A common question I get when speaking to students who are interested in pivoting into product marketing is around what they can do to prepare for product marketing interviews in their time in business school. It’s a great question to ask and I believe that the time in business school along with the resources that you have positions you well to gain skills and experiences you need to be a good product marketer once you land a role.
What Do Recruiters and Hiring Managers Look For in Product Marketers?
At the most fundamental level, recruiters and hiring managers want to hire people who have the skills and experiences that will enable them to do the job exceptionally well. Past experience is often a predictor of future performance, and as a result, time and ti recruiters and hiring managers are always going to look for candidates with the skills and experiences of a Product Marketer.
They do this by evaluating your resume, and asking a mix of behavior and technical questions to better understand what skills and competencies you have. From there, they make an evaluation of the skills and competencies they believe are needed to be successful in the role, and if it’s a match, then you’re a fit. (This is an oversimplified answer, but hopefully you understand the direction I am going in.)
For example, if they believe that being an excellent communicator is a key skill of being a product marketer (it is!) they are going to want to know or see examples where you’ve demonstrated your communication skills.
Or, if they know that a big portion of this role is going to be hosting product enablement and training sessions for customers and writing customer case studies and stories, they’re going to want to see where you’ve done similar experiences.
While many companies that are hiring MBA students (especially interns) know and understand that many candidates will be career switchers, it never hurts to identify projects or opportunities to build relevant skills.
Furthermore, knowing that they’re going to look for skills and experiences that align to the role, we can then identify specific types of activities, projects, classes, etc in business school that will help us gain a skill or experience that is relevant to a Product Marketer.
With that in mind, here are some suggestions for how you can build skills and experiences to help you transition into product marketing.
#1: Core Marketing Classes and Elective Marketing Classes
This goes without saying, but your courses do play an important role in gaining product marketing knowledge and expertise. While most marketing courses don’t explicitly teach product marketing, they do give you a fundamental understanding of marketing which can be helpful, especially for career switchers who have never taken marketing classes. Some students have mentioned that the core marketing classes tend to be very CPG and Brand Management focus, and are not always “up to date” with marketing for tech companies. I’ve seen this to be the case at some schools, but I have also spoken with students who have said they directly relied on some of their learnings from the core marketing class as a basic way to get up to speed on some of their internship deliverables.
A few suggestions from PMMs:
Marketing Courses – A starting point is your core marketing class, which can be valuable especially for those not from the marketing function. During her summer as a Product Marketing Intern at VMWare, Jessica Hatz (Foster, ‘21) relied on her marketing courses from her first year. “During my summer, the marketing frameworks we covered in our marketing strategy course were helpful starting points for some of my projects,” said Hatz. In addition to the core marketing classes, Hatz also took additional electives which she found useful, such as Ads and Promotions, and Marketing Analytics.
Leadership and Organizational Behavior Courses – “Product Marketers often work on cross functional projects where they have to drive a solution or outcome but don’t often have the formal power,” Tori Chang (Ross, ‘21) said. As a result, Chang recommended taking any organizational behavior or leadership classes to develop soft skills such as influencing others. “I think any class that helps you learn how to influence others when you don’t have authority is valuable to being a product marketer,” Chang went on to add.
Public Speaking and Communication Courses – Product Marketers have to communicate all the time. Whether it’s speaking in meetings, writing emails or presenting to internal teams or customers, PMMs are always presenting. Chang recommended to load up on any public speaking classes and in general, finding as many opportunities to present. “Presentation skills are something we can all always improve upon, but they are incredibly important as a Product Marketer,” Chang said.
With electives, you have a bit more flexibility in identifying either classes that align more to the technology industry, or other disciplines within marketing that can be helpful to you landing a product marketing internship or full-time opportunity. Pro Tip: Talk to second years who did PMM internships and find out what classes they took that they found useful.
#2: Group Projects – The good news about group projects is that every MBA student has to do them, which means you should have ample opportunities to work on teams and with diverse groups of people, which is what often happens as a product marketer. “Working on a product launch is like one big group project,” said Jason Perocho, a Senior Director of Product Marketing. “You have to work with diverse stakeholders who each have different reasons for being involved and different roles, but as the Product Marketer and lead, you have to get everyone to work toward a common goal. This is exactly what happens on group projects, in the classroom, or even projects within student clubs or organizations,” Perocho went on to add.
