🎧 Why You Should Have a Vision for Your Career
You have a vision for your product, so shouldn't you have one for your career?
A clear, compelling, personal career vision helps you say yes to the right things so you can move closer to your definition of success, FASTER.
In this episode, I share real stories about how a career vision helped me and one of my clients leverage opportunities that we otherwise might have missed.
If you're feeling unmotivated, stuck, or burnt out in your current product management role, listen to this episode for actionable ideas to get movitated again.
Ready to SHINE in your Product Management career? ✨
Learn more about my SHINE 1:1 coaching program for Product Managers seeking promotion and greater leadership impact. It's designed to help you grow your confidence, stand out as a strategic thinker, and take the next big step in your career.
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Jess Sherlock (00:00)
Your career should be working for you, not for your manager, not for your company.
not for the expectations of someone who follows you on LinkedIn, for you. And you know how in your personal life they say like, don't try to keep up with the Joneses, right? It's the same thing in your professional life.
Jess Sherlock (00:16)
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 (01:13)
everyone! want you to imagine trying to build a product without a clear vision. And unfortunately for some of you this might actually be a real challenge that you're facing in your current role. So I'm sorry if I'm hitting on a sore spot. But let's talk about what happens when you're trying to build a product without a clear vision. So usually prioritization is super difficult, if not impossible.
everything seems important, everything seems urgent, and you're kind of left reactive, you can't really lead, you can't make strategic bets, and usually morale is low because there's no long-term vision that we're all looking towards, it's not really clear what success is going to look like, sometimes it even feels like your work doesn't matter, you're just kind of busy and reactive
but it feels like you're not actually getting anything done, right? You're not feeling that progress. And because everything seems equally important, you're just saying yes to everything because what other choice do you have? Usually too, you're on the verge of burnout, like basically all the time. And so the best product vision really acts as a filter. It gives you something on which you can anchor your decisions.
It's something that lets you say, yes, this feature makes sense. Or maybe, but not right now. Or nope, that definitely doesn't make the cut. And guess what? You need the same level of clarity for your career. Without a clear vision, every job is going to seem like it could be a fit. Every project that you're offered or thrown seems like it's gonna be worth your time.
every certification you see or course that you see on LinkedIn that yet another PM has completed that you haven't completed and they post it to their LinkedIn, it seems like a reminder of what you haven't done, right? Or something that you have to add now to your to-do list, but really, should you? And after all these years developing my own career, but also coaching hundreds of PMs through their own,
There are some common signals that tell me that you might be missing a clear career vision. So, number one, Usually PMs who are missing a clear career vision are measuring themselves against other PMs instead of their past self. They're pretty reactive to what they're hearing about.
They're saying things like, should I get that one certification that so-and-so got or should I take that new course? Or right now, right? It's all about AI. Should I learn that next low code, no code tool? What should I be learning about AI? Can you give me a course recommendation for AI? It's all very reactive and almost feels like it's coming from a place of fear as opposed to a genuine place of curiosity and excitement. Signal number two.
is when I see folks giving away their power to their job or even directly to their manager, really giving the job or their manager the ability to decide what's next for their career for them. So these people are saying things like, well, I don't really like working on this type of product or in this type of industry or with this sort of team, but you know, that's what I got assigned to.
Right? Or I'd like to go after a promotion, but you know, that's not something that I think I'm able to do. So it's really about kind of having a backseat role, if you will, to your own career. And the third signal that I see is that folks can't seem to get back that, like je ne sais quoi, that passion for product. It's like day in and day out is just this endless drudgery.
And you can kind of tell that these people are on the verge of burnout. They're saying things is product for me anymore? I don't even know, like, am I any good at this? Do I even want to do this anymore? And maybe as I share these three signals, they sound familiar to you. And if they do, I want to encourage you to take the time to act. I'm going to give you some ways to put this into action as always today, but...
I don't want you to feel like this has to be a huge lift. This isn't one of those like, you know, what's your five-year plan sort of things, because that's just like super annoying and overwhelming. And honestly, like a little bit too logical. So that's not what we're going for here. Chances are somewhere deep inside...
in your intuition, in your gut, whatever you want to call it, you probably know what you want. You probably already know what your career vision is, but it's not something that is top of mind or it's not something that you're actively using to make decisions.
All right, so why don't I share a little bit about my career vision and maybe this will help to kind of reignite your own inner wisdom about what you're really looking for out of your career. So a little background is going to be helpful here. So I grew up in a very small town in upstate New York. A lot of folks in that area either went into the military, worked in things like corrections, or they worked in the trades. And my dad, for example, for a long time worked in the trades himself. He worked in heating and air conditioning.
