🎧 How to Job Search in a "Bad" Market (without burning out)
LinkedIn will convince you that the job market for Product Managers is at an absolute standstill. Good news - that's not the full story.
The current job market is tricky, yes, but there ARE techniques that are working for job searchers and I break them all down in this episode:
The importance of having a clear job search strategy
Avoiding the pitfalls of trial and error
The value of personalized support during the job search process
Could you use some support on your product job search?
Whether you’re new to Product Management or looking for your next role, the job search can be tough. If know you need guidance, strategy, and end-to-end support, learn more about my SPRINT coaching program that helps Product Managers land their first (or next!) role.
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Jess Sherlock (0:00)
Now is not the time to try to be the PM who can also do product ops, who can also do some product marketing, can work on, web or mobile or API or reporting platforms and can work across ad tech, fintech, health tech, whatever you need, I can do everything you need. Even if that is true, trust me when I say,
selecting the handful of things that represent your zone of genius, That is going to help recruiters and hiring managers identify you from the pack
Jess Sherlock (00:27)
Welcome to another episode of AFTER THE CERT the career podcast for product managers who've collected all the certifications and taken all the courses and still feel stuck in their product career. I'm your host, Jess Sherlock, product management career coach. I know firsthand what it feels like to be overwhelmed, lonely, and stuck in your product career. And I'm on a mission to help you feel confident and empowered to take the lead your product career and achieve your unique career goals.
on me for practical and actionable advice, plus relatable stories from PMs navigating the messy middle of their career.
And remember, if you're feeling stuck with your product management job search, worried about making a great impression during your first 90 days in a new product job, or you want to position yourself for a promotion at work, I'm here to help. You can check out my coaching programs at jesssherlock.com/apply.
and book time on my calendar so we can chat.
Let's get into it.
Jess Sherlock (01:24)
Hey everyone, I want to talk to you today about this bad quote unquote job market that we are in, because if you spend any time on LinkedIn, you will get a constant barrage of data and information and personal stories where folks are talking about what is not working, that they've been maybe searching for months or years. And you you'll be hearing these horror stories about people being ghosted after nine, 10, 12 rounds of interviews.
You know what? I have no doubt that those stories are true. But I suspect that what you're not hearing about is the job searches that are going well. The people who are focusing on what works to have success in the current job market. So I want to spend some time today to offer a different perspective and also suggest a few areas where...
No matter when you jump into the job market, but especially during a challenging one, these are things you should be focused on in order to really make sure that you're on the right track for having success and finding that next
Now, before we dive into these specific things that I want to offer, I want to talk a bit about a market in general, because every market is going to have ups and downs. If we think about the housing market, for example, there's rarely a situation in which there's truly no movement, right? I bet during COVID maybe and at some other points in history, there were truly no houses being sold.
But most of the time, what we're actually experiencing is a natural ebb and flow of a market. And so in the housing market, we see this ebb and flow between it being a buyer's market and a seller's market. And those differences will create a different experience as you're purchasing a home. So if you're choosing to purchase a home and more of a seller's market, you may not be able to negotiate as strongly as you would in a buyer's market.
there may not be as many options on the market because it's so competitive, for example. Now, if you flip the script and you join the housing market to try to find your next home when it's more of a buyer's market, you may have more choices. You may have more ability to negotiate, And in either instance, you can have success, but you will experience different trade-offs as you go through the journey. And so similarly with the job market,
we have this concept of more of a candidate's market and more of an employer's market. And so if we really look at what's going on in the current market, what we're seeing is not that there's truly no movement, although I hear this often from folks where they'll say something to the effect of, it seems like everything is frozen up when really what you're experiencing is the effects of a whole lot of competition and employers having a whole lot of options,
imagine yourself as an employer or a hiring manager or a recruiter. If it's a situation where you have your pick of the litter, know, everybody and their brother's looking for a job, very, very experienced people are on the job market, then you get to really be choosy with who you decide to go after. You get to negotiate more aggressively than you might when less talent on the market.
You can also ask more of those candidates because presumably you have a deeper pool of candidates that have applied. And so if you want to run folks through more and more rounds of interviews, more aggressive rounds of evaluation or projects, then, you know, hey, I'm not here to say that you should, employers certainly can because from their perspective, there's like this endless pool of qualified talent out there.
