How to Become a Product Manager

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methods

1Getting Education and Experience

2Applying for a Job

3Working Your Way Up

Other Sections

Expert Q&A

Tips and Warnings

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References

If you’re interested in the intersection of business, technology, design, and marketing, then a product manager position might be the job for you. In most companies, the product manager is the one who researches, designs, and delegates the production of new products, all while collaborating with multiple departments at once. You can either apply for a product manager position directly or work your way up in your company to be the perfect candidate for the next job opening.

Steps

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Getting Education and Experience

1. 
   1
   Take classes in business, technology, and design. Product managers are in charge of multiple departments, and they have to interact with people from all educational backgrounds. Focus on taking as many classes in business, technology, and design as you can so you can combine your skills later on.

   • If your school offers product management-specific classes, sign up for those as well.
   • If you do any relevant class projects, like product design or development, you can add those to your resumé under the “skills” section.
   • Constantly be thinking about what kinds of trends and strategies tend to be successful in tech.
2. 
   2
   Apply for internships at tech corporations. To gain experience in your field, apply for an internship while you’re still in school. Go for large corporations that create and produce a few different products so you can get experience in a fast-paced work environment.

   • Intel, Google, Apple, IBM, and smaller, local tech companies often offer summer internships for students still in school.
   • Even if you don't want to do an internship, you can still go to hackathons so you get opportunities to build products and gain perspective on the right approach for pleasing customers.
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3. 
   3
   Graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in business or a related field. Different companies may require different degrees for their product managers, but they typically like employees to have a business degree or something related to that. Try to get your degree in business, economics, or marketing for the most relevant skillset. Technology degrees may also be useful, but consider getting a minor in business management as well.

   • Most product managers don’t hold technical roles before becoming managers.
4. 
   4
   Get an MBA for a faster track. If you don’t mind going back to school and you’d like to land a product manager role right after you graduate, get a Masters of Business Administration. This degree will teach you the skills you need to lead people in your departments at a large corporation, and it also looks great on a resumé.

   • An MBA isn’t strictly necessary, but it can fast track you into a product manager position.
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Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Applying for a Job

1. 
   1
   Find openings within your technological field. You can search for product management positions within your field through online job forums or through your company. When one opens up, try to apply for it right away for the best chance at an interview.

   • Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster, and Google Jobs are all great places to start your search.
   • Large corporations like Intel, IBM, Tesla, and Google may all be offering positions.
   • If you have any connections with people in the field, start there first! Getting people to vouch for you is a great way to up your chances of getting an interview.
2. 
   2
   Emphasize your customer-relation skills. Product managers often have to conduct customer interviews to talk about the usability of their product. If you’ve had any sort of customer-relation role in your career, make sure you put that on your resumé so the interviewers know about it.

   • This could include customer support roles and client meetings.
   • Try saying something like, “I’ve had multiple roles where I took criticism from customers. I was able to relay that to the team and implement changes in the design to make the product better for everyone.”
3. 
   3
   Talk about how you can combine business, technology, and design. Emphasize the fact that you can combine different fields of your job to work across departments without a hitch. You can do this by listing the roles you’ve had in each one, or you can talk about how you collaborated with other departments in your current position.

   • Product managers have to take on many different roles and lead multiple departments.
   • Say something like, “I’ve worked in both the business and marketing department, and we often had to collaborate with the engineering team.”
4. 
   4
   Create a portfolio centered around user experience. If you decide to make a portfolio along with your resumé, make sure you talk about the projects where you talked with customers and changed the interface to be more user-friendly. User experience, or UX, is an important aspect of the product manager’s job.

   • If customers can’t navigate around the product, they won’t use it. The goal of the product manager is to make the product easy to use so more people will interact with it.
5. 
   5
   Show that you’re familiar with the company’s product. If you’re applying within the company you have a position at, you can demonstrate that you’ve worked on the product before by emphasizing your role in the behind-the-scenes development. If you’re applying at a new company, spend some time researching what their product is and how your skills align with their goals.

   • It’s always useful to spend some time looking up the company’s mission statement and past achievements to show that you are familiar with what they’re doing.
   • For example, you could say, “Your company has been producing microchips for years now. My class project in undergrad was to design a new model of microchip to make it smaller and faster, so I’m very familiar with the ins and outs of your product.”
6. 
   6
   Be personable and confident in your interview. Once you get contacted for an interview, you can show off your people skills right away by walking in with confidence. As you answer questions, maintain eye contact with the interviewers and answer their questions clearly and concisely.

