Get the Interview: Crafting your PM Resume

Note: This is a lightly edited email I sent to a PM who wasn’t having luck in his job search.  His resume was being rejected outright (no interview).  I gave the below advice.  In the end, he was able to get the job he wanted, and though I can’t take credit, I think he found my advice on how to tailor a PM resume useful.

10 seconds to the interview stage

My main advice for getting a PM job in a hyper-competitive market is to go narrow on a domain or problem you find deeply interesting.  Make your competition a smaller pool.  People change roles/companies all the time, so getting good experience working on problems that interest you, even if not in the role you wanted, is worth considering. 

For me, finding the problems I’m excited to tackle, naturally drawn to, is a precursor to the job search.  I won’t touch my resume until I know what I want to do.

As such, don’t think of yourself as having “one resume”.  

  For example, if you want to interview to be a PM at Uber, you should comb through the job posting (if one exists), and think hard about what you’ve done that demonstrates you’re capable of excelling at what Uber needs solved.  If you’ve previously worked on location-aware features, implemented new payment methods, tackled logistics problems, etc., those are likely to be worthy of highlighting to a company like Uber, in particular.

Don’t rush this step – know your own strengths and weaknesses as you see yourself in the role.  Ask an ex-coworker what they think about you in that role.

Go on LinkedIn and look up current and former Uber PMs.  What can you deduce about being a PM at Uber, based on their profiles?  Can you find similarities with your background?

I don’t know what Uber needs, but always tailor your resume to the role.  The person reading it should get a sense of whether you’d be a good fit, just from reading your Summary and your most recent experience (think within 10 seconds of viewing your resume).

I can guarantee you that you’ll increase your odds of at least getting a phone screen if you do this.

Don’t be generic – highlight specific outcomes

Secondly, the bullet points for your PM experience are basically just outlining certain generic aspects of what a PM is expected to do, without telling me anything about:

• the results you drove (business/user impact)
• how you demonstrated product leadership skills (did you “own” the roadmap?  did you drive the designers and engineers toward desired outcomes?) 
• how you successfully navigated cross-functional relationships

I like the fact that you have some technical skills and can code.  What have you done with those skills?  Did you learn these through self-study?  How has knowing SQL/Python been relevant to your PM and Marketing work?  Has it helped you do analysis that others couldn’t do?  Has it helped you to work with developers?

In short, I would want to know the value and outcomes you’ve driven (making users happy and/or saving the company money), so that I can make a ballpark estimate as to whether you could potentially be a good hire for my team.  I just need to see a potential fit to help make up my mind about moving a candidate to the phone screen stage.

Would the hiring manager click on your PM “ad”?

Maybe think of your resume as the first piece of advertising you’re putting out for your skills.  If you were to run a campaign with your resume Summary on Google Adwords, what would get a higher click-through rate (the equivalent of moving a candidate to the phone screen stage)? 

Google does their best to target their ads; you should do your best to target your resume (your “ad” for your PM services). 

Going back to your Summary, it would also be good to hear what your high-level goal is.  Do you want to build consumer products?  Do you want to focus on a specific aspect of product management?  Again, tailor it to the role/company’s needs.

Hope this helps – let me know if you want to chat.  I’m based in Palo Alto.

Cheers,

Matt