And so we're going to see these natural trade-offs going to experience these natural consequences of the market being either a candidate's market or an employer's market. So I guess I first wanted to share that mindset so that we can
set down this mirage that there is this perfect market we can somehow sit around and wait for, There are certainly better or worse times, but those even are subjective because I guess the question is going to come down to like, what is it that you're looking for, right? So if you're looking for speed to a new role, then yeah, I suppose it's going to be easier if there aren't as many candidates out there looking for a job.
But right now as a maybe alternate viewpoint, here's what I'll tell you. I think employers are having to really evaluate talent differently because they have such a surplus of talent. I also think that employers are having to be much more specific about what they're looking for because they're going to get so many applicants for any job that they open. So all that to say in
any market, we just so happen to be in one that is definitely in of employers because there's so many candidates on the market at the moment, there are a few things that you can do as a candidate to set yourself up for success. So let's walk through these three items together.
The first thing that I've been recommending to everyone that I'm speaking with, and this includes folks that are in my SPRINT program job searching, or folks who are reaching out to me for advice. The absolute top piece of advice that I'm giving every single person I'm talking to about the current job market is you absolutely, positively must have a clear strategy. You must be super duper clear about what types of jobs you're going after.
and what your unique superpower is. Now is not the time to try to be everything to everyone. And this drives me crazy, honestly, because I see really smart folks who have a really strong set of skills letting fear take over. And I think that this is very natural where we get this feeling that, my goodness, I need a job. So let me try to broaden the net. Let's try to like expand.
expand the types of companies, types of industries, types of products, types of roles. And I'll look at LinkedIn pages for these folks or resumes for these folks. And what I'll see is they have such a range of possible job titles, possible skills that they might leverage in the role, industries that they can work in, that what it ends up doing is diluting the power of your candidacy for a role. And not to mention that a hiring manager or recruiter
who has a huge pile of candidates to go through, they are not gonna spend the time trying to connect the dots that you aren't connecting for them. So when I say clear strategy, this means things like what level of PM roles should you be going after? Should you be targeting individual contributor type roles, management or people leadership type roles? What sort of scope of ownership should you be going after? What?
type of product or type of industry. Because here's what I'll tell you, in a market that is difficult
and in an economy that is uncertain, employers, wherever possible, are looking to reduce risk. So when they're evaluating you as a candidate, I want to offer you this kind of view into the other side. So a hiring manager is looking at you as a candidate, thinking to themselves, can this person have an impact quickly on the thing that I need them to focus on? And when you big stack of candidates that you're evaluating,
Sure, you're looking at skills. You're looking at how this person pitches themselves. But really, if I had to boil it down for you, they're looking at your resume and they're assessing you in an interview based on whether they have a high amount of confidence that you can do the thing they're hiring you to do. Hopefully with as little intervention as possible, right? With as much autonomy as possible because chances are most organizations are resource constrained right now.
So now is not the time to be hiring people that are gonna need a ton of coaching.
So the absolutely most important thing that I would recommend for you if you are in the job search right now is to establish a super duper clear job search strategy where you are very clear about the types of jobs that you are going to be the strongest fit for and you position yourself from resume to LinkedIn to pitch to narrative aligned with that message. So Now is not the time to try to be
PM who can also do product ops, who can also do some product marketing, who can, you know, manage people if you need them to. And you can work on, you know, web or mobile or API or reporting platforms and can work across ad tech, fintech, health tech, you know, basically whatever you need, I can do everything you need. Even if that is true, trust me when I say,
selecting the handful of things that represent your zone of genius, The areas where you are absolutely the most capable so that you can serve those things up as the primary things you're going to sell yourself on. That is going to help recruiters and hiring managers identify you from the pack or from the, you know, stack of other resumes that they might be looking at.
So number one, clear strategy. All right. Number two,
as much as possible, you want to avoid spinning your wheels on trial and error. So if you do any Googling and hopefully, hopefully this hasn't been you, but chances are it has been you. If you ask 10 different people for their opinion about, you know, what should be in your resume or how it should be laid out or what the format should be or how you should answer certain types of interview questions, listen, you will get 10 different answers. And I know that that is so frustrating, but
What you want to do is have a proven strategy that you're following, Proven templates that you know are ATS friendly, proven approaches for prepping for interviews and navigating certain types of interviews. You don't want to take the chance that the way you're preparing or the way that you are approaching the job search is your best guess at any given moment, Because chances are that's just going to extend the amount of time that it takes you to get it right.
So I would strongly encourage you to follow a proven approach. And if you don't have one, SPRINT is a proven approach. We've had over a hundred people go through the SPRINT program and all of these folks have started with a brand new resume that we know works. They've gone through creating an application and job search strategy that gives them that clear alignment from the very beginning of what sorts of roles they're gonna target.
