When I started as a product manager, I spent years trying to perfect my resume.
Skills, keywords, activities, employment history.
Nothing worked.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other product managers were getting jobs.
- Building amazing careers
- Notching up successes
- Reaping the rewards
But my resume got zero.
Crickets.
Basically ignored.
Then, I started to reverse engineer some of the best product management resumes.
I wanted to understand what they were doing differently from me.
So, armed with a handful of simple tactics, I recreated my resume, redesigning it from scratch, using what I had learned worked.
In 1 month, I had 8 first-round interviews.
My job search was transformed.
As I transitioned into a product leadership role, with the opportunity to hire product managers and build a team, I had the opportunity to review 100s of product manager resumes.
And hired some amazing product managers.
I’ve seen a pattern of what works and what doesn’t.
With so many product managers desperately searching for their next gig, it's more important than ever to know how to create a resume that stands out.
The challenge is most product managers have no idea what hiring managers are looking for.
Maybe that's you? Or someone you know?
And so on June 25, expert product manager resume coach, Nils Davis, and I hosted a free webinar called Transform Your Resume: Insights From a Product Management Hiring Manager. Our intent was to spill the beans on what in a candidate's resume gets a hiring manager excited.
We talked about:
- What hiring managers look for.
- Why so many resumes suck.
- What makes a candidate's resume stand out from the crowd.
- How to catch the eye of discerning hiring managers like me!
It was eye-opening for lots of product managers to hear what hiring managers are seeing - and compare it to the message candidates are hoping to get across - and the fairly large gap between those.
During the webinar, Nils and I talked about what hiring managers look for, why so many resumes suck, and how to tailor your resume to catch the eye of discerning hiring managers like me.
We also went through several actual resumes (personal info removed) and discussed what stood out and what didn't.
It was eye-opening for folks to hear what hiring managers are wanting - and compare it to the message candidates are hoping to get across - and the fairly large gap between those.
That's all for now.
