career+transitions

Paco continues his guest post arc (see part 1 and part 2), allowing the Cranky Product Manager to enjoy some time with her kid. Thanks!

Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed PM, Part Three

Last time, I waxed poetic (I’m being generous) about learning to drink dirt once the Product Management well runs dry. Some of you may already have looked-up many dirt-based mixers to add to your little bartending book. OOOoh – that’s another good transitional career for PMs!

But once you’ve made the switch, how do you make it seem like you’re not a total newbie?

Convincing Others You’ve Drank Dirt for Years

Prepare to have umpteen versions of your resume. Why? Because no measly HR schmuck or IT recruiter is going to read “Product Manager” and equate that with all the other roles you could fill.

No, when one of these dips is tasked to fill a position for “Senior Monkey Trainer”, they look for those exact words on every resume. So if you apply and your resume shows your previous title as “Tarzan Lord of the Jungle”, it’s not going to click in their tiny wind-up brains and you will go on the reject pile. Even worse, you may have to apply through one of those utterly horrible online job applications – they’re scanning for keywords, and job title will be one of them.

And don’t try explaining in your cover letter that “a PM fills the same responsibilities as X/Y/Z roles”. Been there, tried that, doesn’t work. Again, their tiny wind-up brains can’t handle such wildly abstract explanations. There’s a reason why your high school guidance counselor could only get a job as a high school guidance counselor. Same reason why these schmucks could only get a job as HR recruiters.

So what to do?

Simple. Replace your “Product Management” title with the title you’re applying for. Really. Of course, this assumes that you’ve actually filled the responsibilities for that role – then it’s just semantics that your past employers gave you one title while this prospective employer will give you another. The point is, you’ve done the work before, and that’s what “experience” is about – what you did, not what your title was.

This also means cutting out all the stuff that obviously doesn’t apply to the new position. Otherwise, they’ll think it’s odd that a Sales Engineer was responsible for updating the quarterly roadmap, etc.

Is this deceptive? No. Again, it’s getting over the hurdle that is the recruiter’s tiny brain. When you get an interview with the actual hiring manager, be forthright about what your previous PM roles were and how they match what they’re looking for. Fact is, the hiring manager has probably heard of Product Management and will understand it more.

OK, I’m sure some of you are calling BS on this tactic, thinking that it’s lying about your past experience. If it makes you feel better, I actually use a “slash” title – “Product Manager / Pre-Sales” or “Product Manager / Business Analyst”. This gets me by the keyword scanners, and it even clicks with tiny-brained recruiters. Plus, it doesn’t make me feel dirty, like I’m turning my back on my one masochistic true love – Product Management. Oh, it hurts me so…

That brings us to the end of this installment – I have to get back to spinning my resume into myriad mythical forms. I don’t know about you, but I think my experience manning trade show booths makes me more than qualified to be a seal trainer at the zoo. Bucket of fish, bucket of tchockes – both are good at getting an audience to slap their fins together. What’s your take? How far would you feel comfortable “rebranding” yourself to find work? In the next installment, we reach the end and I reveal my best advice to date.

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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.

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