I am honestly very puzzled and I don't get it. My resume in a nutshell: 19 years of experience, 9 of them as a Software engineer in Silicon Valley and I was the lead developer for few Yahoo products. Then founded 2 startups in Africa, one got acquired and the current one is 3 years old and targets $2M in revenue in 2022 in one of the hardest business environments in the region. I was also the CEO of a VC here in Africa for 3 years. I was amongst the top 100 managers in the country for 2 years in a row by some business magazine... I need to move back to the US for family reasons and I applied for PM roles ( sent close to 100 applications to FAANG ). I never passed the screening stage! đ What's puzzling me is that one of my previous employees ( a very junior and average project manager) is now a senior PM at Amazon. Yet I couldn't even get an interview there. Should I remove the CEO title from my resume? Should I remove the VC experience? Do recruiters understand the relationship between startup CEO and PM or do they simply reject all resumes that don't include PM in the work history? Any help, pointer, recommendations, referrals will be highly appreciated đ
I would suggest looking out in YouTube on TPM/PM resume samples tips and preparing for interviews. This platform for sure will help you on referrals. I had similar issues with my resumes with VP title in it, I removed it and added TPM skills , I am reached by a aws recruiter on LinkedIn for a role. ( this worked for me ) . But take right judgment and your call.
Definitely try to get a resume review as a first step. Your experience is great so my first inclination is that somethingâs getting lost in translation. Happy to take a look if you DM.
Suggestions: - Change titles from CEO to Founder. - Donât bring up numbers unless asked for. I know that $2M in revenue may look great for a company in certain countries but that is budget for admins in large companies. - You wrote a lot and nobody can get what you contributed and in which areas. Any Junior PM at Amazon will write better about what they brought to the table besides their title. Summary: if you keep this thinking that you are overqualified then donât blame the companies for not interviewing you.
Thanks for your feedback. This was a very high level overview of my career and not necessarily a post about professional achievements. Perhaps it has nothing to do with overqualification, perhaps I should be looking for a different role. I am simply asking for guidance from the community.
You will do well because you take feedback well. Remember; only you know who you are. Companies are hiring how you come across.
DM for PayPal
I'd also brush up on the tactical parts of the job. Too many former product leaders think they can down level at some point in their career but they don't know how to talk about the end to end process of product management. They only know how to talk about how they told others to do things. This is a big red flag
In other words you have no idea how to present yourself as anything else but an executive
You are right. Yet when u are underfunded, you find yourself doing many tasks by yourself. This was me for the most part
Are you using referrals?
No
That might be why. Recommend applying for at least principal or director PM or Principal BD roles with your experience and get a referral to get you noticed and through the initial screening at least.
Yeah...why are you not using a referral..you need someone to get your resume in hands of people who are looking
DM me
Having same issue with a much weaker resume đ. People with half my exp (not knocking them, they're just more junior) are getting the same interviews I'm not
Surprising. What level are you applying for? Looks like you have ideal experience for a PM
I started with a principle role and after so many rejections, I had to reset my expectations to just a PM role and still...
Donât take just a PM role I have 3 yoe as PM and got that