🗞️ Issue #14: Looking for your next PM Role - who do you need to convince?

Or how other people will only get what you give

For the month of March, in celebration of Women’s History Month, and International Women’s day, I opened my calendar to the Women in Tech out there for a 30 minute FREE Coaching. And I just wrapped up my first week of calls with these amazing women making their impact in the industry!

In my first 7 days of doing these calls, there’s a topic that’s fast becoming very popular:

Feeling insecure in their experience and skills and feeling stuck in their job search, unable to land a job that matches their expectations and ambitions.

The most interesting part about this is that the PMs who are coming to me about this issue are, most of the time, all already Product Managers. With more than 1 year of Product Management experience - working with a cross-functional team, engaging with critical and complex stakeholders, have even developed their own style and toolkit, and launching products/product improvements left and right.

And yet, with all of them, the narrative is the same:

They feel that the experience and skills they have are not enough and that they don’t have what it takes to land themselves their next role in Product. And to top it all, the job search process is overwhelming and the lack of positive feedback frustrating.

***

There were so many things to unpack from these conversations. But let me share the top 3 conclusions we always land on, in these talks:

• Other people will only get what we are giving them. If we don’t trust our own ability to contribute and have impact as Product Managers, why should other people (specifically hiring managers) think differently? We are the first people who need to acknowledge our own skills and accomplishments and who must believe that we can provide value to the organizations that we want to be part of. Because this will be critical for 👇

• We can’t control other people’s reaction/decision, but we have full control of how we tell our own story. As a hiring manager myself, let me tell you that the decision to hire or not a candidate is based on so many factors that can possibly go beyond their skills and experience. So while it can be frustrating to get a NO - it doesn’t immediately mean that a candidate is not good enough. But here’s something that can be more frustrating: sending a CV that we don’t feel good about, or ending an interview feeling that we weren’t able to show our best.

• The job search is a conversion funnel that we need to optimize for. Or framed another way, we need to break down our job search strategy into smaller problems to solve. Looking at the job search as one big problem to solve can be overwhelming. But if we break down our job search struggle into smaller problems, it’ll be easier to identify more relevant actions that we need to prioritize (i previously wrote about testing new solutions to solve your job search problems in this old post)

  For example: Submitted CVs are not converting leads for interview? Then maybe explore other ways to get your CV into the hands of hiring managers directly vs how you’re doing it now.

***

I think a lot of us forget that we’ve all already done ~this one way or another.

For the ones who are already PMs and looking for their new roles - you’ve already done this before. You’ve landed a PM role without the experience. Now that you do, why would you be less qualified than you were before?

For the ones who are not yet PMs but are planning to move - you’ve already done this before. You’ve landed jobs before, made leaps, taken risks, and they have worked out in the end. Why would this be any different?

So dear reader, in case you need to hear/read this right now —

Be the first person who believes in your skills, your potential, and the value that you know you can put on the table. Because once you do, and you’re able to advocate for yourself and what you can do: then you can watch the world open up to you.

Me as a first time Product Manager with my first ever Product Team :D

Got any other job search tips to share? Please leave them in the comments below 👇

💙
Kax

Got questions, feedback, violent reactions? Or other learnings you want to share with other human beings? Would love to hear them in the comments :)

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Hey there! Are you looking for support to grow your career in Tech?

• Do you want to become a Product Manager?

• Do you want to level-up in your career and become a confident Product Leader who can increase the performance of your team?

• Are you a Woman in Tech looking to gain more confidence, influence, and growth?

• Or do you have a specific problem that you want to tackle and are looking for guidance on how you might solve them?

If you're curious to explore how I could support you in your tech career, feel free to book a free discovery call with me.

You can also write me at hello@kaxuson.com or read more about my coaching here

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