The Product Manager's Job-Hunting Guide

If the New Year finds you looking for work, think of yourself as a new product and your job hunt as a product launch. Understand your product (your skills) and your target audience (people making hiring decisions at a target company). The tips that follow should work whether you’re a baby boomer or Gen Xer and can apply from B2C to telecommunication.

Adjust Your Focus

Answer an employer’s three most important questions:

•  What can you do for ME? (Product identity)
• Why should I select you? (Product differentiation)
• How can you help ME increase sales, cut costs, or improve operations? (Value proposition)

Think headlines for the reader. The best thing you have ever done is the biggest headline. Avoid thinking by rote and putting the conclusion at the end. A friend of mine who is a Chief Technology Officer starts his resume with “My astronaut experience as a mission specialist taught me to how to manage technology.” Now that gets way more attention than “My name is…” \

Take all your bio info and move it to the bottom. Avoid wasting the best print space with unimportant information! Recently the New York Times announced that it is going to place ads on the front page! What took them so long to figure out that the advertiser was paying the bills instead of their stories? Newspapers are reducing page count or the number of days for home deliveries. They’re innovating like crazy to avoid going out of business in an increasingly digital world. The successful ones are just another example of the power of capitalism at work.

Seven Nuggets for New Product Developers

1. Create a new resume. Put your NPD certification front and center. Provide a link to the PDMA certification page. If you are not certified, get certified now!
2. Get your resume where potential hiring managers can find it. Post it electronically on websites of large nearby newspapers. Also post on popular sites like Monster.com or Dice; use relevant association sites. Remember to make it easy for your friends to forward.
3. Update your resume often so that yours shows up near the top of the most current resumes searched. Changes can be minor like adding a few spaces or major like adding an important achievement you may have overlooked.
4. Refresh and overhaul your network. Join LinkedIn if you’re not already a member.  Locate and attend job network meetings at churches or support groups in your community. Reconnect with your college’s alumni association.  Longer term, be prepared to nurture and contribute to your network. It’s a lifelong investment.
5. Focus on contacting hiring managers, not human resources. Use your social network to identify contacts in your target companies.
6. Know your credit score.  Get a free credit report from one of the big three firms - Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. Don’t let a credit ghost from a past transaction haunt your search or hiring.  Challenge and resolve any incorrect information that appears in your report.
7. Stay in good physical health. Get enough sleep, eat nutritional foods, and take time for physical exercise even if it’s walking regularly.  Besides providing you stress relief, these steps allow you to look and remain fit. It sends a subliminal message that you can be a dependable contributor to your new employer.

Here are some final thoughts. First, it’s easier to find a job when you have one. That’s the reality of the situation.  Second, remember that tough times don’t last but tough people do. It’s especially true for those who are well prepared, understand their capabilities, and can succinctly communicate their value.

You will find a job. You will also find that NPDP certification does make a difference in your search. Good luck and may you be fine in 2009.

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