Can you become a Product manager with no experience?
The short answer is Yes, but there’s a but….
Everytime I teach the “Intro to Product Management” Jolt, the students ask me the same question — ‘how can I become a Product manager without any experience?’ And the hard truth is that it is very hard to find a Product management position without having any experience, it’s a complex role with a lot of responsibilities and not every team can afford hiring someone without any experience and training them.
But while it is hard, it’s not impossible. The story of how I became a Product manager involved hard work, someone believing in me and no experience at all. But before I get into that, let’s talk about what skills you need to become a Product manager.
When thinking of your first Product management position, there are some key skills you must have before you begin:
- Project management — you need to be able to show you had success leading a project from early stages all the way to achieving a goal successfully.
- Long term planning — If you are the kind of person who always thinks 5–10 steps ahead, you most likely will have the ability to think strategically as a Product manager should.
- Technical understanding — are you always the person your friends and family reach out to for technical support? Have you ever tried to play around with code or felt a real need to know how technical products work? If your answer is yes, then you probably have enough technical knowledge to be able to have some sort of technical conversation with a developer.
While this is a very simplified list, I do believe these skills are the minimum you need to get a job without having any Product management experience.
My story begins during college. At the time, I had a few friends who were volunteering in an organization called “Scratch Israel”, a group of students who wanted to use Scratch to teach children in Israel how to code. Developed at MIT, Scratch is a platform that helps children experiment with coding without having to write a single line of code. During the second year of college my friends convinced me to join the organization as a social media manager (this was an extracurricular activity). During the year I learned more about Scratch and what the team was trying to achieve and I really felt inspired by their goals. I grew up in an environment where programming was considered to be only for boys, and that I better not even try to learn it as I won’t be good at it, so I felt this was my chance to help kids understand that anyone can learn to code — it is not just something for boys!
When my first year at Scratch ended, my friend who was leading the organization asked me to replace him since he was stepping down and needed someone he trusted to take over. I was hesitant at first but quickly realized that it was a great opportunity. During my last year of college, while studying and working part time, I also volunteered to run this organization. During that year I had to recruit and train volunteers, manage the operation, and make sure we achieved our goals for the year. By the end of the school year I had already shown myself that I am able to lead a team, make a yearly plan, and even write code.
This is the part of the story where a bit of luck comes into play, and I’m not going to pretend luck doesn’t have any part of this. After the school year ended, I started looking for my first Product management position. Knowing that my chances of getting one without any experience are small, I focused most of my job search on UX designer positions, thinking I would later be able to move to Product management by proving myself.
After a few months of searching with no success, I had a call with my friend who managed Scratch before me. He was also looking for a job and was deliberating between two positions. One of the positions was at a very early stage startup that was focusing on teaching kids how to code, they were looking for a Product manager who has experience with teaching kids to code and writing a curriculum. “Wow I wish I could have that job, it sounds perfect for me” I told him, and to my surprise his response was “Well, let me introduce you to them”. That’s how I met the founders of CodeMonkey. They were just starting out, fresh out of the accelerator they were a part of, had almost no money at all but had an amazing product and they hired me as their Product manager! I was so excited to not only have found a Product management position with no working experience, but to also be working on an amazing product that wants to show kids coding is not scary or hard at all, but that it actually makes sense and improves your way of thinking.
So yes, I was lucky to find a position that seemed like it was tailored for me, but if I had not seized the opportunities that I got by joining Scratch and leading the organization, I would have never gotten this job. During college I pushed myself to get the experience I needed, I worked extra hours voluntarily and took on more responsibility in order to be able to show that I have the skills to be a Product manager. The founders of CodeMonkey took a chance on me just as much as I had taken a chance on them. As a very early stage startup no one promised me they’ll be able to grow (and eventually get acquired but that’s a different story), and no one promised them that I was able to help them grow, but my experience in the specific field they worked in was enough to get me through the door, and my passion was what eventually got me hired.
So if you don’t have any previous experience and you want to find your first Product management position, here is my step-by-step advice:
- Prepare — Make sure you have some proven experience with Project management, strategic thinking and working with technical people. If you don’t, go and make something that will give you this experience, yes even if it means doing it voluntarily.
- Find your niche — What experience do you have? Is there a field you know really well? Have you worked in Marketing, travel industry, cyber security, event planning or any other industry? Now go look for a company that is trying to solve a problem in your niche. The experience and knowledge you have of their world should be enough to get you to the next step.
- Get your foot in the door — There’s a bunch of ways to do it, but if there isn’t a junior Product manager position available, the next best thing is probably to apply to an entry level position — QA, Customer support, Customer success or Sales are the most promising ones. In all four positions you’ll need to know the ins and outs of the product to be able to do your job successfully. Project management can also be a good way to start but those are harder to come by.
- Go the extra mile — After you got your entry level position, that’s when the hard work begins, and I do mean hard work. You need to prove that you’re not only amazing at your job, you also have what it takes to be a Product manager in this organization. The best way to do it is to become an ally to the current Product managers, helping them in whichever way you can, starting from simple tasks until gradually they’ll trust you and will agree to give you more and more responsibilities. If you prove that you have a product mindset and the needed skills, and if the company is smart enough to promote employees instead of losing them, they’ll see the potential in you and hopefully eventually will promote you.
At the end of the day everything sums up to hard work. If you are willing to work hard to prove yourself, if you want it so bad you’re willing to keep going until you find something, eventually you’ll get it. If you’re looking for an easy job that doesn’t require coding but earns a lot of money, you’re in the wrong place. Product management is a job for passionate people, it’s hard but so rewarding when you’re doing it right.
Got more tips? Did you also find your first job without any experience? Share your story and thoughts in the comments below!
