Road to Becoming a Product Manager
Follow my journey
After countless job applications, invitations to interviews, and a ton of rejection emails I decided to document my journey and process to get a Product Manager role, cause quite frankly it's not easy and can be demoralizing receiving rejection after rejection.
However, I know I’m not alone in this journey, especially right now for all those affected by Covid layoffs and new grads that experiencing a similar situation as I did when I graduated many moons ago.
I really believe in the importance of building community and helping each other, and hopefully, my writing about the ups and downs of this process will help someone else feel not so alone.
I also know I am fully capable of getting a product manager role and thriving in that position. It just takes the right action plan on my part and finding the right company fit, so watch me make it happen.
A little bit on my background
I graduated right when the market crashed in 2010 when no jobs were hiring for new graduates and quite frankly I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
I graduated with a B.S in Sociology, which really broadened my world view and while there was no clear path of jobs to do at the time, I am still thankful for how it shaped the way I think.
I worked everything from social media marketing jobs, real estate assistant, events, catering coordinator, to a GM of a juice startup before I ended up entering the tech world.
On a side note — I highly recommend everyone works in the service industry once, in their life, it will really give you a different perspective and expose you to people you may have not met otherwise. Also, no challenge will ever compare to having to maintain a juice location with a rapidly growing customer base, growing menu, marketing launches, managing vendors and inventory, a staff of 15+ people, overseeing profit margins for my location, and having to figure out the right procedure when something you have no idea how it works, breaks, all while dealing with customers, some which have a strong affinity for their hatred of bananas.
Getting my foot in the door in the tech world
Back to my journey to get into tech — it wasn’t an easy transition, not because I couldn’t do the job but because tech companies tend to have a very specific view of who they want and who can do the job. It wasn’t easy to get people to understand how previous skills could correspond to being in a tech environment (spoiler alert many skills are transferrable regardless of industry).
After going through many final rounds of interviews and ultimately getting rejections, I ended up using a recruiting service to get my foot in the door. This led me to get a job at a startup and ultimately after a ton of hard work and proving my ability to learn and excel in the position, I earned a promotion to a Customer Success role.
Being on the customer success team, allowed me to really understand how the product worked and access the engineers, product managers, QA, designers, Sales, BD, and get a holistic view of what was going on in the company. I loved understanding other team’s processes and how we could best work together to take care of our customers. It drove my natural curiosity and I genuinely enjoyed my conversations with engineers and product managers when a customer product issue needed to be solved and we needed to find the best solution, even if it had to be a temporary workaround.
I realized that I wanted to be more involved in products and how they were built, and saw the need for more diversity within product management. I initially took a UX Immersive course (more on that later) and realized while I enjoyed the experience of learning the design process with a usability focus that after doing some freelance work, meeting with 35+ product/UX designers for coffee (pre-covid) chats my true passion was for building the products rather than personally designing them.
My next step was landing a product management consultant contract for a super stealth startup. While it was only a 3-month commitment, I was involved in leading the launch of the MVP and was able to learn a ton during a short time that solidified my career change path.
Next professional goal
My two main goals are to find a full-time product management role for a company that is building an inspiring product and appreciates my diverse background and complete the process to get the professional organization I founded to qualify as a non-profit.
Today’s Wins
So while today I did receive 4 rejection emails (ouch) I believe it is important to remember my wins each day that is both professional and personal to make sure my own mental health is always a priority.
Wins:
- Applied to 11 new jobs
- Finalized details for two new workshops for Filipinx in Tech (FIT) that are in partnership with General Assembly
- Received two positive testimonials from two mentees that completed the FIT mentor program
- Sold my extra Staub pot
- Waffle Maker arrived to make ube waffle