   • You’ll be asked to explain why you applied for the role, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what experience you have in product management.
7. 
   7
   Take ownership of both success and failures within your career. It’s important to be proud of the things you did right, but you can also explain what you would have done differently. If there was a moment where you messed up, explain what it was and what lesson you learned from it afterward.

   • You could say something like, “In my first few weeks as a web developer, I wasn’t collaborating with my peers enough and I missed a deadline because of that. However, from then on I always talked to my coworkers about my workload, and I got better at managing my time to complete all of my assignments within the deadline.”
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Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Working Your Way Up

1. 
   1
   Get a position at a company you admire. Product managers rarely start out being product managers. If you’re just starting out, try to apply for a position within a company that makes a product you like or admire. You can go for a business position, a technology position, or a design position since those are all skills a good product manager will have.

   • There’s no set amount of experience you must have for a product manager position, but employers usually look for 3 to 5 years of on-the-job work.
2. 
   2
   Practice leading within your position. Even if you aren’t in a leadership role, you can still demonstrate that you know how to be a leader. Take charge of projects assigned to your department to show your managers that you have what it takes to be in a leadership position.

   • Make sure you aren’t stepping on your manager’s toes too much. It’s fine to take charge, but don’t try to take your boss’s job.
   • Product managers aren't the CEO of a team so much as a core team member who manages the product itself rather than the people involved. For instance, engineers have an equal say as product managers on how a product gets shipped at most companies.
3. 
   3
   Volunteer to solve problems at work. Product managers are often the ones who identify and solve any problems within their teams. If a problem arises, offer to take charge of it and work on it until it’s fixed. This will demonstrate that you aren’t afraid to tackle tough situations.

   • This may mean that you have to work a little harder or stay a little longer at work.
   • Be sure to only take on problems that you can actually solve.
4. 
   4
   Improve or provide suggestions for your company’s current product. If you have ways you think you could improve upon your current product’s design, interface, or marketability, take those thoughts to your manager. Provide a thorough explanation as to what your suggestions are and how they could be implemented to prove that you care about the company and are looking for ways to improve it.

   • Keep your criticism constructive. Don’t bring up a problem unless you have a suggestion as to how you could solve it.
   • You can put together a PowerPoint to really drive home your points.
5. 
   5
   Collaborate with people in different fields. As you work in your position, be sure to talk to other people in your company outside of your department. If you’re in the business sector, check in with the engineers and the coders. If you’re in the technology area, chat with the marketing and design teams. The more ways you can collaborate across fields, the better.

   • Product managers talk to everyone in the company and collaborate with multiple departments at one time.
6. 
   6
   Learn how to write code to give yourself an edge. Although it isn’t required to know how to code for a product management position, knowing the basics can give you a leg up as you apply for jobs. Managers who know how to code are called “Technical Product Managers,” and they are few and far between.

   • You can take coding classes online to learn how to code on the side, if you’d like to.
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Expert Q&A

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• Question

  What is product management?

  

  Stephen Cognetta, MBA
  Tech Interviewing Coach

  Stephen Cognetta is the co-founder and CEO of Exponent, a learning platform that helps people prepare for and ace their tech interviews. Stephen specializes in coaching for product management, software engineering, product marketing, management, technical project management, and data science interviews. Stephen holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Princeton University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude, and an MBA from Stanford University. Prior to founding Exponent, Stephen worked as a Product Manager for Google and co-founded HackMentalHealth.

  

  Stephen Cognetta, MBA

  Tech Interviewing Coach

  Expert Answer

  Product management is being in charge of the creation and shipping of the best product possible. It requires a multi-faceted skillset involving communication, technical know-how, collaboration, the ability to intuit customer's needs and wants, and product design sensibilities.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If How.com.vn has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission.Support How.com.vn

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• Question

  How do I know if project management is right for me?

  

  Stephen Cognetta, MBA
  Tech Interviewing Coach

  Stephen Cognetta is the co-founder and CEO of Exponent, a learning platform that helps people prepare for and ace their tech interviews. Stephen specializes in coaching for product management, software engineering, product marketing, management, technical project management, and data science interviews. Stephen holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Princeton University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude, and an MBA from Stanford University. Prior to founding Exponent, Stephen worked as a Product Manager for Google and co-founded HackMentalHealth.

  

  Stephen Cognetta, MBA

  Tech Interviewing Coach

  Expert Answer

  You might like project management if you're interested in business, marketing, technology, and design. As a project manager, you'll be working at the intersection of all of these.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If How.com.vn has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission.Support How.com.vn

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Tips

• Product managers usually need a few years of experience in their field before being considered.
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• Talk to product managers at your company to see if they have any advice for you.
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