Putting in the Leg Work

To be renown for bringing ideas to market and growing them, you have to have extensive experience doing this. 

People won’t take you at your word unless they really really trust you.  To build that trust, you need to first put in the leg work.  Put your money where your mouth is and prove to them that you know how to build a great product.

A product manager is the perfect role to showcase evidence that you know what you are talking about because you’ll have recognizable outputs of your work that you can point to. 

“Your resume looks good on paper, but do you actually know how to define a product strategy and coordinate a team to execute on it?”  Well, the product’s published growth in sales through their new widget, plus the rave reviews from their customers found all over their website, seem to indicate I did my job well!

To show expertise in product management means having experience shepherding a variety of products.  This means you worked with big companies and small companies, business-to-business products and business-to-consumer products.  As much experience as possible to show you know how the product lifecycle really works. 

Demonstrated product management expertise also completely flips the traditional job application on its head.  Suddenly, you know exactly why any company looking to grow and stay relevant (so every company…) needs you.  If you research that company, you can probably identify their pain-points and start solving them before the interview even starts. 

And why would a company be hiring if not to solve some problem they are facing?