Getting PM interviews: How to get your next PM job series [2/4]

You know what you want in your next product management job. Nice. The question now is... how do you get PM interviews?

Welcome back to my mini-series on getting your next product management (PM) job 🔥

Last week, I outlined the steps and discussed step 1: figuring out what you want.

This week, I’ll cover step 2: getting interviews. 

Thanks to everyone that sent kind messages and ideas for future articles after my last article! Here we go!

Steps to getting your next PM job

1. Figure out what you want

2. Get interviews (this article)

3. Get offers

4. Negotiate/accept offer

Getting interviews is a necessary (usually) step along the “funnel” to getting your next PM job. 

Getting interviews is hard. Especially now. It’s especially hard if you don’t have a lot of existing PM experience. If that’s you, the good news is it gets easier as you build PM experience. The bad news is it’s going to be hard right now.

Last week, I suggested that the first step was figuring out what you wanted and writing that out in a list that is short, specific, and concrete. If you have lots of time to soul-search, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Either way, you’ll have completed this step when you have a shortlist of things that represent your absolute dealbreakers. 

Unhelpful things to have on that list: “make an impact”, “solve user problems”. Helpful things to have on that list: “based in X city”, “need visa sponsorship”.

Defining this list for yourself increases the likelihood you end up in a role that supports your life goals. It also makes it a lot easier for you to get your next job.

How? Having that list clearly defined will make it easier for you to screen out jobs that definitely don’t work. If you live in London and don’t want to move, some amazing job in SF that requires you to move won’t be a good fit.

So, let’s assume you now have your list. Next, I recommend sharing that list with relevant 1st degree connections ie friends and past coworkers.

I recommend reaching out in a private channel and sharing a short overview of your situation, your list, and your ask. Here’s a template.

“Hey ___their name____, hope you’re well! I’m ___few words on your situation_____ and looking for a PM role. Do you know anyone who’s hiring? Here are my “must haves”: product role, based in Amsterdam, they can sponsor my visa*. I’m particularly interested in edtech at a series a-c start up*, but I’m open to any role with a great team. Thank you!”

*what I filled in above are just examples of deal breakers and preferences. Naturally, you’d want to replace those with yours.

A few things of note:

• Friendly, not fake: I recommend starting being friendly but honest about why you’re reaching out. I prefer this because to me asking “how are you” is a bit disingenuous since you’re not reaching out to ask how they are doing, you’re reaching out to ask for help on something. Others may disagree.

• To the point: a few words on your situation, a few words on what you’re looking for

• One specific ask: most people want to help. If they’re your friends they almost certainly want to help you. Make it easy for them to help you by clarifying one specific ask.

• “Must haves”: I suggest including them right off the bat. That way you save one back and forth and make it easier for them to help you. More efficient and respects their time.

• “Nice to haves”: Adding preferences can be good to get them thinking, but it’s important to clearly indicate these are not deal-breakers to avoid taking yourself out of consideration for a great role.

If they don’t respond, I recommend following up 48 hours later ⏰ If they don’t respond again, I recommend following up once more 48 hours later. In each case, I recommend making the follow up respectful but unapologetic. Something simple like “Hey following up :)” should do the trick. If 48 hours after your second follow up you still don’t hear back, I’d suggest moving on. Either:

1. They don’t check that channel, in which case you may want to try another 😤

2. They don’t want to talk to you, in which case pushing harder isn’t constructive ✌🏼

3. They’re really bad at responding to their messages. If you knew it was this, following up again could be useful. However, given it's more likely to be 1 or 2 I would stop after 3 tries 😬

If they respond yes or no, I recommend first thanking them for their response. Expressing gratitude at the beginning of a message is generally a safe bet. The more specific you can be the better. @fellow over-expressive Americans… beware: doing this too much can feel robotic/weird/disingenuous. It can also annoy your British coworkers (s/o Rosa!). But especially the first time I highly recommend it. Either way, I also recommend asking them if they know of others you could chat with who might be hiring or know someone who’s hiring. (They may say no; that’s ok). 

Option A: they know someone who’s hiring (or they’re hiring), send you their name, and say they’re happy to connect you two. 

Example response: “Thanks for sharing this! What’s the easiest way [implied: is easiest for you] for <person> and me to get connected [implied: for you to connect us]? Here’s a few sentences on me and what I’m looking for. Feel free to use or not.”

