You guys know Paco, right? He always makes intelligent comments on posts, participates in caption contests, etc… He is a one COOL dude. Anyway, he’s giving the Cranky Product Manager a rest this week with part one of a four part series on being an unemployed product manager.
The Cranky Product Manager finds his perspective and advice interesting — not your normal blah-blah, that’s for sure. She would really like to see a vigorous debate in the comments about 1) How can PMs avoid getting laid off, and 2) Once laid off, how to you get rehired. Such a discussion could really help people! Please, have at it!
A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager – Part 1
Ahhhh! Lay-offs. Unemployment. Not quite how I planned it, but it kinda feels good to have some time off.
I’ve finally had some time to catch-up on a bunch books I Amazon’d last year. I’m even reading The Product Manager’s Desk Reference – I was skeptical but it’s actually quite good.
Got back to eating healthy foods, going to the gym, and lost some weight. No vending machines, eating-out on trips, or office birthday parties to cram my maw with junk. Instead, I’ve learned how to make slow-cooked stews from scratch. Sooo tasty!
Heck, I even managed to finally make a batch of homebrew – been wanting to try that for years. I’ve got about 50 bottles of dry Irish stout that will be ready to drink in another week.
Ahhh… the bright side of being unemployed.
And, really, I have to say all that before talking about how much it sucks to be an unemployed PM right now. Otherwise, writing this would get too depressing.
Getting Laid…
…Off, that is.
My former employer had a bad Q1 in 2008 – really bad. And that’s when the lay-offs started. I was honestly surprised to be hit, but at the same time, I could see why. And this is important – PMs may be the center of the product universe, but that’s NOT the same as being invaluable.
In fact, I should’ve been building a better position for myself. And by “building” I mean that, as a PM, you have a lot of wiggle-room in how you fill your role. Sure, you’ve got a lot of hats to wear, but you should think hard about which hats you wear the most.
In these crap-ola times, being Mr. Strategy, Mr. Voice-of-Customer, and definitely Mr. PM-Best-Practices will not make you invaluable. In these crap-ola times, you should spend more time being Mr. I-Close-Deals. Or Mrs. Though I don’t recommend switching between the two – those operations are expensive, and you really don’t want your company footing that insurance bill right now. Anyway…
Why? It should be obvious. Now’s the time to really buddy-up with Sales and be more willing to parachute into deals. If you’re helping close deals, you’re bringing in money. And money good. Non-revenue generating crap like writing MRDs bad.
Finding Water in the Desert
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t invaluable at my last company. I did my own post-mortem and at least learned a few things career-wise. I’ll skip the details, but suffice it to say that you should do the same. Don’t just blame your former employer – think how you could’ve avoided the cut and move on to the new American passtime – job hunting.
I’ve been looking for a new PM position since last summer. Granted, I’m not in a software hot-spot of the country like the Bay Area, and location DEFINITELY affects your PM opportunities.
Still, I’m a guy with over 10 years of PM experience at some really big-name companies. I have a technical degree from one of the best universities in the world. I have a nifty LinkedIn profile with lots of connections and recommendations. I even have references that will gladly talk about how awesome I am and how they wish they had more children they could name after me.
What I don’t have is a job.
Despite all the advice I’ve read about finding a job in this economy, it’s not working. And I think a lot of that advice is sound – it’s just that things have gotten to the point where it’s not about the job candidates, it’s about the economy as a whole.
On numerous occasions, I’ve applied for positions that wound-up being retracted. And from what I hear, that trend has only been accelerating since last year. Obviously, businesses are gun-shy about spending big money on a role which, honestly, few of them truly understand or value appropriately.
Just this week, I got the “management is reviewing the opening” speech from a company where I killed the initial interview, but they decided to do a double-take on the position before I could schedule the next round.
In my next installment, we’ll talk about what you can do when you can’t find a new PM gig. In the meantime, I’d like to hear what YOU think the most “invaluable” activities a PM should focus on during these tough times. Back rubs for the CEO? Buying drinks for the VP of Sales? Talking to the CFO and pretending to be enthralled by his daily routine? Let’s hear it.
