Short Post: Tips for writing impactful resumes as Product Managers

Of late I have been going through a bunch of resumes for open roles. I cannot help but notice a few common mistakes that make everything go downhill. In this post, I want to share some very basic but super important tips in a short post that I believe everyone should keep in mind before sending it out for that coveted PM position in a great company!

1.Your resume is your product

You are also your own developer, and possibly your QA! Decide on the value proposition of your profile before starting out on it. The recruiter, who is your consumer, needs to understand your value proposition, which brings me to the second point.

2. Don’t complicate it

Your resume is the only way a hiring manager or a recruiter learns about you. Abbreviations, terms only you understand, etc make for hard reading and are often skipped. Familiarity breeds trust and understanding. If you use unfamiliar terms, it is going to be hard for hiring managers to understand you.

3. So what does every hiring manager understands: 1

Their own job description. Well yes, they understand what they are hiring for. Believe me, they are literally hunting for relevant experience in your job profile. A perfectly matching resume is a rarity. So don’t be afraid if your resume doesn’t match the JD perfectly but do yourself a favor and find a way to highlight the matching experience.

4. So what does every hiring manager understands 2

Numbers! Numbers are the most beautiful and universal language. While it is important to understand your job responsibilities, hiring managers want to understand if you have performed well and that means the impact you have created. Without that, your resume is like any other resume. Talk about them and you have everyone’s attention. But there is a catch, which is my last point.

5. Metrics don’t lie

Impact on metrics tell the most romantic of all stories on your resume. For ex — a 5–10% improvement on a hard to move metrics is amazing if your feature is at a maturity stage and probably a result of a lot of smart, strategic, and incremental efforts. A 100% improvement in adoption of a feature just launched — well this is expected, and but worth talking about. But a 40–50% improvement on a hard-to-move metric such as conversions! Hmm, you better back that up in the interviews. Hopefully, by an AB test!