How to Transition from Management Consulting to Product Management

What was your Background Prior to Product Management?

Prior to my current role at Brazen, I was in consulting for eight to nine years. I was just tired of being siloed and having to follow a corporate structure in a management consulting perspective. You start off as a business analyst and they want you to work your way up to executive, where you start selling your work and so forth, and I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in selling working and trying to make people believe in a product that I don’t believe in. I had exposure working in the Agile environment and understood that there is a product manager role. I’ve been exposed to people who’ve been product owners, and I’ve also worked in a Scrum environment, so I knew that being a PM was what I wanted to do.

How many Interviews were you Averaging After you Joined Product Gym?

There were phases. When I first joined from September to end of December 2019, I was averaging around five to six interviews a week. It was tough, but I was committed to it because I had a goal of leaving my former employer before the end of the year.

What is Some Advice you can Give to Current PM Job Hunters?

Please, please, don’t give up. By human nature, we hate rejection and defeat, but you really need to stay focused on the end goal and your end goal is to get that PM role. The most important thing is reflecting after each interview. I think in most cases, you will recognize what you may have said wrong or even just the reaction of the interviewer. So please, reflect on that last interview because you are not going to make progress or improve in the next interview if you’re just simply blowing through interviews and not understanding where some of those mistakes or errors are.