The Right Way to Find Your Next Product Management Job
Switching roles is a big decision, yet I see a lot of people making potentially life-changing decisions for odd reasons, or without proper consideration. A lot of what follows could be applied to any job search, however I’ve found that with product management roles this approach better prepares you to evaluate unexpected opportunities appropriately and gives you the structure to make well-informed decisions about your next role.
Start with “why?”
Why are you looking for a new job? A lot of people skip over this important first question. In some cases you’ll get an inbound hit from a recruiter when you weren’t really looking and then suddenly you’re interviewing and have an offer. In the right situations, this can be awesome. Without proper preparation and consideration, you can end up feeling trapped in the momentum of the process or just end up wasting everyone’s time doing interviews when you weren’t really serious. I have zero data to prove this, but I feel like I hear about more people switching between product jobs because of a recruiter reaching out when they weren’t looking than people who do focused, intentional searches for their next role.
For the people who are doing an intentional search, there are three main buckets they typically fall into. The first group are the people who are running away from something. A bad boss, being overworked, and not being recognized, usually rank towards the top. Whatever the reason, this is completely legitimate, you just need to recognize where you are mentally. Are you getting ahead of it being unbearable or is it already so bad you’ll take pretty much anything to get away? Your best decisions are rarely made when desperate.
Next are people who don’t have a choice for one reason or another. Perhaps they were laid off or fired, or their personal situation changed such that they need to find something that pays better, has less travel, is closer to home, etc.
Finally, there are the people who are running towards something. They have a dream role or a dream company and are actively targeting a particular outcome and trying everything to make it happen. Maybe there is nothing wrong with their current role other than they are ready for the next level up and that position is not available at their company for the foreseeable future. It really doesn’t matter why. Being focused and excited is the right way to go into a search and interviews. Spoiler alert, the rest of this article will focus on why you need to try make yourself into this person no matter why you are searching.
What’s Important To You?
What information do you typically find on an offer letter? Your name, the title of the new role, base comp, bonus and maybe equity. Three variables out of 20 you should consider when taking a new position. It’s really easy to get excited and myopic and put too much focus on the three obvious bits of information on your offer letter and ignore everything else.
The best time to consider all of the variables is before you start looking. Take an hour and spend some time figuring out what actually matters to you about your next role. There’s not a “correct” structure to this, other than having a structure and being holistic in what you consider. What I typically tell people to do is write down the top 3-4 considerations (in priority order) across these 4 categories:
Compensation - what’s your floor? How much are you willing to trade off cash comp for equity especially when it may be illiquid for many years?
Career Growth / Opportunity - What are the attributes about the role that would most excite you? A bigger team? More responsibilities? Exposure to a new industry or technology?
About the Company - What is the ideal company and culture you are looking for? A 15 person startup is a very different experience than a 1500 company. What’s the target customer segment? Selling to consumer vs enterprise is a vastly different experience for product managers.
Life / Balance Considerations - How is this role going to fit into your life? Do you want to travel or do you want to avoid it? Assuming you are going into the office what’s your commute time look like? Is working remote or hybrid really important to you?
You can download a free worksheet to help walk through this process on the Resources page.
Once you have all this written down, assign percentages to each major category that add up to 100%. You’re not going to do any real math here, but force yourself to think through tradeoffs. How important is compensation compared to all of this other stuff? Does the company environment matter more to you than the opportunity? Run some scenarios in your head to see what would need to be true for you to take a job that was off the charts in one area and “meh” in the others.
Spend some time when you’re not stressed to really think about all of these things that matter. If you are in a serious relationship, show your answers to your spouse or partner when you are done. It’s guaranteed to be a good conversation. Maybe they help you assess trade offs between the various elements, which is great. Occasionally you may avoid a problem caused by you accepting an offer and finding out 3 months later that it blows up part of your home life you weren’t considering.
