Updated: May 6, 2024- 6 min read
You want to experience leadership and connection. You want to own the Product and create something that puts a dent in the universe. We like to call them visionaries: those who have an idea and lead it every step of the way toward completion. For many people who start out as engineers, marketers, sales people or designers, Product Manager is a logical evolution in their careers. If you’ve thought about taking the leap, this post packed full with free product management resources that will break down exactly what you need to do.
Over the past six years, Product School has been privileged to host some of the best thinkers in Product Management. Speakers from companies like Google, Facebook, Uber, Tinder, Snapchat, and Apple have shared their top tips and industry secrets designed to help you get ahead in the PM world. These events have led to more than 250 blog posts summarizing the key takeaways from each speaker.
With so much information at your fingertips, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. This is why we’re creating this guide to help you navigate our Product Management resources. Just choose the area you want to study, and dive in to find the post that answers your questions.
Enjoy!
Learning The Ropes of Product Management
Product Management isn’t just a role – it’s a worldview. It’s a set of attitudes, habits, and skills that define how you approach problem-solving, how you communicate, how you lead, and even how you think. No one becomes a Product Manager overnight. These blog posts contain advice directly from some of the best PMs in the world, so you can look inside their heads, and adopt the mindset that makes them great.
Gain a Full Stack Knowledge of Product Management Tools
Product Management tools are every Product professionals bread and butter. As you grow in your career, you’re going to discover your ride-or-die favorites, and new loves. You may also find yourself needing to re-create your teams’ entire stack! So understanding the PM tool landscape will be critical.
Learn To Be Data Driven
All you have are opinions without data. Whether you’re chronically mathematically challenged or a bona fide Data Scientist, you can always stand to learn a little more about data.
Define Your Product Manager Career Path
If your goal is to be a Senior Product Manager at Google in 10 years, what should you be doing this year, next year, or five years from now? From junior and entry-level positions to Head of Product, Product Manager career paths vary depending on your background, but there are common steps and milestones. With advice for Product Managers of different levels as well as people just starting out, these articles will make sure you’re heading in the right direction.
Get Certified as a Product Manager
Take control of your career with courses designed to help you get your dream Product Management job and succeed in the role. At Product School, we’ll be teaching you both the hard skills you need to ship products to completion, and the soft skills you need to lead diverse teams, find a job, and thrive in the PM interview. All our instructors are real-world Product Managers currently working at top firms like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Live online courses are available with schedules designed to suit busy professionals. Our certifications offer clear progression based on where you are in your career:
Product Manager Certificate (PMC): Land your first Product Manager job
Product Leader Certificate (PLC): Level-up to lead Product teams.
Hone Your Product Management Skills
What exactly do you need to do to succeed as a Product Manager? Let’s dive deeper into skills like coding, public speaking, design, marketing and business development that will help you get ahead in the competitive PM space. What makes Product Management different is that you need both soft skills like leadership, influence, creativity, innovation, AND hard skills like coding, design, engineering, etc. When combined, your hard and soft skills result in something magical we call product insight. These posts will help you get there.
Develop Your Product Leadership Skills
Even entry-level Product Managers are leaders, which means no matter which step of the career ladder you’re on, you need to be honing your leadership skills. As you advance, you may need to become more of a people-leader as well as a Product-leader. So you can always benefit from growing as a leader.
Nail the Product Management Interview
Everything comes down to the interview. You can have a glistening resume, the best idea since sliced bread, and recommendations from Mark Zuckerberg himself… but if you blow the interview, it’s back to sleeping on your best friend’s couch. This is why we've created dozens of resources specifically aimed at helping you get the right PM interview answers, including the exact kinds of questions you’re likely to be asked, and more. Check it out!
What’s the Average Product Manager Salary?
You’re not in it for the money alone, but it helps to know the Product Manager is a well-compensated position. Salary will vary depending on your experience and location – a PM in Boston will be paid differently from a manager in Australia or Germany, but a six-figure paycheck is by no means out of the question. Learn more about what you can expect from your Product Manager’s salary in this article:
More Resources
It takes more than a blog to make a great Product Manager of course! So we’ve created a plethora of other resources to help you along the way:
ProductCon – The largest online Product Management conference in the world!
The Product Podcast – We have a brand new series, where we interview the best minds in product from companies like Twitch and Google.
Books – Whether you want to browse a copy of our MVP The Product Book or our latest guide to The Product Mindset, we’ve got you covered.
Updated: May 6, 2024
