Ever since moving from a customer facing role to Product Manager I've had people reach out asking me about my experience and I love it. I get to help aspiring PMs and give them the support that I received when hopping on this train. I usually don't dive into their backgrounds as I figure it will come up during our chats, however I stumbled across the LinkedIn profile of someone I was meant to have a chat with.

To my astonishment, it looked like that person had already been a part of the product team — the team I am in — for two years. I had to check myself there for a minute and make sure I wasn't looking at the wrong profile.

But no, after checking and refreshing, the person — I'll call him Theon for the purposes of this post — Theon had blatantly lied on his LinkedIn. Not only had he lied about having the role for two years, but he also got creative with the description of the role and took credit for functionality that we'd released recently.

I was just so baffled that I didn't know what to do. I'm all for getting creative when highlighting relevant experience but lying is just a step too far, not to mention it is a fireable offence.

I will get off my soapbox before this becomes a rant about how disrespectful it is to everyone trying to make it as a PM legitimately - not for lack of material, trust me -but because this is not actually what this post is about.

You do not have to lie to get a job as a Product Manager.

If you remember anything from this story, please let it be this.

While I’m still angry at Theon for lying, he did inspire me to write this post about my journey into Product Management from a customer facing role. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t a straight path but it’s what worked for me, and it might work for you too.

Discovering Product Management

6 years ago, when I started at a SaaS company as a bright eyed Junior Project Manager, I didn’t know what Product Management was. As I started to get a feel for how the product worked I started having questions and that’s how I first got introduced to the then only PM we had. After a couple of months I befriended our newly hired 2nd PM and learned more about the role. It sounded so interesting and I was lucky that he really encouraged me to explore that interest and even apply for the role. I wasn’t quite ready yet but I don’t think I would have started down this path without that nudge.

Fast forward two years and a position opened up in our product team.

I applied.
I got rejected.
I was gutted.

I didn’t have enough experience and they didn’t have the bandwidth to mentor me. One person in the team didn’t even believe I wanted to be a PM and thought I had applied on a whim to get away from customers.

That rejection only made me more determined to become a PM and to prove all of them wrong. It took me a while but I did it. Here’s how.

Get to Know Your Product Managers

After realising I was interested in the role, I made it a point to get to know the PMs in the org and offer help where customer perspective was needed. This had multiple benefits:

• I got to know more about the role and what a PM actually does
• I positioned myself as a knowledgeable, eager, enthusiastic potential future candidate should a position open up

Get A Product Adjacent Role

I racked my brain for a while on how to get PM experience without actually being a PM —I figured the next best thing would be to work closely with them. So that’s what I did.

I applied for a role in Tech Operations and got to see the engineering side of the organisation as well. A role later opened up in Product Operations so I applied there and got closer and closer. I even did a short stint as a Scrum Master.

While those roles obviously are very different to what PM does, they gave me a solid understanding of the delivery process and the way that product works with engineering. It showed me how the puzzles pieces fit together and who the players are.

Try To Make The Switch Internally

One of my colleagues doing a product management course told me that she learned that there are 3 ways to land a job as a PM:

Industry knowledge, product knowledge, or PM experience.

Moving into product in a company where you already know the product and the people is easier because you already have 2 of the 3 elements above.

Own Your Experience

You might not have PM experience but you do have experience. In the words of Diane von Furstenberg ‘Own it’. Show how the experience you do have will make you a great PM.

Come from a customer success role? Highlight how you have great stakeholder management skills, you’ve got your ear close to the ground, and you know the product.

Do you work in social media? Explain how that has taught you to position improvements in a way that speaks to the users. You know how to build that brand!

No matter what you are doing now, you can use that experience in your future PM role.

Surround Yourself With Amazing People

This is the most important of all. I could not have gotten where I am today without my amazing colleagues, friends, husband. It is difficult to make a career switch but if you have the right people supporting you it will be that much easier.

I already mentioned one PM who encouraged me to explore the role but I didn’t mention my friend who made the move before me who let me shadow her when I asked.

I didn’t mention my partners-in-crime Project Management counterparts who supported me every step of the way and gave me pep talks throughout the process.

I didn’t mention my amazing husband who supports me no matter what and is always up for a healthy debate about Scrum practices.

So what happened with Theon? Baffled and honestly pissed as I was, I decided to have the chat with him and hear him out — no, tell him off. I’ll spare you the details but reflecting on it now, I think the saddest thing about this all, is that even though he could have made it without lying, he didn’t believe in himself enough to be honest and own his experiences.

So I want to leave you with this. If product is what you are passionate about, you can find your way there on your own merits. Just remember that your unique experiences are what will set you apart. Wear them with pride.