Product Manager Job Search Stats
I thought others might find these stats interesting/helpful.
During the 2019 job search, I had 2+ YoE, and I had just been through a layoff, so I took the first offer that I received.
During the 2021 job search, I had 4+ YoE, and I was employed while looking, so I was able to turn down a job offer that wasn't right for me.
It was definitely easier to get interviews and advance in the interview process in 2021. I think this was due to more/better PM experience, a more favorable market and more/better interview preparation on my end (though I blundered a few of the first interviews I took, but this helped me get better for others later on).
All my experience (4+ years) is in product manager roles, and current TC is 120k.
The offer from my current search that I'll very likely accept has a TC of ~200k.
I'm happy to answer questions if you all have any, and I'm also curious to know what people think of these stats... Are the similar to your experiences?
Edit #1: Since a lot of people asked, I got referrals for 8 jobs in 2019 and 10 in 2021. In both years, my "Phone Screen" rate for these was ~50%, so it definitely helps to have a referral, but it's not a guarantee that you'll be contacted by a recruiter. Also, I found it worthwhile to apply for jobs without a referral as long as I could make the case that I was qualified by customizing my resume (less recruiters reached out, but still some did!).
Edit #2: I realized that my formulas for "PERCENTAGES (of total)" were wrong for the 2021 Job Search Stats, so I updated it. The data still tells the same story, but it has accurate calcs now!
#productmanager #pm #product #jobsearch
comments
Phone screen > HM > On-site improvements are due to your relevant experience.
Thanks for sharing this data! Really adds to the quality of content in Blind. 👍🏼
I also leveraged referrals, but only from people I knew personally (so I didn't ask for referrals via Blind). My "Phone Screen" rate was ~50% in both years when I had a referral, so better than not having one, but not a sure thing either.
2) Make sure your stories tell the right “story”. I shared examples about prior successes that weren’t quite relevant to the role for which I was interviewing. I think I seriously fumbled a presentation by focusing on my experience with technical products when I should have focused on a UI centric product. The presentation itself was well-delivered, but the content wasn’t relevant!
After my MBA, I had a tough time finding a job. Being international makes it all the more difficult. After some months of searching, I got a Sr. BA role. I left that job in to accept a PM job at a startup in 2018 where my TC was just above 100K.
At the end 2019, I started looking for PM jobs at larger companies; got very few calls from the likes of Bloomberg, Mastercard but did not do well in the interviews and realized I have a lot to prepare.
For the most of 2020 with the hiring freeze and all, there wasn’t much activity. At the end of 2020 and up until 2021, I started applying and getting calls again. I used to mostly apply on Indeed. Getting an interview call wasn’t that easy, but it was way better than 2019 and 2017(right out of college). For the ones I received interview calls, I would make it to final rounds most of the time (probably 90%). But then something or the other wouldn’t work out.
By the end of 2021, I received calls from FAANG as well, though for those I couldn’t go past the first round. All this while, there was lots of preparation, talking to people, mocks etc.
In Oct 2021, I got an offer for a PM role at a large company. TC: 210K; fully remote. I will start there at the beginning of 2022. I have around 4 years of experience and I am a 30 year old.
This has been a very stressful journey for me; but I learnt a lot during this.