How to land a role in Product Management or Bizops (Part 1)
Part 1 of a 3 part series on getting a new job
Are you looking for a new job?
If you want some help, here’s a comprehensive list of things to do. The job market isn’t so hot now, and you’re going to have to put more effort into landing the job of your dreams now than you would have last year.
The good news is that we’ve got a whole list of things to help you prepare. If you’re a checklist person (like us), you’re going to love this. If you’re not….well, it’s going to help you anyway!
Let’s get started.
Section 1: Getting your materials ready
Your resume
If you hate updating your resume, you’re not alone. 76% of people we surveyed reported it being a mind-numbingly dull process.
Now, think of it from the recruiter’s perspective - they’re going through so many resumes a day. Your resume needs to be like the first 3 results of a google search - relevant, clear, and to the point.
How do you do that?
4 top tips:
Pick a format that’s easy to read - Google MBA formats from any of the top 10 schools. They might look boring, but they work! Asif and I both used these.
Reword every bullet point in the format of What did you do, how did you do it and what were the results? Eg: Worked with product and marketing teams to roll out XYZ feature within 2 months of ideation, resulting in $123 saved in product marketing budgets.
Order each bullet under every job in descending order of importance to the job you’re applying to - if a recruiter is skimming your resume, they’re not going to be reading the last bullet points of every role you’ve had.
Keep it to 1 page unless you have more than 10 years of work experience.
Bonus items to get your resume into the shortlist:
Review keywords from the job description and fit them into your bullet points. Use this tool to do so.
Run your resume through jobscan.co. It’s an automated tool that provides recommendations on improving your resume.
Your cover letter
If a company asks for a cover letter, write just one small paragraph. It should cover your interest in the job, why you’re applying, and what you bring to the table. Do not write a whole saga about your entire life history.
Your application tracker
Keep track of all the applications you’ve submitted on an excel sheet. I also take the additional step of saving the job description to a pdf file on my computer. That way, if they take down the job description during the interview process, I still have something to reference!
Our next post will cover applying for jobs and cracking the interview process!