Summary

The provided content outlines a comprehensive guide on creating an effective Product Manager resume, emphasizing conciseness, relevance, and strategic alignment with the job description.

Abstract

The article "How To Create a Kick-Ass Product Manager Resume" offers practical advice for crafting a compelling resume tailored to Product Manager roles. It suggests condensing the resume to one or two pages, focusing on key achievements, and ensuring the document aligns with the specific job description. The guide recommends using Canva for sleek resume templates and stresses the importance of including metrics and time frames to quantify achievements. It also advises on customizing the resume to reflect the candidate's understanding of the role, incorporating essential elements such as strategy, delivery, leadership, and customer experience. The article further suggests creating an online presence through a personal URL linking to a professional blog or LinkedIn page to enhance visibility and credibility. For those lacking experience, the author recommends freelance Product Management work or personal projects to build a relevant portfolio.

Opinions

The resume should serve as a highlight reel rather than an autobiography, focusing on the most compelling and relevant information.
Tailoring the resume for each application is crucial, and it should directly address the key responsibilities and required experience outlined in the job description.
A clean and professional design is preferred, with Canva's "Black and White Bordered Modern Template" being a recommended starting point.
The inclusion of a Major Achievements section is advocated to provide an executive summary of relevant experience, with specific examples tailored to the industry (e.g., banking, startups, e-commerce).
The article advises against keyword stuffing, instead suggesting the integration of strategic keywords naturally within the context of achievements.
Demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of business strategy, agile delivery, leadership, and UX/design is considered essential for a Product Manager's resume.
Establishing an online presence with a professional website or blog is recommended to improve search engine discoverability and provide additional insights into the candidate's expertise and personality.
For aspiring Product Managers, gaining experience through freelance work, side projects, or volunteering is encouraged as a means to break into the industry.

How To Create a Kick-Ass Product Manager Resume

We’ve all been there, scrolling through your LinkedIn feed after a boring day of work. “I need a new challenge,” you thought to yourself.

*Ding* a notification popped up: “Product Manager at Unicorn X”. Even the AI agrees.

You click through. It’s a more senior role, in a growing industry, and free food at their infamous kitchen.

Fired up, you dust off the resume you created 3 years ago. You have so much to update.

What should I include in my new resume?
Where do I start?
How long should a product manager resume be?
Is my template good enough to get me noticed?
And for folks who are not PM’s: how do I break into the industry with little to no PM experience?

Don’t worry. I can help you answer all of these questions, let’s get right to it!

Step 1: Distill Your Resume into 1 or 2 Pages

Your resume is your brochure, not your autobiography. Think of it as a dating profile. Including too much information may give the impression you are too desperate for a date, which generally raises questions.

The goal of your resume is to highlight your key selling points so you get the interview

During the interview, you can showcase all the details of where you’ve been, what your values are, and how you work with others.

User experience is a crucial skill for PMs, this is the first opportunity for you to demonstrate it.

In terms of design, head to Canva.com for free templates

Select something elegant, sensible and crisp. Don’t select a template that has a lot of colours and a complex design. Unlike a dating profile, photos are generally not encouraged.

My personal favourite is the Black and White Bordered Modern Template from Canva It’s simple, sleek, and prints out very nicely.

Step 2: Tailoring Your Resume To Fit The Job

Tailor your resume for each job. It’s a little bit of work, but here is a trick to make it much faster.

First, study the job description and copy and paste the Key Responsibility and Required Experience section into your favourite word processor.

Using your base resume as an open book, answer each of the sections of the Job Description.

Included in as many statistics, metrics, or numbers as possible.

Hint: Start with a verb, include a metric, then end with a time frame.

For example:

Rebuilt the consumer loan application form (check out funnel) which increased conversion rate by 120% in 3 months

Step 3: Add in a Major Achievements Section

You can use this section as an executive summary to showcase relevant experience for the role.

Here are some common examples to include:

Banking or consulting generally requires examples with an analytical mindset, market approach, compliance, and risk reduction.
Startups or corporate ventures require a culture of innovation, greenfield projects, and ideas that resulted in hyper-growth.
E-commerce and retail appreciate examples around seasonality, segmentation of customers, past campaigns, and the online/offline experience.

Step 4: Don’t Spam Keywords, Weave Them Into Your Achievements

Weave one of these essential elements in your CV: Strategy, Delivery, Leadership, and Customer Experience

You can customise this for different roles to — keep it under 5 points

Include Business Strategy Examples

Examples of strategy work could be: carrying out user or market research, providing a strategic vision for the business, building a product roadmap using data, commercial negotiation, identifying and solving problems in past jobs.

Include Examples of Agile Delivery

Talk about using Kanban or Scrum to manage a project delivery while playing the Product Owner role.

Include examples of how you’ve managed a backlog and prioritised with an agile team. If you haven’t been in an agile environment before, consider signing up for a 1 or 2 day course to learn about it. This is an essential skill in technology companies.

Include Leadership Stories

Product managers are like a conductor in an orchestra; they influence the players without changing the notes.

For your resume, highlight any experience where you’ve rallied a team towards the goals you’ve created. If you are at the beginning of your career, include University clubs, hackathons, sports teams, and any volunteer work.

Add UX / Design / Customer Research

Having the ability to empathise with the customer is an essential attribute of a great product manager.

For your resume: Highlight your work with UX designers to perform UX research, create wireframes, and facilitate usability testing. Talk about supporting customer enquiries on a regular basis.

Step 5: Create a Personal URL Link to Blog or Linkedin

Most hiring managers google potential candidates.

You want to SEO yourself by having your own website, like www.davidwang.com.au. Then link it to a professional-looking LinkedIn page, a personal website or a blog.

Wix, Squarespace or One Profile are excellent options for creating a website. Web hosting costs are around $10 a month and you can get a domain name as part of the deal.

If you want to try a different route, you do what I do by blogging on Medium for free.

If you’re not comfortable having a large digital footprint, you can create an alias so you can stay anonymous. Add this alias to your resume.

Bonus tip: If You Need Experience, Become a Freelance PM

If you’re looking to get into PM but don’t have prior experience, you’ll need to start hustling. Here are some ways you can get some PM experience:

Create a side project: create Wireframes, Blogs, Website, a Shopify Store, or some kind of business that showcase your problem-solving skills.
Volunteer to help small businesses to help them build products.
Participate in hackathons and document your experience.

And that’s it. This is how you create a PM resume that can land you jobs! 🙌

So in Summary, Do the Following To create a Kick-Ass PM Resume:

Step 1: Simplify your CV into 1 to 2 pages and only include information that is required in the job description.

Step 2: Answer the job description. Start with a verb, include a metric, end with a time frame.

Step 3: Don’t reinvent the wheel, start with a template, then add your flair.

Step 4: Don’t spam keywords, weave them into your achievements.

Step 5: Create an online presence.

Lastly, Be a freelance PM if you need to build experience.