Learning new skills is fun and exciting, but it is rarely the reason we invest in professional certificate programs. The reality? People are searching for better jobs with higher salaries, and short-term programs have become the gateway to a more satisfying career. As you begin your search, it is important to consider cost, time-commitment, and student-to-teacher ratios, but it is also necessary to scrutinize the career services offered.
Schools like Product Gym hold career support and guidance as a core value. Their career counseling is seamlessly integrated into their full-scale classes to ensure you graduate feeling prepared to enter the workforce. But, what difference do quality career services really make? At SwitchUp, we work with hundreds of bootcamps that help their students land great jobs. We have found that the high-quality bootcamps with truly successful graduates value career guidance for the following reasons:
Career Services Foster Confidence
Pursuing a completely different career can be scary. A strong program will help you anticipate future interviews, evaluations, and even your first few months on the job. At Product Gym, you can expect a completely revamped resume, a branded cover letter, a fully developed backstory, as well as an optimized Linkedin profile. These many details, when piled on top of acquiring new skills, can make or break a graduate’s success. The support from your program to help you tackle these details before leaving can help you enter interviews and negotiations with the confidence you need to close.
Plus, it helps you better understand your value. By editing your resume and seeing your accomplishments, you can approach a company ready to demand your worth.
Luckily for you, at Product Gym, we show you exactly how to do just that. With our expert-led skills courses and our interviews with Product Leads at top companies, we’ve distilled the exact skills recruiters look out for. Combined with our tried-and-tested methodology, our members not only leave a lasting impression with their revamped resumes, backstories, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles but also end up scoring 3-5 job offers in as little as 45 days.
Interviewing Is a Skill
Bill Gates once said, “If you’ve found some way to educate yourself about engineering, stocks, or whatever it is, good employers will have some type of exam or interview and see a sample of your work.” In product management and technology, interviews are not only a one-on-one conversation but a multi-level exam that evaluates and scrutinizes your acquired skills. Graduates who enter a technical interview expecting a simple chat, will soon find themselves embarrassed or underprepared.
Quality programs ensure this never occurs. Many programs offer mock interviews and portfolio evaluations that ensure you show up at interviews over-prepared. At Product Gym, we make sure that you are well-prepared to master your product management interview. We show you how to ace every single question in your Product Manager interview, from behavioral and technical questions to case studies and salary negotiation. Product Gym not only equips you with the tools you need for any potential interviews but also builds skills in negotiation. This way, you can convert those interviews into actual offers. Quality programs think through the entire hiring pipeline, from skill-building straight through to your first day of work.
Schools Are More Invested in Student Success
At the end of the day, schools that have career service offerings are more invested in student success. Instead of selling you classes to hopefully land you a better job, these programs actually get you the job, or as close as possible. Attending Product Gym means connecting to a large network of industry professionals, building a community of highly-skilled workers, and leaving with numerous work opportunities. They are as invested in your success as you are, and that should mean something.
They also help to prevent discouragement and procrastination from getting in the way of achieving your goals.
You can find an accountability buddy within our supportive Product Gym community, to spur you on and give you moral support, even when the going gets tough. They could be someone who is looking to make the transition to product management, just like you, or they could be someone who has already gotten a Product Manager role. Holding yourself accountable to your goals with an accountability partner will keep you on track to achieving them.
Want to Learn More?
If you’re learning the ropes of product management, it helps to have some support. Product Gym is a lifetime membership program for PMs, PM job hunters, and product people of all sorts. Getting people jobs in product management is our bread and butter: that makes us very good at assessing where you’re at in your job hunt and equipping you with the knowledge and skills you need to kickstart your dream career in product management.
If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of Product Manager skills and job search tactics, get in touch with us! We’re offering free career coaching sessions with our in-house team of PM Recruiter experts. We’d love to hear from you.
This piece was written by Erica Freedman, Content Marketing Manager at SwitchUp
