• Leave your comfort zone and practice public speaking

Public speaking is difficult and intimidating for most people, especially for coders who typically have less outward-facing interactions. Find a meetup where you can practice presenting in front of a group. This will push you out of your comfort zone and give you a low-stakes opportunity to make mistakes, learn from them, and gain confidence speaking and presenting your ideas and projects. PM’s need to be able to communicate internally and externally, so practice this as much as you can.

Book Suggestion: Talk like Ted by Carmine Gallo

• Earn the respect of your technical team

Knowing how to code is essential to being a successful Product Manager at a software company today. If you don’t have a coding background, you’ll need to develop one ASAP. There are thousands of resources available online and while we will publish our list of recommendations at some point, a simple google search would suffice for now. Familiarity with coding will help you solve technical problems and give you the confidence to push back on the Marketing and Design teams’ requests. Also, and most importantly, you’ll earn the respect of the development team that you will be leading.

Article to read: https://pmdiego.substack.com/p/-building-side-projects-without-code

• Practice your listening skills

This is a skill you can work on no matter what your current role is: practice listening skills with coworkers, clients, and even off the job with your friends and family. Not just listening to what clients want, but listening with empathy. This truly allows them to connect and deeply understand the problems needing to be solved.

Book Suggestion: You're Not Listening by Kate Murphy

• Learn how to lead

You must exercise leadership and conduct a team of professionals that represent many talents. If you think you’re not the best organizer or don’t feel comfortable moderating a meeting, try taking a Toastmasters series or leadership workshop. Doing that will definitely put you in a leadership mindset and set you on a path to take your existing professional skills to a product management domain.

Article to read: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-product-management-talent-dilemma

• Hone your analytical thinking skills

Product managers are problem solvers with vision. Inevitably, there will be problems, so you’ll need the analytical skills to work around them or change directions. This goes hand in hand with understanding what’s going on in your technical teams. Product managers must be able to talk and think analytically and with technical proficiency. If you don't come from a technical background, stick close to people who do and ask them tons and tons of questions. Don't obsess on the specific technical details, but focus more on how they view and analyze problems--you want to learn to see the world through their eyes and approach problems with strong analytical skills.

Book Suggestion: Experimentation Works by Stefan H. Thomke

Finally, you need to trust yourself, understand why and what you are doing this for, manage your expectations, and push yourself because landing a Product Manager job can be very challenging. he best product managers usually don’t start their careers as product managers, though--it’s a goal they work towards over time. Since there is no perfect formula to land a role in Product Management, let us know if we can help you.

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About us:

The internet today is filled with tips and frameworks on how to answer product questions. But actual answer responses— that’s rare. That’s what you’ll get at Prod School.

We also help you all in providing with context, without which you may not understand why a particular question would be asked or if your planned response is good or bad. We understand that the product management case interview is tough. It combines interview questions that would otherwise appear for positions in disparate disciplines, including project management, product design, software engineering, management consulting and marketing.