About.me, that let you showcase your professional profile, resume and experiences… but product managers build things (and software product managers build web things), so build a website.  It allows you to showcase your work, be creative, show initiative to employers and hopefully stand out a bit from the crowd.

Come to think of it, just build anything.  It could be a remote controlled helicopter that drops copies of your resume to the ground.  Just build something that shows your critical and creative thinking.

Choose the right companies / opportunities:  I realized early on I would never get a PM job at Google (at least not coming externally).  They hire technologists with business acumen and not the other way around.  That said, for every Google there is another company looking for something different.  Identifying these (as well as general size, industry, role, etc) is crucial.

Solidify your goals:  It’s been helpful for me to know what I want to get out of my next job and to have those needs prioritized.  I decided that my primary goal was to build my product management skill set.  In other words, the size of the company, the industry, the salary, etc, were all less important than finding a position that allowed me to focus 100% on product management and work alongside an experienced team from whom I could learn a ton.

If you are making a career pivot, it’s particularly easy to get sucked into job postings, interviews & the compensation possibilities for jobs that align with your existing resume and background.  Having a goal has helped me focus and avoid these distractions.  It will also help me reconcile any concessions I might need to make.

Network, but take it for what it’s worth:  Networking is a great way to meet and learn from new, interesting people.  You also never know when unexpected connections or opportunities will surface.

However, in my experience, not many people have had great advice on how to break into product management (even those who have done it seemed to fall into it surreptitiously).  Some have even said I probably shouldn’t pursue it (how’s that for motivation!).

I’m either asking the wrong people or it’s a genuinely tough question and not many folks have the perfect answer.  All of this is to say: take what you can out of personal meetings and networking (and give back, too) but also remember to stick to your own goals and pave your own path.

Teresa’s concluding thoughts: Colin has a lot of great advice. I liked his emphasis on showcasing his skills, networking but staying focused on his goals, and knowing what he’s looking for. I have no doubt Colin will be a great product manager.  I’d hire him in a heart beat. If you are looking for a strong candidate, I’d recommend contacting him.

This post is part of the So You Want To Be a Product Manager series.