It was almost 3 years ago since I first heard about product management. I had no work experience, I was looking for my first job, and I was not sure of what I wanted to work in.
When I first saw the job opening, I didn’t know what was a product manager, or even what they did, but after some research, I just realize that I wanted to do that. So I applied to the job opening, even without any experience or education related to the job. And well almost 2 months after the first interview, I got my first internship as a Product Manager, in a startup. It was not my education or experience, I believe it was mainly my mindset.
So if you are looking to become a product manager here are some things that might help you get started:
Research about Product Management
Well if you are reading this, I imagine you are already one step ahead. You will find a lot of courses, videos, articles about being a product manager. It is important for you to understand what are the responsibilities of a product manager. Product Managers interact with different areas and are responsible for different things, from team management to stakeholder management, to product strategy.
Go deep in the main areas of product management
Product managers interact with customer behaviour, design, data, developers, business areas… As a product manager, you will ask to interact with all the areas, and you will need to talk their language. Find the area you can relate to more, and learn more about it, you don’t need to become an expert in the area, but it is good, to know the basics of the area, and how it might affect your decisions as a Product Manager. Even now after a few of experience as a product manager I keep exploring the different areas.
Attend some Product talks or conferences
This one is one of the most important for me. Product Management is about building products for people! Society evolving at a fast pace and so product management needs to evolve as well. Since we are not able to test everything, we need to learn from each other experiences and these small talks are the best to do it. Product School has always free talks on Youtube and Linkedin with different Product Managers where you can learn something new and different.
Get some real experience
More and more companies are understanding the importance of product managers, and since it is a fairly new career path, companies are either promoting people from other areas or creating internships/mentorship programs. Product management is about decision-making priority setting, so nothing is more important than real-world experience.
If none of the options above is working for you, you can always start your product. If you have an idea you can always explore it, and define its strategy, and develop it.
Start in another product area
I do not have experience in this area, but some product managers I know, started as analysts or designers, developers, so you can also start your career in a different field, do some network, and gain some work experience, and then applied to product manager openings
Hope that these insights help you achieve your goals of becoming a product manager. If you want to learn more about product manager follow me on Medium | Instagram
