After serving in the U.S. Navy, Jason Perocho attended UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School to transition to a civilian career. Throughout his internship experiences, courses, and student activities, Perocho realized he wanted to pursue a career in Tech Product Marketing. Now, five years into his post MBA Plans and a Senior Director of Product Marketing, Perocho has hired and advised numerous professionals on transitioning into Product Marketing. In this interview, Perocho shared his story of how he transitioned from the Navy to a Career in Product Marketing, characteristics of good PMM candidates, and his advice to those interested in careers in Product Marketing.
MBASchooled: Thinking back to your time in business school, what were your original career aspirations for your post-MBA plans?
My original plan was to become a brand manager at Hershey’s. I have a huge sweet tooth, consuming more Reese’s products then I would like to admit.
MBASchooled: When did you first learn about Product Marketing, and what interested you in it?
I learned about product marketing by accidentally fell into the role during my internship. What interested me in product marketing is the ability to seamlessly move between the strategic and tactical levels of the business. This kind of work paralleled what excited me about being a Naval officer. In both jobs, it was important to not only create a winning vision, but get in the trenches with a tactical specialist, provide guidance without being too intrusive, and align them to a north star.
MBASchooled: What was your summer internship like, and how did it inform your decision for your post-MBA plan?
USAA provided me with the opportunity to work on digital marketing in USAA’s mobile app. Throughout the summer, my scope was expanded to optimizing the in-app experience for our customers. Our goal was to increase utilization of the app in order to contain members on digital channels. Helping customers find answers through the mobile app provided faster support for members and reduced call center costs for USAA.
Ultimately, I’m driven by making customers successful. I thoroughly enjoyed taking inputs from product, user experience, and various strategy teams to come up with recommendations that would have an immediate impact on USAA’s members and save the company money.
MBASchooled: When you were recruiting for full-time opportunities, what skills or experiences that you had during business school did you try to highlight that were relevant to the role of a PMM?
There were three areas I highlighted were: analytical decision making, messaging prowess, and entrepreneurial spirit. I knew it was important to demonstrate real world application of these skills, which is why I carved out projects in Business school to flex these skills.
I highlighted analytical decision making through my internship by developing a full funnel marketing plan based off a financial model that estimated the impact to USAA’s call center.
I knew that most PMM positions would require writing samples, which is why I decided to work with the CMO of UNC Kenan-Flagler to produce content like blogs and videos that I could submit.
Finally, I used my leadership position as MBASA president to transform our student association into a non-profit.
MBASchooled: Now that you’ve been a PMM for a few years, what skills or experiences can MBA students focus on building in business school that could make them a good candidate for a PMM internship or full-time role?
Those who want to get into product marketing should focus on positioning, messaging, and content creation. In the end, the most important trait of a good product marketing is identifying a market opportunity and crafting positioning/messaging that is clear, concise, and relatable.
MBASchooled: As a hiring manager, what do you look for in PMM candidates?
As a hiring manager, I will always ask a candidate for a writing or content sample. In the writing sample, I’m evaluating whether they can tell a great story. Specifically, I’m looking for clear problem statement along with clear benefit statements that pay off all pain points mentioned.
I’m also looking at the candidate’s mastery over the English language. I love Mark Twain’s quote “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”. Getting your point across in as few words as possible is a tough skill. Great Product Marketers are clear, concise, and relatable.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have, for MBA students who are interested in exploring a career in PMM?
Identify what type of product marketer you want to be. Talk to product marketers at a wide range of companies to understand the full scope of their responsibilities. Know that in some companies, some product marketing responsibilities fall with product management and vice versa. After narrowing down what you want to do in product marketing, create a list of companies that have those specific roles.