How to Write a Good Resume For Product Manager Jobs

So, you want to be a product manager. This means demonstrating to hiring managers that you have the skills and capabilities to bring tech products to market, and meet whatever challenges that you face along the way. You need to have the ability to communicate across multiple teams of people, deal with your own staff, and work under whatever budget constraints you are given.

Getting a job as a product manager begins with a well-written convincing resume. Keep reading to learn exactly what you need to do in order to grab the attention of a hiring manager.

Your experience, education, and track record are what matters most. Skip the objective statement and the summary sections. These are too fluffy and unnecessary for your purposes. You may have read that you should add a personal branding statement instead. Don’t do this. While this may be appropriate for a web designer or social media manager, you’ll most likely elicit eye rolls if you do this.

Instead, jump right in by listing the companies you have worked for and the successful projects you have completed. Even if you are going for your first product manager job, highlight the skills that will easily translate into the position you are seeking.

Don’t say I was on a team that’, or ‘I worked on a project’. These phrases indicate that you were being led, not that you were taking initiative or doing any leading yourself. Instead, use words and phrases like the following:

● Created

● Took the lead on

● Took full ownership of

● Was responsible for

● Designed

● Developed

Even if you only took charge of a small portion of a project, list that on your resume. The key is to show that you are capable of taking ownership of a product and bringing it to market.

Here is a bit of unpleasant news. If you cannot find a way to make a connection at the company you are interested in working for, the chances of your getting your resume in the hands of an actual human being are pretty small. This is especially true if you are going for a job at a large corporation.

Remember that for each opening, they might receive hundreds of resumes. Will your resume make it through resume scanning software? Hopefully, it will if you use the right keywords. Even then, the person reviewing it will probably spend less than ten seconds looking at it.

How do you close the gap and give yourself better odds? Start with LinkedIn. Make connections with product engineers and managers. Reach out to people who work at the companies that interest you most. Comb your contacts to see who knows who. If you can create just a bit of familiarity, you have a much better chance of landing an interview.

The best case scenario is when you can find a connection within the company who is willing to deliver your resume to the hiring manager personally. This way you bypass all of the internal red tapes that could get your resume ditched before you even have a chance.

If you have been shopping your resume around for awhile and aren’t getting many interview callbacks, something is going wrong. It might be time to have a professional take a look at your resume. They may be able to redesign and edit your resume to make it really work for you. Although, in some cases a total rewrite might be in order.

You will pay for this option ahead of time. However, if you find the right company to do the work for you, it will be well worth the money that you spend. Google Resumes.expert to find some great information on resume writing services.

Don’t just tell readers that your projects were successful and that your products were a hit. Prove it. Did you increase sales numbers? Then tell hiring authorities how much? Did you get a product to market quickly? Let people know how far ahead of schedule you were?

Back your claims up with provable data. It will give you much more credibility. Remember that using precise metrics will impress your audience more than vague generalities. Just be prepared to back up the claims you make on your resume when you get called for an interview.

Ultimately, the best product manager resume is concise, data-driven, well-written, and shows that you have the chops required to ensure products are successful. Let hiring managers know, right off the bat, what your experience and capabilities are. Do these things and avoid the ‘fluff’ that many people include in their resumes, and you will have a great chance at landing a product manager position in no time.