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In my experience, associate PM positions require applicants to be undergrad CS students and un-modified & senior PM title positions require recognizable PM expe

In my experience, associate PM positions require applicants to be undergrad CS students and un-modified & senior PM title positions require recognizable PM experience. The roles are very competitive, and unless you’ve worked with someone at the company before as a PM, I would say you’d have to be pretty special to be considered. I think a successful PM’s strongest asset is the trust of their team and company, so outsiders aren’t the safest choice for a new hire, unlike roles with more demonstrable skills like engineering. Edit: I also went to Product School and think it’s a great way to show current employers your dedication to making a transition. For joining a new company though, it doesn’t come close to comparing to what HackReactor does for a developer applicant. As far as educational content, I think the only value I got was talking to current PMs about how the realities of their jobs differ from what you read in books like cracking the pm interview.

neofrommatrix 9y ago
What was your experience at Product School like? I do plan to try and transition in my current company.
- raymondgh 9y ago
  Getting into the course was a strangely sales-y experience. I was working in sales at the time and recognized a lot of similar techniques used by their recruiter/admissions person. I eventually decided to join after considering they were likely to build the best product manager network. There were about a dozen of us twenty-somethings in a twice-weekly night class. Our first instructor was replaced after student complaints that he was phoning it in -- just literally reading slides to us with content seemingly summarized from common wisdom you find on hackernews about lean startups. Our second instructor was much more engaged and enthusiastic. There were assignments that scratched the surface of a few topics within product management like design, engineering, prioritization, and presentations. The end of the course provided some brief interview tips. Alumni have access to a private slack group which, like any networking group, is filled with people looking for jobs and a dearth of recruiters looking for those people. I might go as far as to say that there really is no such thing as an entry-level PM. Most people who become PMs seem to do so accidentally or because they started as an APM at some company with the resources and retention afford them. However, in the end, if you do your assignments, you end up with a LinkedIn certification to add to your profile and the confidence that you are probably capable of being a good product manager. Carlos is really an awesome dude (the CEO), but the website's title "Get a job as a Product Manager" is unrelated to the course offered.

neofrommatrix 9y ago

What was your experience at Product School like? I do plan to try and transition in my current company.

raymondgh 9y ago
Getting into the course was a strangely sales-y experience. I was working in sales at the time and recognized a lot of similar techniques used by their recruiter/admissions person. I eventually decided to join after considering they were likely to build the best product manager network. There were about a dozen of us twenty-somethings in a twice-weekly night class. Our first instructor was replaced after student complaints that he was phoning it in -- just literally reading slides to us with content seemingly summarized from common wisdom you find on hackernews about lean startups. Our second instructor was much more engaged and enthusiastic. There were assignments that scratched the surface of a few topics within product management like design, engineering, prioritization, and presentations. The end of the course provided some brief interview tips. Alumni have access to a private slack group which, like any networking group, is filled with people looking for jobs and a dearth of recruiters looking for those people. I might go as far as to say that there really is no such thing as an entry-level PM. Most people who become PMs seem to do so accidentally or because they started as an APM at some company with the resources and retention afford them. However, in the end, if you do your assignments, you end up with a LinkedIn certification to add to your profile and the confidence that you are probably capable of being a good product manager. Carlos is really an awesome dude (the CEO), but the website's title "Get a job as a Product Manager" is unrelated to the course offered.