And we offer mock interview prep to make sure that all the time you spend preparing is on the highest leverage things that you can practice. often tell folks, especially if you're working a full-time job or your time and energy is limited, it's hard enough to make time for a job search. mean, you work a full day of work, you get home, who wants to go find jobs to apply to and figure out
what you should put in your cover letter or whether or not you should send an outreach message to the recruiter. And if so, what should it say, right? Gosh, it's exhausting just to think about. So what I describe SPRINT as is not only a proven approach, but it's kind of like having a personal trainer. if you have a personal trainer, all you have to worry about is showing up to the gym. The personal trainer will help make sure that...
You know what to do. You're not going to hurt yourself and you're focused on the most impactful things based on what you're trying to accomplish. So SPRINT is the exact same way. If you're trying to find a job, don't waste your precious time and energy Googling around and trying to find the latest opinion on how you should put together your resume or whether or not you should have a cover letter, whether or not you should have a portfolio. Let us worry about it.
Day in and day out, we're helping people with the job search. We know what matters. We know what moves the needle. And all you have to do is put it into action. So we will be your personal trainer for your job search. So all you have to do is show up and we can make sure that every minute you spend is on the thing that's going to move the needle right now.
All right, so the first thing you need is that clear strategy. The second thing you need is a proven approach so that you're not guessing and playing the trial and error game.
And the third thing that is really important in a job market that is going to take extra work and likely extra time is really personalized day-to-day support. So job searching is hard enough. It is a really vulnerable activity. There's a lot of rejection and there's a lot of things that you kind of wonder like, that normal? I just had an interview. This happened. Did I handle that situation the right way? Did...
Did I follow up in the right way? Did I say the right thing? Right? can be, you can really spiral and you know, even if everything's going really well, you can kind of convince yourself it's going off the rails, And so sometimes having that support around you so that you can trust that what you're going through is normal or, that objective opinion of how to deal with a tricky situation in the moment.
personalized support and community really goes a long way for all the stuff in between because the resume, for example, is just one piece of the puzzle. The hard part comes when you actually get the interview and then you end up in three or four or five rounds of interviews where they're having you prep in certain ways, unique questions or situations come up and you need that sounding board to get input from.
I can remember a situation with a client who was having real success in an interview process online marketing tech platform, I suppose you'd call it. Anyways, she had really been nailing her resume and her application strategy. She was a really tremendous candidate, had really solid interview skills as well. impressed me with her approach using the STAR methodology for her interview responses without sounding robotic.
Anyways, she had made it through, I think, three or four rounds of this company. It was clear that they were very excited about her and she was under the impression she was about to get an offer. And then they threw her a curve ball, right? If you're job searching, you know what I'm talking about. There's always a curve ball of some kind. Anyways, her curve ball was that they randomly and suddenly wanted her to meet with the VP of product.
This person from the very beginning was never supposed to be a part of the interview process. This person had never been mentioned. So it was a real curve ball that this person was going to be brought into the interview process. you can imagine in that moment, she started to really ask herself all these questions of like, okay, is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? What might this person want to know about? How should I handle it? Should I handle it the same way I've handled all the other interviews? And so you can kind of see how...
The panic sets in a little bit, the anticipation and worry starts to settle in. And in that moment, this is what I love about the SPRINT program is that we don't just get you your resume, do a couple mock interview prep questions and then send you on your way and wish you luck. We're there till you get the offer and we help you negotiate that offer to get the best situation for you. And in this particular instance
When she found out she had the interview with the VP, it was as simple as her sending a DM to the coaching team and saying, hey, here's what's happened. We have, you know, all of us had the background already, myself included on what she had been going through with this particular company, what I meant important, what had been going well or not. And I was able to jump in with a quick voice memo. think it was,
I remember I had just eaten dinner. was kind of late and I knew she was in the late stages of interviews. So I was keeping my eye on the direct messages. I just can't help it. Anyways, I see this message come through from her and I immediately realized that this is actually a really good thing. And every situation is going to be different, but usually when a high level person like that is brought into a conversation suddenly, that usually signals one of two things in my opinion. One is that
they have identified a possible additional piece of responsibility that they might want this person to have. And so they want a senior leader to evaluate this person for that. So for example, maybe the organization had planned on a high risk initiative and they weren't initially intending for this person to run that initiative later this year, let's say.
But now that they've met this person, they're going, ⁓ interesting. This person's skill set and interests really aligns. Maybe we would want to grow them into this other thing or plan to move them to this other thing. So that's a really good thing in my opinion. So I gave her that feedback, but I also mentioned that, and of course she didn't see either of these things coming.