Also in The Product Manager's Guide to Unemployment
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager – Part One
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager – Part Two
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager, Part Three
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager, Part Four
{ 16 comments }
I have been seeking a new job (fortunately, I am currently employed, and secure), and I have experienced twice the “withdrawal of a req” after multiple rounds, and the expectation of an offer letter. It really begins to haunt the psyche to be so close, to know that the hiring manager wants (and desperately NEEDS) you, and to have the position closed without being filled.
I hope your search is not too long.
Gander
Hi Paco,
I feel for you. Before I got my job, I looked for the right position for six months; and that was almost two years ago, during a good economy. It can wear on you mentally, and I think that we are all feeling it to some degree. The ones that are laid off and looking to find the next gig – hopefully good gig, and not a sacrificial gig. The ones that are still working, are working paranoid; always looking behind them, taking notice of any HR lurkers in the hall. This will be with us for a while. One suggestion is to think about other stuff we can do in the meantime. There is a lot of stuff that can be done for free at home (cleaning, garage sales, and writing on the CPM blog). This will keep your mind off the numbing, non-ringing phone and lack of employment emails.
Networking is critical with an expectation of low immediate returns, but over time, good, solid relationships will make the difference.
And….drum roll, please…maybe we all need to sometimes consider positions that are not our niche jobs, but would build another skill set that we can add to our personal portfolio (maybe even dreaded Sales).
Since you are already a buff, healthy, fantastic chef, who is no doubt, fantastico and guapo, maybe some volunteer time with an organization that could use your skills with positioning or writing requirements would be time well spent. I am talking about organizations such as a Church or a community center trying to figure out how to get a grant, or how to put together a technology assessment of what they have vs. what they need. You will be very welcome and appreciated, and it may lead to a job.
I wish you the best, and hope that your time away from PAID work is short.
Maggie
Nice article. Same situation exists for other career paths as well as per my s.o.’s experience. It truly IS the economy, and job seekers are NOT stupid. Sigh.
Paco: sorry about the down time; however, when you find the next job (and you will) it almost always turns out to be better then the one that went away – keep looking!
Having walked a mile in your shoes, I’ve got a couple of thoughts for your to ponder. The first starts with two words “PROJECT management”. I can hear your sharp intake of breath already, but wait. Project mgmt is NOT the same as Product mgmt; however, a good product manager can do project mgmt in his / her sleep. Oh, and there sure seem to be a lot more project management jobs out there even in bad times.
The second thought is what I like to call the “70%” rule. Studies have shown that 70% of jobs are never posted. If you are interviewing for jobs, you are going down the wrong path. You need local contacts who know you, know that there exists a need, and puts the two of you together (sorta like how a CIO gets his/her next job).
Great you say, how do I meet up with these matchmakers? Simple, donate your time. I suspect that you have a local section of the IEEE – go, get involved. If you have a university close by, they may have an ACM chapter – go, get involved. As you give of your time, somehow, someway, you always seem to end up getting what you are looking for.
One final thought. This is the best time to read the book What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers
. This is a great book for doing some soul searching as to what you really want to get out of your next job.
- Dr. Jim Anderson
The Accidental PM Blog
“Home Of The Billion Dollar Product Manager”
Without sounding too rude, you likely lost your job because your product was not delivering enough value (that likely points back to you) or you didn’t champion your product enough for people to either be a part of your success or see the value that you saw (again that likely points back to you). In some cases, product management is just the first to go because engineering has won the right to manage the product in the downturn. Again…
Companies continue to invest (or maintain their investment) in products that deliver value.
Also, reading your statement about your 10 years of experience, technical degree, blah blah blah. If that is your opening summary, I wouldn’t hire you. I suspect right now, hiring managers have 100 resumes that read with the exact same opening summary. I am going to assume you were being somewhat satirical.
I did a blog post last March about the things you should be doing as a Product Manager to help stave off ‘the sacking’.
Your Product, you the Champion and the Economy
Anyway, keep up the good work helping out the CPM. This is a good first step to differentiating yourself.
Hey Everyone,
In part 2 & 3, Paco speculates on why he lost his job and how other PMs can learn from him and become more invaluable their employers. So, don’t lecture him yet!
Also, the CPM firmly believes that NO ONE is indispensible in an economy like this. When a company is in a death spiral and just trying to survive, the focus is often on generating sales with what we have right now — NOT on the future or future product development, with the thinking being that competitors are also cutting back on their new product development.
