Career Coaching Chronicles: PM Focusing On Outreach Lands Interviews

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If you're a product manager in tech right now, you’re probably feeling the pressure.

I get it. It’s no secret PMs took a big hit with all the tech layoffs the last few years.

While many industries are bouncing back, tech is facing a perfect storm of uncertainty. And the folks who are feeling it the hardest? Product managers.

Here’s why.

1. Product managers have become a luxury.

In the pre-2022 tech boom, companies hired PMs as a priority.

But now?

When times are tight, companies prioritize keeping the people who build the products, not just the ones who strategize them. If you’re not directly driving revenue, you’re an easy target for budget cuts.

2. Bloated job titles and a saturated market.

Let’s be honest: over the past few years, the PM role became a catch-all title.

Companies hired people under the PM banner even if their responsibilities were all over the place.

Now, with tens of thousands of PMs flooding the market post-layoffs, companies have their pick of candidates. The competition has never been fiercer.

3. The rise of leaner, more efficient teams.

Startups and big tech alike are shifting towards efficiency. They’re keeping teams lean and nimble. What does that mean?

Fewer layers, more focus on execution.

And PMs, who were once the glue holding cross-functional teams together, are finding themselves edged out. Why pay six figures for someone to "manage" when you can have engineers working directly with designers?

Story Time:

A PM who specialized in the fintech industry reached out to me to consult on his job search.

The issue wasn’t his resume or linkedin. There were literally zero updates I needed to do (from my eyes) other than suggesting to make sure he takes the time to customize his resume in real time when he applies to jobs.

So first thing I asked him was: “Tell me about your job application strategy. What do you do when you apply for roles?”

“Am I supposed to do more?”

🤦‍♂️

We then went to go over it’s not just about having a great resume and linkedin.

Remember, we are in one of the worst candidate markets in tech in 20 years!

The recruiting process has always been broken, but now that we’re in a bad market, all these flaws are being amplified that much more. He knew we were in a bad market, but he didn’t realize how stretched thin internal recruiters were, and how important it was to make it as easy as possible for them to notice you and say “yes”.

So the first thing we went over was contacting the job poster. Assuming you’re a 70%+ fit, this should be done every time. Is this guaranteed to work? Of course not. But it increases your chances of success by taking that extra step to make sure they saw your resume. Because even if you’re the Lebron James of your niche, if you’re hidden amongst 100s of resumes, it’s easy to get hidden.

The other thing we did was have him take a step back and evaluate his network. When I first asked him if he had a network, he said “no”. I replied “yes you do!”.

• Previous college classmates

• College Alumni

• Previous colleagues and managers.

Then the lightbulb went off in his head. We decided the best move was to reach out to 3-5 of these folks at a time.

Finally, we wanted to slowly expand his network. Issue is, he doesn’t have time to go to meetups at the moment. So we came up with a strategy to build a network online.

The results 🥁 :

He was able to land 3 interviews within the next couple of weeks!

This is a hard market. But it's not impossible. Those who can pivot, adapt, and stay hungry will come out on top.

Keep pushing.

….

If you’re looking for some advice on how to land your next gig (or any other career advice), feel free book a call here.