And I remember for many years he worked for other people and other companies. And I think it was around middle school when he got fed up with his boss and decided he was going to work for himself. And that's what he did. And all these years later, he still has his own small business. He's somewhat retired, golf's on the regular, but he still does projects here and there. And so he had a lot of flexibility. He could dictate his own schedule. He could decide which clients he wanted to work with.
You know, being somebody who works in air conditioning in upstate New York, there's no shortage of business. And so there were times when he worked evenings or weekends, but it was always when he chose to. And so that was a really interesting thing for me to see as, you know, a kid in middle school thinking about what I might want out of my career. Now combine that with the fact that personally, I never really liked authority. I was always super independent, super responsible. And
Even after I got out of college, I was working freelance roles. This was back when I was doing more like film related things and television production things. So I was a freelance production assistant, a freelance editor. Way back in the early 2000s, I really enjoyed being accountable to myself. And there was always this sense that I wanted to have my own business. I wanted to be my own boss. That was just this like very clear inner knowing that I had.
And over the years, I think this informed a lot of the decisions that I made about the jobs that I took, about the people that I chose to work with. And my first PM role, my first product management role was actually the best example of my career vision coming into play. And I think it was around this time where I started to really take action based on my career vision in a pretty intentional way.
So if you're curious about my whole career story, I have a whole episode on that. I won't repeat that here. I want to highlight specifically this first role that I took as a PM where I was the first product management hire outside of the founding team at the small B2B startup that had just raised its Series A round of funding.
when I interviewed, I interviewed actually directly with the product founder at the time, and there was a founding team of three. And as I got to know the company and the team during the interview process, it was very clear to me that I was going to be able to learn the ins and outs of the business. This was a startup. This was a highly collaborative in-person role. There was an expectation that I was going to be super independent, but also very lockstep.
with the founding team because this particular role, like I said, was the first PM hire outside of the founding team. So there wasn't gonna be any sort of like official onboarding process. This was definitely, you're gonna get thrown into the deep end and you're gonna do a lot of stuff that may not be quote, the job. you know, I remember at that time when I was thinking about the job, that was really exciting to me to think that I was going to have...
deep conversations with the folks who are running this business. I was going to get to see behind the scenes. And I knew that they had strong values around transparency. And when I thought about the fact that I wanted to start my own business someday, it was an absolute no brainer. And looking back, I I spent nearly four years in that role. And anytime I had the chance, I jumped in head first to learn. Like I can remember late night conversations when maybe we just signed a new client or had a new ⁓
new client pitch that was coming up and we were late into the evening sitting in the founders office talking through business challenges, making last minute adjustments to product strategy, batting around ideas and really talking about not just like at a feature level should we do this thing, but how is this going to stack us up against competitors? How's this going to impact our profitability? Is this a smart long-term decision?
Right? like all of this exposure to conversations that I'd never really gotten to be a part of in previous jobs. when I joined, we had just raised our series A. Within, I think, about 18 months, we raised our series B. And our VCs, backers, were very involved and wanted regular presentations on our product roadmap, on various product stats and product strategy. And so
There were a few times where I presented directly to investors, but many times where I was putting together the content that would be presented to investors, things that went into our pitches to even land funding. So while my CEO or my co-founders were out actually trying to get additional funding before we raised our Series B, I was definitely one of the main contributors to putting together content.
for how we would pitch this investment to those investors, right? So really having to deeply understand not just this business, but what's going on in the market broadly for investments in this type of product and how do you get investors to think this is a strong investment? And even once they did invest, having to make sure that they felt like their money was being put to good use. The other thing that I learned there was how to read a
P&L how to understand and read a P&L. I didn't go to business school. I went to film school and I didn't know what a P&L was. So if you're listening and you're going, don't know what a P&L is, it's a profit and loss statement. This is really the most important document, I suppose, to understanding the actual health of the business. think of it as almost like a one pager readout of on the top line. It's your total gross earnings. So if the company made a million dollars that year, that number's at the top.
And then there are a series of expenses essentially that are taken out of that top line revenue and grouped in certain categories that allow you to understand things like salary expenses versus software expenses versus maybe cost of your goods sold. in software, one of the biggest costs of goods sold is salaries, but next best is or next most expensive is usually related fees.
