Applying for product & growth in 2024

Of titles, roles and 6pt comic sans fonts

Getting a job in product & growth just isn’t what it used to be. It’s a lot harder to stand out. Why is that? 

I see three main factors: 

• A “Good CV” is very different from what it used to be

  • The attention span it needs to capture is seconds, not minutes

• The demands of what a (growth) product manager is

  • Don’t act like you have to get past HR; always focus on the hiring manager (your future line manager)

• The number of applications per job necessary to get through against your competition

  • You have to show that you are a specialist in something

The entire process of getting hired is similar to an activation process that users go through. Understanding that process gives you an edge in presenting yourself the right way.

The following learnings are based on my experience as the hiring manager for Senior PMs and product leaders like CPOs in B2B companies (< 500 employees) that dealt with growth challenges at scale.

Keep in mind, though, that the purpose of these tips is to increase your odds of finding a good job, not just any job. A good one is where you’re getting hired for who you are not who you pretend to be.

A good CV is about you, not your title.

How often do people say something like, “My trouble is getting past the people from HR - once I get an interview, I’m great.” 

They think the person from HR is missing something about their application or just doesn’t “get them.”

What’s more likely:

The HR person is going off of a checklist given to them by the hiring manager (people like me). 

You’re not applying to the person from HR; you’re still applying to the hiring manager.

They often use a checklist in their screening simply by crossing things off. For instance, a Senior Growth Manager in a fintech scale-up out of Berlin:

• Does the candidate have at least 3y in Growth? (y / n)

• Have they demonstrated experience in a company of similar size? (y / n)

• Have they worked in a finance-related role in the past 5 years (y / n)

• Is their expected salary range within range ($150,000 or under)

Most of these checks you can figure out from carefully reading the job description.

They will spend five seconds tops per CV at this stage because they get hundreds of applications to sift through. They’re looking only for the things on the checklist.

If you make it hard for them to find those things in seconds, they will pass you over even if you would check those boxes.

Wanna NOT get hired?

If I were gonna teach a workshop called “Leah’s Guide To Never Getting A Job,” This would be my curriculum: 

• Make your CV way too long (3 pages minimum)

  • Honestly, even two pages is one page too long for some
    

• Use 6pt font to cram everything onto one page so it’s “short” and you have all the juicy keywords.

  • If you can’t make a CV readable, how do you think your future employer thinks about your ability to present important ideas to others around you?

  • The vast majority of scale-ups do not use automated CV screeners. These are mostly in use for much larger companies, so cramming keywords in hopes that you will pass is not helping.
    

• Describe what a typical person does at your job rather than outline the specific impact you had

  • It’s not helpful to mention “backlog management in Jira, organizing sprints”. Those are things we expect from you indicated by your title. List your outcomes (see later, under outcomes over descriptions)
    

• Write out elaborate descriptions of jobs you had 10 years ago 

  • The more recent the job, the more detail is ok, but kill long descriptions from things that are older than a couple of years.
    

• Include random certifications

  • Certifications are worth nothing, especially as a product manager; the question is whether you know how to translate them into outcomes.
    

• Use generic titles and intros with buzzwords, never be specific

  • “Young and dynamic product manager that likes to work” is not helping. A good description is one that is so specific that it excludes something else.
    

Be specific

Let’s stay on that last point. People are so afraid to specialize themselves when it is such an easy way to differentiate. 

Who would you rather hire?

• A “B2B Product Manager specializing in Activation.”

• A “Product Manager”

The answer is maybe both, but if you have an actual problem with activation, you definitely go for the first one. More importantly, they will stand out against everyone else.

Some simple specialization titles or self-descriptions you can use:

• Technical PM with a basic Machine Learning background

• Growth PM focused on Monetization in FinTech

• Passionate IC PM without management aspirations, formerly Customer Success

• Product Leader specialized in quant. Data in B2B startups

• Former marketer turned GTM Product Manager in small startups

• Senior Product Manager with experience in US Medtech

It’s uncomfortable for most people to do that because they think someone will infer that you suck at everything else.

Highlighting that you have a flair and passion for quantitative data immediately puts you above candidates who generically state “research-driven” if the company has a need for PMs who excel at quantitative data.

Size matters

Size does matter. Just not in the way you think. Rarely have I seen someone skipped over for having too short of a CV. Too long? All the time. 

Yes, even as a PM / Product leader you will be rejected simply based on how your CV is looking like. A spelling mistake won’t get you rejected most likely but a hard to read mess absolutely gets you into the reject bucket.

How you handle your CV is the best indicator hiring managers have, as to how you will handle your work before they get to know you. If you can’t focus on what’s important on the CV in a simple way, you’ll likely be that way at work.

Think about this from the perspective of your manager or the leadership team. You are supposed to align with all kinds of stakeholders; if you can't even summarize your work history in an easy way, you won’t be able to do that with other issues at your job.

Hard pass.

Interview stage - The dreaded vibe check

Assuming you get past this initial selection, you usually get a short vibe check call with an HR person to check for things that do not fit into a typical checklist. Namely, “Culture fit” or other soft factors. In my case, 90% will hinge here on your ability to communicate and come off as a great colleague who is easy to work with.

Making a good impression and coming off as knowledgeable is, in this stage, commonly not tied to how much you know but how well you can communicate something in simple terms. Jargonism and just trying to talk yourself by constantly saying, “Oh, I can do all these things,” get you rejected by experienced recruiters.

Show value; don’t talk about how you could do it; talk about how you did do it. The words that you want them to use when they describe you are “Humble, curious, team player, passionate,” not “they think they know everything; we can be glad to bask in their glory.”

We’re looking more into the later stages of an application process in my next article from the employer’s perspective.

General good practice

Personal Notes / Cover letters

I personally don’t ask for cover letters, but some candidates submit them anyway. If you do include cover letters, keep them nongeneric and specific to the job at hand. Good cover letters highlight a special connection between you and the job, e.g., you know someone personally already in the team. 

Everything else is filler. No one ever got hired because they told the hiring manager how cool they and the company were in a generic way. 

If ChatGPT could write the letter without knowing anything about you, don’t bother adding it. 

Don’t lie

The more senior the job is, the more likely we will back-check you. You won’t always have the luxury of being told that you got found out, but I reject people quite often because we suspect they are lying about their achievements. If I’m connected with a former co-worker of yours through LinkedIn and I know them, I’ll probably ask them briefly for a reference.

Maybe not everyone will find out that you just changed your “Senior PM” title to “Principal PM,” but I can guarantee you that the people who are about to make you an offer will. Tech is a very small universe – don’t end up being the guy who everyone knows lied about being the Chief Product Officer of Apple.

Again, this isn’t actually about you not sharing the right title – it’s what your lying tells us about your character – if you lie about your past, what else will you dress up when communicating in a regular work environment?

Outcomes over descriptions