At one of her former employers, in the dot-bomb days, the CPM got the axe along with everyone in marketing, all the product managers, all of support, all of IT and more than half of engineering. The only people spared were a few engineers, all of sales, and (of course) all the senior execs. Everyone there recognized the value that PM (and all those other functions) brought, but when you’re struggling for a breath of air, planning for your next meal does not seem as important.
Fair enough, wasn’t clear where he was heading with this.
I do believe that if you are providing value, you are more likely to be safe than if you are not. However, I will give you that this is not 100% true in all cases. In your case, sounds like there was a traumatic shift in strategy (likely due to lack of funds).
Indeed, CPM, thanks for pointing out that there is an arc to this tale of woe – though I certainly don’t mind the good-wishes and what-not :)
However, what I’d like to hear is what you still-employed PMs think you could/should do to heighten your value.
As for my situation, I know why I was axed, and I know how to avoid the same mistake the next go-around. But let’s try to think of ways that the still-employed can avoid the axe altogether. Besides foot rubs. Oooooh, a good foot rub would be sweet right now…
And for Dr. J.A.’s suggestion, I actually recommend some other positions in an upcoming installment.
My take, though, is that most Product Managers don’t have a PMI/PMP cert. And PMI/PMP is a pretty big deal – those guys have been much more successful in establishing an industry-standard certification. So if you have a PMI/PMP cert, go for it. Otherwise, can’t hurt to try for those positions, but you may be at a disadvantage to a PMI/PMP dude. I know, I know – sounds completely opposite of how Product Managers value certifications, but that’s the way I see it.
The folks that got laid off back in the dot boom did not come back! It takes eight years to get back.
If you never want to be laidoff again, start your own business. You are a product. You have a roadmap even if you haven’t drawn it up yet. Someone else might draw it up for you. You are the product of your new business.
Don’t do contracts. Your pay will suffer and your resume will keep you out of full time jobs. Spare yourself.
It turns out that every ordinary, non-tech, commodity selling business now need product managers. They don’t know it. They don’t know that they need a new vector of differentiation. They don’t know that they need recession tactics, the very ones we turned to during the dot bust. You can help them. It won’t be about capturing requirements or listening to the customer. You’ll have to innovate, mostly in the discontinuous and radical vein. They don’t know that either. But, that’s your product. That’s what you can sell. Continous is broken.
Going back to school might make sense right now as well. But, don’t think in terms of getting an MBA. Think about getting as far away from tech as you can. Agism and prior management experience is baggage, not an asset.
Then, there is dropping back to project management, or even coding.
Get another job fast. Full-time only. Get out of the house and do that old fashioned F2F social networking. It should be pretty obvious that you haven’t been doing that, otherwise, you would have already called your next employer and dropped your box off at your new cubicle. Too much listening to customers can do that to a PM.
At the end of each day, look hard for things to appreciate. Express your gratitude for those things.
Someone posted on China needing PMs.
David, you’re going to hate part 2 :)
And come on – turn down contract work and start a business instead? Are you high?
A) Good luck getting a SB loan in this climate unless you’re an Inuit woman war veteran.
B) Good luck finding venture capital when the VCs are the same guys telling all the CEOs in their portfolio to keep doing lay-offs.
C) I guess I could use my 401k to start a business. Or I suppose I could get a second mortgage on my house. Oh, but wait…
Remember that scene from Das Boot (or any submarine movie, for that matter)? The one where they’re in much deeper than the sub is speced for? The one where the gauges are cracking, the bow is creaking and everybody is really sweaty and nervous-looking, and the craggily faced captain who was also in Dune scratches his beard and his eyes are locked in laser-focused thought? You know what’s going on in his mind?
Well, he I’ll tell you what he is NOT thinking — he is NOT internalizing about how it all points back to him. Sometimes you got to go through the Strait of Gibraltar, and sometimes it wasn’t your big idea to do so, it just happens. Thinking about how the mess of depth-charging destroyers above you raining hell is your fault and somehow could have been within your control doesn’t help (or really make much sense unless you are selling something).
Thing is, economic decisions are generally rational, but on a decision-by-decision basis it’s merely a tendency and hardly a rule. And when the bow’s a creakin’ and gauge’s a crackin’… well irrationality is the rule.