This was the value of her being able to ping us to say, ⁓ my goodness, they're having me meet with the VP, what does it mean? So very quickly I was like, well, it could be a good thing because they see a bigger opportunity for you and they wanna have this person maybe gauge your fit or ability or maybe interest. Or number two, the other reason why a senior leader might be brought into a PM interview like this is to actually sell you.
Now you're probably going, what are you talking about, Jess? Well, at smaller organizations, or not even small startups, but like pre-IPO mid-sized companies when the founders and leaders are still heavily, heavily involved in hiring, which this company was, when I see a VP come into the hiring process that late in the game, like this person had already done their one-on-one interviews, panel interviews. She even did a take-home assignment, right? So we're like,
basically expecting an offer. So if they're wanting to wanting you to meet with the VP at that stage, that could also be as simple as they think you might not, you know, maybe they're worried you wouldn't accept the offer or they really want to make sure that you accept the offer. So a lot of times they'll bring in a founder or a leader like that to sweeten the deal and
really kind of sell you on the organization, the vision for where the company is going. And so if you're a really exceptional candidate and they want to make sure that you're going to accept that offer, a lot of times they'll devote a little bit of senior leadership time to relationship building and really engage in a conversation with you to get you excited about accepting the role at the company. They'll talk about how it's a pivotal time and how you'll play a pivotal role in the growth of the company. And it's all actually a really good thing.
So back to this point, right? This personalized support is often the most valuable at these points that we could have never anticipated. imagine if she had gone on this journey on her own. I have no doubt she could have gotten an interview. I have no doubt she would have nailed the interviews. She was a very good interviewee. But when it came to of having to interview with a VP, this was the first time she had done that.
And her initial reaction was that it was a negative sign. Her initial reaction was one of fear and overwhelm going, my goodness, what on earth should I say to the VP? And with just a couple minutes of coaching through an evening voice memo from me, I was able to reframe that entire situation and create an experience where she went into that interview with so much more confidence and such a better
frame of mind that I think ultimately was a huge contributor of her impressing yet another person on the hiring team and ultimately getting a really competitive offer and some significant options in this company. the three things to recap. Number one, if you're job searching, you should absolutely have a super clear job search strategy of the types of roles that you're going to be the most competitive for. So you can be hyper-targeted.
on the right types of roles at the right types of companies and tell a really compelling story. Number two, now is not the time to be spinning your wheels on trial and error, trying to Google, you know, the best ATS friendly resume approach or Googling, the 300 product questions you should prep for. But instead I would encourage you to really focus your time and energy because it has the chance to be a long haul effort in a market like this.
So spend your time and energy with a proven approach that you know has a high likelihood to pan out because it has worked for so many other PMs. And finally, don't discount the benefit of having personalized support. It can be really challenging at times. So really having ways to develop your own resilience, have grit, and navigate positively through all the rejection that is likely to happen.
because it only takes one yes, right? But along the way you're gonna get a lot of no's. So that personalized support that you can tap into when you need it, especially for those curve balls is so, so, so important.
Well, if you are job searching, I wish you the absolute best of luck and I would encourage you to think about how you might take action from this episode. So where do you feel like you're struggling the most? Is it around maybe an unclear job search strategy? Are you trying to be everything to everyone? If so, maybe this is your sign to get a little more focused with the types of jobs you're targeting and the way in which you're pitching yourself.
Or are you struggling with the approach? Are you noticing that you're spending lots and lots of time spinning your wheels on how to approach the job search rather than just getting into the motion and building momentum with good solid applications? Or are you noticing that you're feeling a bit lonely, that you wish you could have a bit more personalized support, a sounding board that you could tap into when things get hard?
so if you really like the idea of having a personal trainer for your job search so that you can have some one-on-one support, putting together a clear job search strategy, proven templates and techniques for not only getting the interview, but nailing the job interviews when you do get them. And finally, having that personalized support and sounding board that you can tap into any time, then I'd strongly encourage you to look into SPRINT.
And can reach out to me in one of two ways. You can either find me on LinkedIn, Jess Sherlock, and send me a DM, or you can check out jesssherlock.com/sprint and book an alignment call so we can chat. And that's jesssherlock.com/sprint And from that page, you can take a look at how we might work together and you can set up an alignment call so that we can chat and make sure that SPRINT would be the right fit for you.
I'd love to hear from And I'll see you next time on AFTER THE CERT