P&L really shows you your profitability, what your expenses are, then, and I should mention at the very bottom, it would say your net profit, being able to understand features that I was building, how they were impacting, for example, cost to serve. So there were a lot of features that I worked on related to creating internal tools, for example, that enabled our customer success team members
to service more clients more effectively, therefore allowing us to have to hire fewer customer success managers. Okay, so by understanding the dynamics of our revenue and our costs in the P&L and understanding how my projects were contributing to meaningful changes in that P&L has, I mean, when I look back on it, that's not something I would have learned otherwise. And I personally learn better
on the job, I like to learn in the moment. And so when I think about, going and doing an MBA or taking business classes, that just doesn't feel nearly as powerful to me as those learning experiences that I got on the job all those years ago. You know, in addition to that, like one could argue that a lot of those things that I did, like learning the P&L like that wasn't quote unquote the job, but
Because I knew about myself that I wanted to have my own business someday it was easy for me to see those opportunities as incredibly valuable to me personally and so it created a sense of purpose in that job Above and beyond the you know purpose I had of just being a part of a team at a growing startup that was having a lot of success long story short
I went on to start my own business, which is now this coaching business. And I don't talk about this a lot, but I also co-founded an edtech startup. This was a product that was sort of like the Duolingo for social emotional learning. We actually raised a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of angel money. And, I don't know that I would have gone on to do that as confidently had I not had that experience in my first product role.
And so that job played a huge role in what came next for me and was really such a huge part of my career experience to date. Now, I want to share one more story with you about a senior PM I was coaching a couple years ago. It's one of my favorite clients. Her company wanted her to take this very long, intensive course.
on a kind of obscure industry specific piece of software because they wanted someone to be the resident expert in it and for whatever reason they had identified her. the company, you know, had pitched this to her. They said they would cover the costs. But as she got thinking about it, she realized, you know what, this is going to take weeks of training. This is going to be above and beyond my current job. And this is going to like...
all but guarantee that she was going to be spending less time on actual product work if she was now the go-to expert on this piece of software. And as many of you might do if you're in a similar situation, you know, at first you kind of go along with it because it's like, you know, I guess that's what the company needs me to do. That's what they're expecting me to do. And so this had been happening for a week or two.
and was all but decided and was kind of a like offhanded remark. Actually, when we got into a coaching session, she was just kind of giving me an update of what had been going on and that she was going to be signing up for this course. And I knew her well enough because we had done some work around her career vision to know that this sounded a bit off. And it sounded to me like she was kind of going into autopilot of just a little bit of people pleasing, a little bit of short term thinking and
In that moment, I paused her and I said, you hey, listen for a second. Is this actually something that you want to become an expert in? And it's always amazing to me how that small question can be such a moment of awakening. And it really was. I could see the look on her face where she was like, my goodness, what am I doing?
And it was really clear. It was a really clear no for a couple reasons actually number one and maybe the most obvious reason is She knew and we knew she did not want to stay in this industry forever and this particular piece of software was really industry specific this wasn't like Pendo or Mixpanel where you know no matter which industry you work in it's a good idea to learn a product analytics tool like that because
then you've got this skill to bring into a future role. In this particular situation, this piece of software was pretty obscure and not something that she was going to want to add to her resume, not something that was going to make her any more appealing of a candidate and really was likely to be a distraction. Plus, in this stage of her career, what she really wanted to be doing was getting in good solid reps of PM work.
And again, if she's going to learn this piece of software, become a resident expert, you can just imagine how distracting that would be on a day-to-day basis to be the only person who knows this particular tool and to now be like the company's, personal support team basically with that software. Anyways, it was very clear very quickly with that one simple question that this was not a fit for her career vision. And you might be thinking, well, gosh, Jess, how do you
your company know? Well, you usually can't. But you can try to find a win-win. And in this particular instance, we just talked through how she could approach this with her manager to find a win-win solution. And what she ended up doing was actually there was a shorter course that she could take. It was a more abbreviated course on the topic. And it was enough to make her effective in her current role so that she could just do her day job. But
She also suggested that it wasn't really smart for the company to only have one person who knew the tool, which makes a lot of sense, right? Like, why have one person? Then if that one person decides to take a different job, you're now stuck without knowledge. So multiple people on the team were trained in the tool, so then she wasn't the only person with experience. So I hope those two stories kind of give you an understanding of
the value of having a clear career vision that's personal to you. And one way I like to think about it is that it's kind of like making sure that the ladder you're climbing is actually leaning against the right wall.
So now you might be wondering, okay, Jess, like what is it? Is it a document? Is it a slide deck? Does it take me a long time to create? And like, here's the thing, it's really up to you. have some things that I can use to help you put this together, but I've seen clients handle this in a few different ways. So for me, it was just always this gut feeling that I wanna be my own boss. That was the vision that was always clear to me.