Targeted vs Probabilistic Job Searches
By going through the previous exercises you now have a ton of useful information to start your search. You know what is most important to you and you can use that help you network, target the appropriate companies, and work effectively with recruiters. Telling people “I’m looking for this” makes it easier for everyone trying to help you.
A lot of people get nervous about job searches taking too long. This is completely fair. Most people don’t do them very often and again a large amount of change seems to be driven by recruiters. Assuming you have the financial runway to let the search go on long enough, and there is not some horrible thing happening in the job market or economy while you are looking, a focused job search usually takes about 3-4 months.
The key here is the word focused. Many people approach a job search as an exercise in maximizing the probability of getting a job with little to no prep. “I’m busy, and I don’t have a lot of time to invest in researching the companies so I’ll apply to everything and see what happens.” They are trying to get more pulls on the slot machine to increase the chances of a win. As a hiring manager you can tell really easily when someone is going down the probability route. I’m looking to hire a product manager who makes rational, high-quality decisions. I want someone well prepped and focused. Someone who made a plan on where they want to go and who is now executing well on that plan.
Find a short list of companies (less than 5) that fit the profile you created earlier and set all of your efforts to making one of these happen. Research the companies, try to use the products, read reviews, and take notes. Look for any way into the company via your connections on LinkedIn. Try to find the hiring manager and reach out directly. Put all of your effort into a small set of companies. If one doesn’t work out, add one new one to the pile, but don’t go crazy. If you don’t have enough time to go all in on 5, pick 2. Prioritize your list and your efforts - it’s good practice for later!
The Benefits of a Focused Job Search
Being focused in your job search pays a ton of dividends. The time you spend researching the company will come across in any networking chats or interviews instantly. The people you interact with can tell you are serious about the role and the company. You’re previewing your work ethic and attention to detail.
As you already narrowed down what matters to you upfront, you’ll also never have to worry about being “passionate enough” in an interview. By definition the job and the company you are interviewing for is something you’re really excited about and that comes across so clearly in an interview. If you’re going through the motions with a random company that responded to your cookie-cutter application, or because a recruiter caught you on a bad day, you’re never going to display the level of genuine interest and enthusiasm that comes across when you are actually excited. You can’t fake excitement and interest, so do all the prep work necessary to only put yourself in situations where those feelings are genuine.
Circling Back Around to Recruiter Inbound
Take a quiet Saturday and map out what matters to you and what your ideal next role would look like even if you have absolutely no plans to look for a job soon. A few good things come from this. First, you can evaluate how far your current job is from all these factors and perhaps, now that you are aware of them, take actions to improve some parts of your current job to match your ideal profile. Additionally, you’ve got a structured target to show you manager about where you want to go. This allows for conversations about career progression to be focused and dispassionate. If the thing you want next is not going to be available at the company you are currently at, then you know you need to leave to find it. That’s OK. Having that conversation with your manager also gives them the fair chance to try to make it true before you leave.
Mapping all of this out ahead of time also gets you ready to react to a recruiter reaching out about a role. Does it line up with the ideal role you came up with? No? Politely decline and offer to refer some buddies who would be a good fit. Tell them a really crisp answer for what you are looking for instead. They may be able to find it for you down the line. Sometimes it’s worth talking to the recruiter a bit to learn or maybe even taking the first intro call with the hiring manager. That’s fine, and maybe you’ll learn something that makes you change your mind. Just make sure you’re constantly referring back to your target role and asking whether this is a role you’re excited about before you get into later interview rounds or asking for formal offers. Don’t get trapped in the momentum of interviewing if it’s a bad fit.
Wrap Up
I know a lot of really smart people that would say they know pretty much everything I wrote in this article, yet they still do all of the things I would suggest not doing. Product managers are typically oversubscribed in their role, work long hours, and don’t have extra time to consider what-ifs outside of work. Career choices are one of the most important decisions people make, they don’t tend to happen too often, and they are worth investing in early to ensure you make the right call if the timing is not when you expect.
Need help planning out your next career search? I’d love to hear what you think about the article - please reach out!