#3: MBA Consulting Projects
Most schools offer the opportunity to do consulting style projects through formal programs as early as your first year. Examples of these are:
These experiences can be helpful especially if you’ve never done a consulting style project before. These opportunities give you a chance to work with a team to solve a problem/come up with a solution for a particular challenge the company is facing, and then the chance to present the findings and solution to the company when the project is over. These experiences are good opportunities to gain exposure to skills or experiences that you need as a product marketer. Kirsten Smith (UNC Kenan-Flagler, ‘20) suggested looking for projects where you can focus on projects that involve:
- Capturing competitive intelligence
- Identifying a value proposition
- Developing positioning and messaging for a product
- Creating a go-to-market strategy
All of these, and many others are just examples of projects that PMMs often conduct on a daily basis. Another key element is that many of these projects often involve some sort of final presentation or readout to the client or sponsor. This deliverable creation process which involves creating slides and figuring out how to tell a story are again, all critical elements of being a Product Marketer.
Another key element of these projects are around networking. Oftentimes, you’ll get the chance to work on projects either in industries or for companies that you are interested in working at, and you’ll get the chance to meet individuals that work there, which can be great for networking purposes.
#4: Student Clubs
Attending club events and becoming a member of a student club is a good first step, and something that Hatz did during her first year at Foster where she joined both the Marketing and Tech Clubs. These give you the opportunity to learn about both the industry and function you need for a PMM role within tech. In addition, taking on a leadership role or opportunity with a student club is a great way to find projects to seek your teeth into. Smith suggested that there are various opportunities to build skills or gain experiences, whether it’s formally through a club leadership position, or simply by taking on a project with a school department, such the student programs office or admissions.
A couple suggestions for projects to build PMM skills include:
- Revamping a club’s website and the messaging on the website
- Developing content externally on behalf of the school’s admissions office
- Developing a training program for your clubs members and conducting the training
- Working with a diverse team to launch an event, plan a workshop etc
- Work with administrators, faculty, and community members on a cross-team initiative
Furthermore, student club and organization roles and leadership opportunities in general are great chances to get experience working on cross functional teams. “PMMs are often working on initiatives, such as a product launch, where they have to work with numerous teams in an organization,” said Jason Perocho (UNC Kenan-Flagler, ‘15) In many of these instances, the PMM does not have formal authority over the other individuals, but must work collaboratively, or in some cases lead them, to achieve a desired goal. This scenario is very similar to an experience that club leaders have when leading student organizations. “My time leading student organizations prepared me very well for being a PMM. Learning how to lead and influence others when you don’t have formal authority is critical to being a product marketer,” said Perocho.
#5: Case Competitions
If you have the chance to participate in a case competition (preferably one that is marketing related) it is a good way to get some hands on experience with solving a marketing problem. These can be especially helpful if this is the first time you’ve done a case-like project where you are given a problem statement, and then have to methodically analyze data, develop a solution, put together a story/presentation and then deliver it to a panel. These opportunities can be especially helpful as they blend both creative thinking as well as structured problem solving, and also give you a chance to work in a team based setting.
Tori Chang (Ross, ‘21) and Co-President of the Ross Technology Club participated in multiple case competitions during her first year at Ross. “I worked on a design thinking innovation challenge with a cross-functional group of classmates. It helped me develop a new way of thinking and ideating, and I got the chance to learn from my peers,” Chang added. During her summer, Chang worked on a number of projects where she had to work with diverse groups of people on projects. Chang also participated in another case with Dell, where her team had 48 hours to come up with a solution to a problem they were given, develop a presentation, and then present it to a panel of judges. “The process of doing research on a specific industry (in this case cloud computing) and then working collaboratively with a team to develop a pitch and present it in a was a great learning experience for being a PMM,” Chang said.
#6: Working with Research Centers
Most schools have various academic research centers that often have paid grants, internships, or at the very minimum, volunteer or project-based opportunities. These are great opportunities to build skills and experiences for product marketing. Taking on an experience where you can get hands on projects is another way to build skills, the key is taking on an assignment or project that helps you get closer either to the industry, function, or role that you are interested in.
For example, at UT-McCombs, there is the marketing fellows program which is hosted through the CCMIS, a Center that is focused on the study of marketing. Through this program, students can build skills and experiences to prepare them for product marketing careers.
#7: Create Your Online Portfolio
One way to demonstrate your skills is to show them off. Collect all of the assets that you’ve previously created either in school or in your previous work experience, such as presentations, whitepapers, blog posts, or anything that shows some form of creative or visual presentation, and put them somewhere that is accessible. This could be on your LinkedIn profile, a blog, or some other digital property
#8 : Thought Leadership
Along the lines of having a portfolio of assets, you can also create thought leadership or content that is aligned to a particular interest of yours. This could be something you are interested in or have expertise in, but it could also be done in a way that is relevant to the companies that you are interested in working for. For example, let’s say that you are hoping to work at B2B Enterprise software companies – perhaps you can write a thesis about the trends in the CRM software market, or conduct some research on startups in the IT Security space, and then write profiles of them. If you publish these to your own personal webpage or blog, LinkedIn, Medium or some other digital profile, you can also link them in your resume. Furthermore, on occasion
Pro Tip: This is also a great excuse to “network” with alumni who work at companies you are interested in. If you’re writing a blogpost on trends in enterprise software, surely it makes sense to interview a bunch of experts who work at the companies in the enterprise software space
#9 : Work with Startups
If your school has a startup incubator or accelerator one way to gain some experience is by working directly with these startups. Oftentimes, these can be pretty early stage companies who need helping hands, and this is a great way to get some experience. Cassandra Salcedo, (Haas, ‘21) interned at a startup where she got hands-on experience with product marketing responsibilities. “These opportunities give you a chance to get familiar with the deliverables that a product marketer participates in, but also gives you something to talk about in your interviews,” Salcedo said.