For that one client I was just telling you about, she had actually created a vision board like six months before that conversation. that was just a creative exercise that she really enjoyed. And so that was what she had created to represent her own personal career vision. For other clients, I will often have them write a letter to themselves from their future So,
I have an exercise that I'll run folks through where I'll say, I want you to imagine yourself a certain number of years from now and you get to decide how far in the future it is. I usually tell people make it at least a year in the future so that something significant has the opportunity to change. But consider that the further out you go, the squishier it might be. So it's sort of dependent on whether you've had a vision before. If you haven't, you probably would
be well served to start with a smaller timeframe. But the point is it's not some like specific, formal 10 page document. It's just a sense, some sort of sense of what better looks like for you so that you can get started. And you can always adjust. I have clients adjust often where one example that I swear I've come across this two or three times is
folks who have a vision of being a people leader and really moving into a more strategic leadership role. But then as they start to get a taste for it, they realize it's actually not something that they're enjoying. And so they adjust and that's fine. The other thing that can happen is as you hit different life stages, maybe you become a parent, those life stages may influence what's really important to you in your career. And so
This is not something that you have to write in stone, that you have to live with forever, but it is something that if it's not there, it's going to be really right decision for you at any given time.
So when I work with my SHINE clients, and this is a program for experienced PMs who are kind of in the messy middle of their career, these are folks who are feeling stuck, who are feeling like their title doesn't actually represent all of their hard work, or this is people who are bored or burnt out or frustrated with their product job. And so the very first thing that we do in the SHINE program is...
we stop with this like trying to fix the current job and trying to troubleshoot all the problems we're seeing And instead we need to start asking, what do we actually want to optimize for? Where are we heading? Because once we actually know what matters, all of these decisions get easier, right? people will come to me saying, should I take that recruiter call? Should I start a job search?
Should I leave product entirely? Should I do this side project? Should I ask for a promotion? And it's like, we got to figure out where you're going. I don't have the answer to that, but it's in you somewhere. And when we start to get clear on your vision, the clarity is honestly kind of magical. It's like this unlock to seeing what actually matters to you so that you can make these decisions with much more confidence.
So step one in the SHINE program is always getting to know you. I wanna get crystal clear on who you are. So what are the things that energize you? What are your strengths? What do you care about? Like, what do you actually care about? Not the stuff you've been praised for. What do you actually care about? And maybe even at this stage of your life, what are your non-negotiables?
That one client I told you the story about where they wanted her to take that course.
Flexibility and being able to focus on family time outside of work was really important She had a young son who she wanted to spend time with and If she committed to taking this course that was gonna eat up a lot of time outside the day job So for her one of her non-negotiables had to do with work-life balance or schedule and so
Step one is really about understanding what makes you tick, what makes you you, because we want to be able to root everything that we do from here in who you are.
Step two in the SHINE program is about figuring out where you want to go. this is not picking the next rung on the standard product management career ladder necessarily, but it's also not, what's my dream job? What's my dream life? Fantasy. I never want to work. Like, I mean, maybe that's it, but the idea is that it isn't a fantasy. It's like we want to talk.
Personal about what's important to you, but also practical so we're gonna be talking about things like What kind of work feels the most fulfilling for you? What kind of impact do you want to have? So a lot of times one of the common themes I hear from folks is that they're feeling like their work isn't making a difference in the world They're looking for something more mission-oriented. Maybe that resonates with you Another thing we often talk about is what amount of growth feels right for you right now
We're not always in hyper growth. That's not the case in nature. That's not the case in our human lives. Sometimes we really want to invest in growth and it's a 10X period. Other times we're looking for sustainable growth or God forbid, we're looking for maintenance, right? It's not a period of growth and that's okay. That's a conversation we need to have.
The next thing we'll talk about is the type of environment where you thrive. if you've had any amount of career experience, you've learned a little bit about yourself of what works for you or what doesn't. For example, I am not an office person. I get spurts of energy throughout the day and at least for the foreseeable future, cannot imagine working anywhere other than my home office.
And finally, we'll talk about some of the practical matters of like what types of things are most important to you. It might be money. It might be flexibility. It might be developing your expertise, It might be working on something that's making a difference in the world. But the point is that we're creating this vision for your career that actually allows you to now have a lens through which you can evaluate your current role and these decisions that you feel like you need to make.
