My background is in product management so I get a lot of questions from hopeful PMs on how to break into the field. My advice: Build side projects.
It's hard to land a job as a PM without experience (classic chicken and egg problem). So if you can't get a job as a PM, hire yourself. Side projects illustrate that you can turn an idea into something and the result is a concrete artifact that others can see and use.
@rrhoover absolutely. it's something we call out specifically for people to do. while classes and reading are good to understand basic concepts, it's not enough to land a job as a PM. Applying concepts and skills though some form experience, no matter how minor, (via side projects or otherwise) are crucial to demonstrating you have potential.
@rrhoover Ryan, what about specialisation? I mean, it seems to me that the skills for a PM role in one industry may not be at all the same for another industry/product.
Nice ressource. I'm always a bit shocked as to how much it actually takes to contribute to a modern techonology company. Not only do you have to know a wide array of technology (front-end and database), you also have to be a strategist, customer facing, a project manager, a quantitative analyst and more. Although you don't have to excel at all of these, I think the bar for new grads is set pretty high, when it comes to skill-requirements.
@thekarlsen yes, this is why the role is typically an experienced one in the sense that one is usually working for a few years in another career track before switching over. the good news is that there is increasing demand for PMs so there have been more APM programs that are willing to take new grads and effectively train them for 2 years within company.
@angela_jiang On-the-job training positions for graduates are pretty rare in Denmark still. Major companies have 2-8 yearly graduate positions open, and that's pretty much it.
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