Heartfelt thanks to all your prayers and wishes, I am making good progress in my promise to find my next opportunity. I can feel it, it’s almost here.
Sharing my observations and patterns in this competitive job market.
Applied to 80+ product marketing jobs ranging from Sr. PMM to Sr. Director roles. Being location agnostic gave me the chance to even try and apply across the US, UK and Europe. But the reality is most of the roles were location dependent.
I am fortunate to all the folks in my network who extended their support and referred me to roles.
I am convinced that a referral doesn’t help much if your experience doesn’t match the team expectations. This default rejection message doesn’t help.
Unfortunately, the hiring team has decided to pursue with other candidates at this time and will not be moving forward with your application.
Most PMM job descriptions are broad and vague. So, when you get the rejection, it’s hard to pinpoint why or to find patterns.
Some recruiters and hiring managers were focused on candidates currently in their city even though I was open to relocation.
I had interviews in B2C and B2B2C, which based on my B2B experience was an area of growth opportunity to show my interest and adjacent experiences.
If you are making a career shift from B2B to B2C or from CPG to Tech, prepare to answer why. This is crucial to move forward in the interview.
Timing is everything. When you are looking for a role might not be when a job posting exists in your dream company. This I believe is the disconnect in hiring. Missed opportunity to always be on the lookout and great way to validate synergy. Each role and team needs a chance to extend beyond the time factor.
I had an interview for an opportunity in Europe, which didn’t get too far since I am already in final stages with companies in the US. This would have been a great experience to live and work in a different country, but maybe not yet.
There was a US contract opportunity with a low hourly rate. Apparently this was derived from market research. I am glad my friend convinced me that I should keep looking. I shared the PMM average in the US with the recruiter.
Know the numbers when you are going in. It helps to see the ranges within the job postings to see if this is viable. One step in the right direction.
As a reference by PMA: Product Marketing Salary 2022, the average Product Marketing salary in the US is $179K.
ADP Pay calculator helps to look at the monthly take home after taxes. This is helpful to know what is your base salary for full-time or hourly rate for contract or part-time roles.
Example - 180K → 5K take home (bimonthly) 
Example: 65 hourly → 40 hours x 4 weeks x 65 - > 5K take home monthly
A lot of roles and companies are hybrid with 2-3 days in office. This is great as I am keen to collaborate with teams in person. I missed that in these 3 years.
Company operates in a hybrid work model. This model gives employees the opportunity to work from home two days a week and work in the office for team collaboration for the remainder of the time. Our hybrid model may differ based on location or team.I enjoyed the job search experience via Otta.com. It makes a difference. I religiously applied to the job postings every day, reached out to my network for referrals. And connected with the recruiter and hiring manager on LinkedIn and expressed my interest to learn more about the role and the team.
Not ideal when the same job postings are reposted as new in a month. I wonder if that helps or hurts hiring.
Before I had a google sheet to track the application progress as I applied on different websites. This became easier with a single tracker on otta.
I am convinced LinkedIn has a lot of work to do to make their job search stronger. I have seen more recent job postings on Otta before LinkedIn Jobs.
Indeed had some product marketing roles, but not always the relevant posts - I have seen other roles that I am not interested in.
When you are in the salary negotiation phase, know what is important to you. And don’t regret and wonder if only you had asked. Ask for what you want and if they can make it happen, they will. At least you know you asked. Think about base salary, equity, sign on bonus, relocation, 401K, medical benefits, vacation etc. Know your levers.
Some companies may not have sign-on bonus or relocation.
Some companies have unlimited PTO and wellbeing support.
Sharing is caring
I know job search and interviews are exhausting and time consuming. As much as we all are looking for our next role, I know there is power in community. I am grateful for the nudges of encouragement along the way that I received when I had my doubts.
Sharing a few more resources that I created along the interview process, in hopes that it can help someone:
GTM panel presentation for B2B SaaS - included the questions and examples
I shared my picture perfect intro and connected with the company values and why I am a good fit at the end of the presentation.
I truly believe this helps to stand out and show our personality. Who I am.
My values that make me grounded in my decisions. My love for travel, food and my happy place capturing flowers and butterflies in nature.What’s Your Pitch? A Picture-Perfect Introduction
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Dec 2021: Updated my picture perfect evolution below :) We have all been faced with a simple statement: “Tell me a little bit about yourself.” And I ask: “What exactly do you want to know about me? How much is too much information to share?” I’m going to share a few examples of my picture-perfect introduction that started as an …
Resume iterations from Aug → Sept with 2 pages of recommendations
Recommendations - 4 pages across product, sales and marketing
Cover letter - shared about my career break for mental wellbeing
Be comfortable to share the reason for your career break. It helps build trust and credibility.
Content Portfolio - included PMM work samples and frameworks
Hope these help you in your job search.
All the best! Never give up or compromise.