A JD that can find Yoda!

The Job Description should be an easy hint for a smart candidate to tweak her resume and prepare for the interview. It may sound controversial, but, I believe if someone is actually able to do that and crack the interview, they are worthy of an offer. :-)

Rant: Most Startup JDs I come across are poor copy-paste jobs of a lazy junior recruiter being coerced into doing it by the hiring manager (the actual person hiring for the role). If you haven't thought about it yet - the job description is your first impression, your first interaction with a potential hire. JDs are not supposed to be outsourced to a recruiter, it should be taken up by the hiring manager/founders themselves and should be the first step to the entire hiring process. Which means you start with JD and map the entire hiring process for the role accordingly. End of rant.


Here's my simple checklist that is good for any Job Description - Tech/Ops/Product/Mktg.

1. Exciting things about the company (Readable - 100 words - short paragraphs)
• Describe in 100 to 150 words divided into short paragraphs
• Describe how you are challenging the status quo in the industry, world
• What's been your startup's achievements so far
• What's been the impact and what is the potential impact of the work you do
2. Exciting things about the role, what a person gets to do, what's the potential impact this role can have on the product, the team or the company
• List of 3 to 5 Bullets
• Don't be too salesy - you should set the right expectations
• Mention your products( for PMs), technology (for Techies) you work on, clients (for Sales) you work with, tools or anything that is relevant for the role in context.
3. Perks and Benefits
• Bullet list of 4 to 8 points
• Include Both monetary and non-monetary benefits (like generous leave policy, food, insurance, etc.)
4. Eligibility (Qualifications, Experience level, Location, Nationality, Gender)
• Be as clear as it gets.
• If you are looking for premier college graduates only, please mention that upfront. Personally, I find that a discriminatory criterion, but being honest helps both you and the candidate.
• It helps to mention which criteria are hard and which ones are flexible. Is it B.E./B.Tech/MCA or only B.Tech.
5. Expectations (from an Ideal Candidate)
• Bulleted is better, 5-7 points are usually enough, beyond 10 is unreadable
• Put both Mandatory skills and the Good-to-have ones
• Being reasonable and clear is expected. If you are not going to ask someone to handle P&L, don't put that in expectations. It works both ways, the candidate will also expect to work on stuff that you put under expectations.
• It is understood that expectations may not match 100% with someone's skills and experience so keep room for that.

As I mentioned earlier, the interview process and type of questions should map to the job description. If you expect a person to work in ambiguity and don't evaluate for that skill - it would be such a waste of opportunity.

If this was helpful, please do leave a comment for the author. 

PM Job Seeker's Checklist

I've been helping a lot of techies and accidental PMs to understand the scope of Product Management. So many times that I was able to put most FAQs and basics in this short course. So while this covers the basics, people do come up with more questions on the role, some real challenges they are facing and also about getting the job of a product manager. 

Introduction To Product Management: ChalkStreet

One guy from IIM recently took up a BA role and is now looking to get into PM. But he wasn't getting any calls for job interviews. 

Here's what I suggested. I believe it is also the checklist for anyone looking for product roles:

1. Resume. Not sure if your Resume clearly indicates you are a good fit for the role. Look at the example of another sales guy trying to move to PM role. If you are moving from a non-PM to a PM role, you've to be extra careful that the Resume states clearly you are looking for a PM role, otherwise, the recruiter might just think they've picked an irrelevant resume and trash it. Look for all relevant JDs on Linkedin and tweak your resume to use all the keywords so that it can match those. Mostly the buzzwords are around specifications, PRD, wireframes, metrics, etc. Please make sure you compress your job summary to a 1-page resume. If you have more than 10 years of experience - you can think about a 2 Page as well. Not more than that. 

Before

After

More tips about how to write the BEST resume. 

2. Where can people find you? Better places for a PM role are Linkedin, Hirist, Instahyre, Angellist, Cutshort, and Naukri. Keep all these profiles updated. In fact, if you are applying for consumer profiles also keep Twitter, Facebook and other social profiles active and updated.    

3. Patience: Keep at it. It may take 3 to 6 months if you are doing all the right things, for relevant opportunities to open up. Apply, re-apply with personalized cover letters. Btw, the email that you write is a cover letter, don't write a separate one and attach it with your Resume. That's silly. 

4. Not just what you know, it is also about who do you know. Network! Networking is not just about sending LinkedIn requests. Attend good startup and product related events, join PM communities on FB, Linkedin, Meetup, Whatsapp. Meet people, learn from them, connect at different levels, ask questions, find out what people are looking for. Be active on social media. Engage with relevant folks and comment on their tweets or re-tweet them with your opinions. This will help you understand where you stand and how you can position yourself correctly. Look for ways in which you can help people. That's the best way to network.  

5. Prepare better. The chances you get will be limited, don't mess them up. If you haven't read some of the books like Cracking the PM Interview, Decode to Conquer your preparation may not be complete. At least read one of them. In general, as a PM you should be reading a lot of good books on business, startups, and product design. There are a lot of lists of good books available - here's one of mine. You are expected to know about and have opinions on trending technologies like Blockchain and Machine learning even if it is unrelated. You should also follow some current affairs about your domain. 

I am sure he'd get a job soon. I'd update when he does! :-) 

Update: 23/12/2017 - He is placed at Zynga Bangalore now. 

Update: A More updated deck from a recent workshop I took for Upgrad. In the deck, I talk about how to deal with different types of interview questions and assignments that you get as a part of the interview process.  


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How to write the BEST RESUME?

Most jobs still need resume. People are trying to disrupt it but Resume is STILL (as of today - June'16) very important. Writing the resume is serious exercise. Please spend some quality time on it.

Here are a few tips to get it right:

1.  Reduce the number of pages to single page. At maximum you can make it 2 pages. Yes, it works. yes, it works in India. Make sure it is either 1 page or 2 full pages. Half a page looks silly. When you do it you'd get rid of all unnecessary sections, redundant words and focus on extremely significant words and achievements. This itself makes your resume more powerful.

2.  Spell Check, Grammar check, Review. And get it reviewed from others whose resume may have worked. No points for guessing this is so critical. Ask friends in HR/Recruitment about how likely is your resume to get shortlisted - no one can tell you better than them.

3. Focus on quantitative aspects - How significant has been your role in past. Writing "Played a significant role..." is subjective. You need to objectify it using numbers. E.g. "Improved conversions by 5.4%". Throw as many numbers as you can. Or try to quantify the impact of your work in some other way. E.g. Saved a big account by reducing their costs.

4. Begin each sentence with an Action Verb. E.g. Managed a team of..., Created documentation for..., Improved signups by..., Increased lead pipeline by...

5. Format it for clarity. Don't make your resume look dull and monotonous. Make it scan friendly so that it highlights things that you want to talk about. If a person looks at it for 5 seconds, he should be able to remember 3 to 4 words that you'd want her to ask questions around.

6. Feel free to use colours, picture etc. But do not even think about it until all previous checkpoints are cleared.

7. Please make sure your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and provide a link on your Resume.

8. Please top up your resume with a personalized kickass cover letter that tells an organization/founder why you want to join them and why they should even look at your resume. Cover letters work. They are like the subject line of an email. Make it about them and not about you. Count how many I/Me have you used in your cover letter. Try to convert most of them to YOU/Your Organisation. Tell them how you can help them.

Comment here if you have any specific questions.





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