#10: Unpaid or Paid Internships During The Year
While the summer internship between first and second summer is important, it is not the end all be all. Consider finding opportunities to take on additional internships throughout the MBA experience. While it could be hard to do this in your first year, coming back into your second year you’ll have a lot more free time and a chance to gain additional skills and experiences within product marketing. Reach out to your company from the summer to see if they would be open to let you work during the school year (it can’t hurt!) but also look toward alum or local companies to find internships. Since everyone is going to be virtual this year, you could actually also expand beyond the local area.
#11: Independent Study
Most schools give you the chance to do an independent study with a professor or some sort of academic-oriented project during your time in school. This is a great opportunity to create your own project to help you gain more knowledge or insights in an industry or function (like marketing) or perhaps conduct research on something that is of importance. This sometimes is also a way to do an internship for academic credit, but check with your school on their specific policy.
During my time in business school, I did an independent study where I conducted qualitative and qualitative research on the core values of my school based on responses from current students and alum. From there, I then worked with a videographer to produce a video about our school’s core values, which is now used at Orientation each year. The whole process combined aspects of product marketing (research, creativity, production of a video, launch) and was also a really fun experience.
#12: Mini Projects with Alums
Perhaps you can’t find a company to do a full on internship but one other option is to take on a mini project for an alum that is focused on something related to product marketing. Perhaps this alum needs some help with some user or customer research, or maybe they don’t have a competitive intelligence team, so they need someone to research the trends in the market. Go back to your contacts you made during your internship or in the recruiting process and see if there is an opportunity to do something like this with an alum where they can gain something but you can gain solid skills and experience.
#13: DIY Projects
If you can’t get an internship or start your own mini project then create your own! Back in business school, I decided to launch this blog, MBASchooled, which was my first ever “product launch.” This experience has taught me so much about product marketing whether it be messaging and positioning, go to market strategy, customer research, and certainly content development. This is a great way to explore a creative outlet or a passion project while building skills. I’ve often found the most excited I get about something is when it’s something I’m curious about, and often do great work in the process. Find something that’s of interest to you, and explore how you can create your own project or even product. A few great examples that I’ve seen in the past:
- Creating an Etsy Store to Sell Masks
- Creating a personal blog to write about a specific industry or vertical
- Building an Instagram account and growing the following to over 25,000 followers
- Starting a Slack Channel and Online community to connect and help unemployed job seekers
In addition to these being great ways to explore interests, these are also tangible things that you can put on your resume or LinkedIn profile, or pique the interest of an interviewer in an interview.
#14: Write Something
Product marketers are communicators and have to write a lot. Whether its blog posts, ebooks, internal messaging docs, executive communications, or just e-mails to your team, there is a lot of writing. The more you can write, the better you’ll be able to communicate with others, which is critical as a product marketer. I encourage you to write as much as you can, but make it fun – go pick topics to write about that are interesting to you, or perhaps serve a purpose. For example, if you are interested in working for a B2B Enterprise software company, go research the top 5 companies in this space, and then write a blogpost on LinkedIn or Medium about what you learned. Or, if you are interested in the Digital Health space, go write about the startups that are disrupting the space. You can use these assets in your portfolio and share them on your resume or in interviews.
#15: Present Something
Product marketers are constantly presenting. This could be during an internal training session for sales executives so they can get up to speed on the new products. Or, it might be externally with customers, or perhaps on a virtual webinar. Regardless, PMMs present a lot. Presenting (very much like public speaking) is something that you can A) get better with with practice and B) always improve upon, so try to get as many at bats as you can to present. Kirsten Smith (UNC Kenan-Flagler ,’20) suggests, “Don’t shy away from building slides, this will let you practice creating content for different situations, and definitely don’t shy away from presenting. The more comfortable you can get with written and oral communication, the better.”
Conclusion
Getting a Product Marketing job or internship is the ultimate test in product marketing – in this case, you are the product marketer of a product (you are the product!) and your goal is to convince a customer that your product solves their problem. The way you do this is by showcasing how your skills, experience and overall story is a great fit for the company. By taking on these skills, opportunities, and experiences in your MBA program you can set yourself up to transition into a product marketing role
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