Paco, I think you’re right on about making some rain. I’ve been surprised at how positive managers can be if your name is associated with the specific deals and specific dollars. When the axe is in hand, managers have a hard time cutting a person they associate with half their pipeline, no matter what the freshly-pressed excel spreadsheet with conditional formatting says. A bag of dollars beats a bushel of value every day of the week (plus matinee on Sunday) when times are tight.
Ultimately, we are not in a submarine. So, you know, we’ve got that going for us…
Super looking forward to the next installments. ^_^
One thing that’s become abundantly clear to me is Mr. Locke’s comment on agism and prior experience. It appears that 5-10 is good, 15+ is now bad. Unfortunately, going back into coding and project management is what I wanted but I didn’t have enough recent experience although I have a strong technical background.
I recommend you only show the last 10 years or so of experience on your resume and make no mention of “20 years of experience in blah, blah” in your summary or cover letter.
Paco – keep up the good work. As for the comments re. “you didn’t provide enough value”, pleeeease! Every company is different and many PMs have so little control over product content, direction and strategy that’s unrealistic to think that they can make themselves indispensable by some super PM mojo. You can get laid off merely because of a personality clash or from a corporate indifference or outright disrespect for marketing and PM.
Maggie – Mucho props for bringing up volunteer work. As unemployment drags on, it feels good to get out and do something that clearly has value, even if it doesn’t produce a paycheck.
Justin – You also get a large dollop of props (sorry – I’ve got some sour cream next to me on the table) for mentioning Das Boot. I LUV that movie and I’m gonna Netflix it asap. After all, got a little free time to kill. And I agree with your analogy – sometimes a depth charge comes out of nowhere. In my case, one of our flagship products lost a patent infringement lawsuit and we were being sued to place an injunction on future sales and to pay damages for prior sales. Totally didn’t see that one coming.
But really, folks, if the company didn’t let go of 100% of the employees, you gotta think about how to be on the “good” side of the cut. I don’t mean you should take on a victim-mentality, but there could be some benefit to thinking about it while you’re still employed.
BillG – I hear you about the >10 yrs experience part. I’m just over that threshold, and I still look young, so it hasn’t hurt me much. But I did have an interview last week where the person asked me if I have any project management experience, specifically with MS Project. I said “yes”, and then she asked me the last time I used Project. I thought about it and answered, “It was probably in 2000 or 2001.” And then it hit me – cripes, that’s 8-9 years ago! I don’t think she was impressed :P
Thanks, Paco! Really enjoyed this, and looking forward to the rest of the series. FWIW, I was laid off as part of the dot-bomb too. Five days later, I started Tyner Blain, and haven’t looked back since. As folks have pointed out, companies often don’t know that they “need” product management help. As a result, several of my contracts since then have been in business architecture / business analysis roles. On most of those projects, I’ve been able to infuse product management learning (for me), skills, concepts, and best practices into those engagements.
Extending Justin’s metaphor…
When you’re far underwater, you may identify the “requirement” to have better gauges that can handle the higher water pressure. But you aren’t going to ask a technician to replace the gauges until the next time you dock the sub. And some companies will never make it back to the berth.
Companies need cash flow to survive. When cash flow is at risk, strategic investments for the future will be reduced if not deferred. That translates into (temporarily) reduced opportunities to “be strategic” for our employers and clients. From what I see, that also translates into increased demand on the tactical side of things.
I’m working with one client where my focus has shifted from farther-out “define the problem” type work to closer-in requirements work specifically focused on generating cash flow asap. This still leverages product management skills significantly – “do this now” “don’t do that until later.” All viewed through the lens of cash flow. Do some of my daily activities look like project management or scrum management? Sure. Am I still continuing to improve my product management chops? Definitely.
As to the suggestion about doing project management work, I agree with the premise, but personally find business analysis work to be both more rewarding and better aligned with my “true calling.” Others may reach different conclusions for the same reasons, but if you want to stay closer to product management, consider finding temporary business analysis roles ahead of project management ones.
Thanks again Paco for the great article, CPM for hosting, and everyone for the great discussion!
Scott – The CPM just posted Part Two which I think you will very much find to your liking. In short, you and I are twins separated at birth :)
Not identical twins, mind you, but we’re definitely on the same mental wavelength regarding careers.
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