And for most of my clients, this is a moment of empowerment where all of a sudden you're going, wow, that is what I want. And, you know, hot take. I say this to pretty much every client and it seems so obvious, but in the moment it's something that folks need to hear. So I'll say it to you so you can hear it. Your career should be working for you, not for your manager, not for your company.
not for the expectations of someone who follows you on LinkedIn, for you. And you know how in your personal life they say like, don't try to keep up with the Joneses, right? It's the same thing in your professional life.
If you're not trying to live the hustle life and climb the career ladder and be the VP or the CPO, that's cool. I am never here to tell you, and I tell my clients this, I'm never here to tell you whether your career vision is right or wrong, but I will tell you when it feels like you're not.
clear on what it is, or if it feels like you're making decisions that are taking you further away from your vision. Those are the things I care about.
All right, so at this point, we would have a sense of who you are. We then have a sense of your career vision and where you're trying to go, whether that's a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, it doesn't matter. But it's, know, what road do you want to walk? Now we can zoom back in. We can look at this season of your career, AKA your current day job, and we can really start to look at it objectively and a little bit more critically to say,
You know what? Is this role actually working for you? Is this role a stepping stone where we could see this season of your career adding value for the future season of your career? Is it aligned with your values? You know, that's one of the most difficult things. I was
working with a client who has deep values around transparency and integrity and was experiencing some situations in their current role where their company claims to have these values as well if you look at their website, but that wasn't being exhibited in some pretty significant decisions they were needing to make. so, understanding your values can help you see if you're kind of living out of alignment with your values in your workplace. That can be really draining.
You can also really look at the role to say, am I developing skills here that I'm actually going to need for what's next? In my example about that first PM role, knowing that I might want to start my own business, any insight I could get behind the scenes of actually running a business, managing a team, all of that was going to benefit me down the road. Also,
Is this role giving you the level of support, the level of growth, the level of challenge that is appropriate for what you want to do next? If this is a period of major growth and you're feeling stagnated here, that's a signal.
All right, so as we zoom back in on your day job and we start to ask these questions, we may discover that this job is actually not playing an active role in your development in the way that it needs to. Or we might find out that it is. but at least now we're informed. And you can make a decision based on clarity, not just burnout and overwhelm and frustration.
And I like to think about it as giving you the data to now decide what you want to run towards rather than focusing just on what you want to run away from, which is usually point at which people come to me, right? They come to me already burnt out, already overwhelmed, already frustrated. And my goal is to get you clear on what you want to run towards and to help you do that.
So to recap, if you don't have a clear career vision or any semblance of a career vision,
you're going to say yes to the wrong things. You might waste time on projects that actually don't build the right skills. You might pursue roles that look really cool and slick, but then you just feel stuck. You might keep kind of like trying to push through, trying to convince yourself, it's fine. I should like this job. This is the job I'm supposed to have. But when your inner wisdom, right? Your inner voice, your intuition, whatever you want to call it, when that knows that that's not really true, these are all signals.
that you really need clarity on where you're heading.
And that's why I created SHINE. It's to help you get back in the driver's seat. It's to clarify what you're actually working towards. And ultimately it's to make sure that your precious time and energy are actually moving you towards your goals and whatever your definition of success is. and what I want to help you avoid is that moment where...
You've had your head in the ground, you know, working and working and working and grinding away at a job for three, five, 10 years. then you look up and you go, I'm exactly where I was then. I've been so busy, I didn't actually get anywhere. That's what SHINE is to help you with. And so before we wrap,
talk is only as good as the action that you take on it. So if this resonated, I want you to take five minutes today. Just out a notepad, grab your journal, and just jot down some thoughts on what better would look like in your career right now. Don't worry about perfect. Don't worry about your 10-year plan. Just what would better look like in your career right now?
And if that feels like too much, sometimes knowing what we want can feel really difficult. So start with what you don't want. What are the things that you know you don't want? And even just having that is a great start.
Now, if this resonated with you completely, you feel like this is exactly what you need, I would be happy to work with you. This is literally what my SHINE program is for, and I'd love to give you some one-on-one support, clarifying your career vision, creating your personalized career roadmap for how to get there. So feel free to check out my SHINE program at jessherlock.com/shine. And as always, I'd love to hear from you. So if this episode raised questions or you have reactions about today's episode,
please connect with me on LinkedIn, send me a DM and tell me what you think. You can also check out the rest of my coaching programs for your product management job searching or for your first 90 days at a new product job by going to jesssherlock.com/apply and you can book time so we can chat. see you on the next episode of AFTER THE CERT.
