I wanted to share my own journey over the last 7 months and hope it helps people out there. I’ve been on the lookout for a PM gig since March 2023 March-May 0 recruiter calls I used a generic resume to spam roles that interests me without caring if my domain experience matched the role May-July 5 interviews, 5 rejects in final round Robinhood, eBay, Cisco, aledade, 3box I started tailoring my resume and only applying for roles where my domain Knowledge matched the job description I applied for roles within 3 days of them being posted. I realized studying from interview prep videos and online tutorials was harming my interview performance A lot of rejects happened midway through the interview loop because they found a suitable candidate before I completed the interview August - September 4 interviews Lyft, Palo Alto N/w, Etsy Didn’t make the final round of any of them October-December 9 interviews 5 offers, 2 waiting for result, 1 in progress, 1 ghosted 3 offers in Bay Area, 1 NYC, 1 Seattle Can’t share details right now for confidentiality but will in the future Things I did differently: All 4 offers were strongly matched to my domain knowledge and previous experience All 4 were highly technical roles I got lucky that most of the interviewers were nice (yes luck matters) I started prepping using books, which drastically changed my interview performance compared to to any YouTube video or PM course There were many moments during the whole process where I thought I’ll never be successful, too much luck involved, the interview process is too gamified. Honestly I had to have a lot of things align to get that first offer. After the first offer, that increased confidence drastically helped my interview performance for subsequent interviews. ——————- Edit1: key takeaways Don’t fall for the PM snake oil salesmen, day in the life of a PM, PM influencers who have created subpar content which doesn’t translate well for interview performance. Don’t spend on expensive PM courses that don’t offer much except “frameworks” which make you sound robotic. I got taken for a ride as well seeing the content out there and only with time I realized most of this was nonsense. Good quality, peer reviewed books from people in the industry is the way to go. These books don’t have to be called “PM books” . They come in a variety of flavors depending on the domain you aim to crack your product role in. #pm #product #productmanager
Agreed. Please share which books helped
Cracking the PM Decode and conquer Monetizing innovation
Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your experience. This is helpful. Please share the names of the books
Cracking the PM Decode and conquer Monetizing innovation
What’s your YOE?
5 years, Previously worked as SWE/ML before the jump to PM bachelors in CS, Masters in CS focused on AI
Op mind if I send you a dm
Money. How’s the market with money?
My offers have been in this range (base, RSU, sign On) Lowest: 255k Highest: 330k
Congratulations!!! I have a genuine question. I agree, all the videos are just mugged up frameworks. But when I look at the books, I felt book too has solved the problems using little same or different framework. What am I missing? Appreciate your help in looking at books with new angle.
I’d suggest don’t just look for books titled “PM interview” I’d suggest books regarding how people navigate building products in the domain you’re interested in. This gives a much deeper understanding about how to approach products as well as interviews in the domain you’re interested in This will make you a strong interview candidate as well as a stronger PM I personally used a lot of audible books which I listen to in my downtime or when doing chores An example, I wanted to improve monetizing and monetizing strategies, revenue models, value proposition, go to market strategy which I believe I was weak in during my failed interviews I found a book called monetizing innovation, which gave me a lot of insights on how the industry approaches these things. After this, I started digging deeper into books in my areas of interest, domain as well as PM responsibilities And found those to be a great source of knowledge rather than the stupid PM courses and videos which make candidate repeat these things like a parrot and a seasoned interviewer can see right through the shallow knowledge and similarity in answers in all candidates
Nothing can replace the real experience of being a PM but good going.
Thanks OP for the learned lessons. I'm a PM with 4.5 yoe laid off and have been feelong poetry depressed lately with a sense lf hopeless. Laid off 3 times in the past 3 years, with no well known name on my resume still. These success stories help keep us going.
It took me 6+ months of disastrous failing, after which I had my ah ha! Moment It’s not you, the market is saturated with candidates, but it’s significantly improving over the last couple of months and I anticipate increased hiring next year
The three books he is suggesting is the same generic blog you can find everywhere online. Would recommend not to spend money or time on it. Best way to prep - keep doing mocks with people who are better than you or are the companies where you want to work.
I wasn’t recommending those 3 books, I was recommending preparing using good books rather than expensive PM courses or YouTube videos which I found to be unhelpful and I see that’s what most people use for preparing. When people asked me in the comment sections what books I used, I named the 3 that felt helpful Never claimed that they are niche gems, if they’re a part of generic lists I guess that’s how I found them too.
Have you prepped for Pm interviews before? Those books are usually covered as 101 prep and rarely are required to be re-read Re: videos. There are some good ones buried under most Bs
OP how many YOE do you have?
5y, 2y ML, 3y PM
@OP - Could you share TCs of offers your got with this experience? With base+ bonus breakdown
Congratulations Op, whats your domain experience? I agree that its easier to crack PM interviews when you’re close to the required domain but often it’s difficult to build a domain and most of the PM jobs you do, end up being generalist
This. How do you build a domain expertise is the big question
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Congratulations OP. Which books helped? Kindly share. Also would love to know what domain you’re in that has this high demand?
Following
Domain: AI: NLU, NLP, recommendation systems Cloud: Developer experience, cloud integrations My past experience was in both these domains and my offers match them