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How to Write a Product Manager Resume that Gets Recruiter Callbacks
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hi I'm Alex founder of product career
accelerator and an exg gooogle group pm
today we're talking about how to write a
PM resume that actually gets you call
backs and this is point number one you
got to change your mindset from I'm
trying to get a job with this resume to
I'm just trying to get callbacks from an
interview your resume is only there to
do one thing and that's get the
attention of the recruiter or the hiring
manager so everything that you do with
your resume has to be tailored to that
one goal which is to maximize the
chances that someone will actually look
at your resume and decide to call you
back which brings us to point number two
know your audience and make it easy
whenever you're working on your resume
you're always trying to imagine it from
the perspective of the hiring manager or
the recruiter most of the time if you're
dealing with big companies it's going to
be recruiters and recruiters are just
trying to optimize for matching the
elements in the job description so they
usually have three four or five things
that they're trying to optimize for that
the hiring manager gave them about the
job description they may or may not even
always fully understand exactly what
these are the hiring manager said uh try
to bring me someone with regulatory and
compliance background they may not
really think a whole lot about what that
actually is and just try to match to the
text they're going to try to look at
exactly that or something extremely
similar so just simplify their life and
really try to make it easy for them to
give you a call back focus on their
needs and not yours this brings us to
point number three which is brevity
again your audience is either a
recruiter or a hiring manager they get
dozens or hundreds of resumés every day
and no one has time to read all that
rums are always scanned and not read
because of that I usually recommend to
make the resume as short as possible
usually one page or no more than two
pages if you've got more than 10 years
experience and optimize it for the
perspective of top down scanning that is
to say you should spend the most time
optimizing the top portion of your
resume to give the recruiter who's going
to realistically spend 7 to 10 seconds
on your resume the best chance to
actually notice something that they can
grab on to right away Point number four
make it clear simple formatting no fancy
flashy anything make it super readable
legible font only bold a few things that
are relevant to the job description
again your job with the resume is to
allow the recruiter or hiring manager to
scan your resume effectively so just
make it easy for them don't create super
long bullet points that no one's going
to read two three line bullet points if
your bullet doesn't get red it doesn't
really contribute anything to your
resume I'm sure you got a lot of
interesting and important details you
want to share you want to explain all
the Nuance but unfortunately it doesn't
actually increase the likelihood that
you're going to get a call back so just
focus on that that means some details
you're going to have to Omit and just
kind of keep it at a high level focus on
the impact get rid of all those half a
page summaries three line explanations
about your educations and GPA and how
you got a black belt in karate all those
fun things you can talk about when you
actually get a call back once again
resume is only about the call back
nothing else inside product career sare
we use a simple template that you can
find below it's like one of the first
things that we're going to go right
after your onboarding call is we're
going to go through the resume with a
fine- tooth comb make sure that
everything's optimized for callbacks and
we tend to use use the most simple
format that just has your contact info
on top one or two lines of your biggest
hits like 6 years experience at Google
or this company Tesla this many clients
on boarded and so on whatever expertise
or vertical that you've got then below
that your job experiences with three to
seven bullet points per job you can have
fewer and fewer bullets for each
successive jobs and finish off with
education and that's pretty much it and
quick note on education Awards
coursework I'm sure by now you can guess
what I'm going to say keep it brief just
keep it all in one line no need to
mention GPA if you've been out of school
for a couple of years already and are
working no need to mention years of
attendance just
NYU BS in business or Berkeley Ms in
engineering or whatever you've got if
you've earned awards that make sure that
they actually make sense and sound
impressive recruiter would want to know
how many of these awards are given per
unit of time and then how many people
actually get that award as an example we
have a client at PCA who got something
like a double Sigma award for Innovation
and that really doesn't tell to too much
information no one outside that company
would actually know what that even is
instead if you say you're one of 5,000
people over 2 years who got this award
then suddenly that becomes quite
impressive so don't forget put your best
foot forward which brings us to point
number five anchors these are elements
that raise your perceived standing or
Prestige with the reader and this goes
hand inand with keeping things brief and
clear just put the most important most
eye-catching elements of your experience
or expertise in your resume in the past
this might have been your fancy college
name and that still carries some weight
also but if you're applying for product
management roles in tech companies and
the big tech companies then the biggest
proxy or statement of value is going to
be other companies other big companies
and institutions that you've worked for
after that is going to be impact dollars
number of users growth team size and
after that it might be specific areas of
expertise or verticals or environments
in which you've been successful and of
course recognizable companies are better
than non-recognizable companies big
numbers are better than small numbers
lots of different types of impact might
be better than just one but at the end
of the day just use what you've got if
you've been working for some time just
try to put the most recognizable
elements of the things that you've done
or the things that you've accomplished
and bring that to the top next number
six customize but don't rewrite your
resume when applying to jobs fully again
let's remind ourselves what we're trying
to do we're trying to get call backs
from a recruiter who needs to find
someone with a specific skill set which
means our resume should ideally include
some of the elements that are listed in
the job description but often times the
product job description tend to be
generic they don't list any remarkable
detail they just sort of go over common
product management stuff you got to do
stakeholder management leadership
alignment strategy Vision
Etc so when you see those job
descriptions don't try to optimize for
20 of those generic things that they say
there instead look for little hints such
as bonus points if you're on an
advertising team in the past or
preferred qualifications must no sequel
or if those things are missing try to
pick three four five elements that are
less generic and really stand out to you
or you can highlight and match from your
own experience those are the actual
elements on the hiring manager list and
you've got to do your best to find them
and put them on the top of your resume
number seven geography we'll go over the
best locations for product management
jobs in a separate video but needless to
say these are primary Tech hubs like San
Francisco Bay area or Seattle in terms
of resumés if you're trying to apply for
jobs in a different location and if
you're truly committed to moving from
where you live over there just put the
goo of where the job is located or where
you're headed or just leave it blank if
you live in Arizona trying to move to
California just put California because
again we're trying to make it easy for
the recruiter and hiring manager to call
you back any negative signals are a
chance that they're going to reject or
pass over the resume so just make it
easy for them to call you back lastly
number eight which seems like a
no-brainer but it comes up enough that
it needs to be said make sure the role
you're applying for is actually at the
top of your resume if you're trying to
go for senior product manager your
resume should say at the top senior
product manager if you're applying for a
product management role but you also
have a background in program management
just say product management don't let
the recruiter hiring manager sit there
and try to figure out okay 10 years of
this experience did they mean that it's
10 years means 5 years in product 5
years in program no you're a product
manager trying to land a product
management job just say it and before we
close out here I want to set some
expectations at PCA we always take a
pragmatic approach and setting
expectations is important and
unfortunately if you don't have
recognizable names if you don't have any
significant impact behind your belt and
if your top third of the resume is not
strong and not calibrated to the job
description you can expect to get very
few call backs less than 1% often the
stronger your resume the more perceived
Prestige and job alignment you can show
you can go from 3 to 5 to 7 even 10%
call backs one of our clients had 15%
call backs since her background is all
big Tech and she has some experiences
with AI which is all the rage right now
so she has a very very high call back
rate this is not to discourage you just
to set expectations to let you know to
prepare with a marathon mindset we're
going to talk more about that in our
next video where we will cover applying
for jobs and Network working since
resume is just the first piece of the
puzzle see you there good luck
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