Me: <1-2 sentences max highlights what you’ve delivered in past> [eg mine would be something like “Product lead with 6+ years of PM experience at Spotify and LinkedIn leading cross-functional teams. Currently Senior PM at Spotify. Looking for a new challenge. My LinkedIn here.”

Must haves: [example taken from above] based in Amsterdam, can sponsor my work visa

Nice to haves: edtech, series a-c.

Cheers, <your name>.”

I suggest tweaking above per recipient + given your style/voice so it sounds like you.

If they say they don’t know anyone, I suggest thanking them, and then asking if they know anyone who might be able to help you + if so if they would connect you to them. Example of what that could look like:

“Ah too bad, thanks anyway for checking! Do you know of anyone who might be good to chat with to find leads?”

There’s a good chance they say no here too. That’s fine. So long as you respect their time and take no for an answer you’re unlikely to hurt the relationship.

A couple things I’m deliberately not suggesting you do:

• Ask for a call: I do not recommend suggesting a synchronous call with someone to “catch up” or “pick their brain” when really you just wanted to ask if they knew someone who is hiring or wanted a referral. Having been on the receiving end of this, I personally find it disingenuous and not that respectful of my time. Plus I tend to say no to these kinds of requests. If the true purpose of your reaching out to someone is to ask for something specific, I recommend being up front about that to avoid coming across as fake.

• Write a lot of words: every message above was short. This respects the recipient's time by not asking them to read a lot of words.

• Spill your guts: I am a huge proponent of feeling, processing, and expressing your feelings. I also believe when and to whom we do that matters. I have spent many hours in therapy + I have called my sister crying on several occasions (love you sis!). However, sharing a long message about how you feel completely lost and miserable and filled with existential dread to a former co-worker isn’t a great idea. Note: if you feel lost and miserable and filled with existential dread that’s ok. I feel you. I promise you won’t feel this way forever.

Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over again. 

As you go, I recommend keeping track of who you’ve reached out to, what they said, and any next steps. This will help you keep straight who you already reached out to and who they asked you to reach out to. It will also be important later. I used a google sheet for this step.

You will hear “no” a lot. That’s part of it. Take heart. When you hear “no”, I would suggest the following: don’t take it personally, respect the No, thank them for their time, and move on. 

This process will also be significantly easier or harder based on your pre-existing network. However, now is not the moment to try to build a stronger network. I recommend focusing almost exclusively on getting interviews; you can (and should) build your professional network later. More on why and how to do that in another post.

One other approach that can work is to find a job on a job board or a company website you’re interested in and then try to get a referral from someone at that company. Going through 1st degree connections is best, but if you don’t have any and don’t have a path to getting connected (eg via a 2nd degree connection), messaging people at that company you don’t know via a “cold” email or LinkedIn message is another good option. In these cases, I recommend just getting straight to the point i.e. “Hi there, this is me, I’m interested in X role at your company, would you be willing to refer me? Happy to share more info on me synchronously or asynchronously if you’d like. Thanks in advance”. You may be surprised by how often people are happy to refer you. I generally say yes to referring people to open Spotify roles if their LinkedIn makes me think they’re reasonably qualified. Don’t forget, most of the time if someone refers you, and you get the job, they get $$$. 

One more: if you get inbound interest from recruiters via LinkedIn messages or email this can be another way of getting interviews. Optimize your LinkedIn profile and post more to increase the frequency of this happening.

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You may remember from my last article that about a year ago I moved from LinkedIn to Spotify. To get my interview at Spotify (and several other interviews), I did what I laid out above. In my case, a friend of mine (shout out Ian!) knew of a former Spotify coworker who was hiring PMs and connected me to her. 2 months later I got the job.

^this is Ian, his wonderful girl friend Jerusha, and me. Sharing this photo with their permission.

Well there you have it. That’s what I recommend for getting interviews. There’s no silver bullet. But it’s what I did and what I would do if I were actively looking. Hopefully, with some persistence, you will find yourself with some interviews.

“But Lachlan, what about applying to job listings? What about creating a side project related to a job I want? What about standing outside a company with a sign saying Hire Me and passing out my resume?!” 

All of those have worked, and could maybe work for you. I don’t recommend them because I think the return on investment (ROI) in terms of your time to getting interviews is low. 

Next time: “great I have lots of interviews… now how do I get offers?” 

Cheers,

Lachlan