As someone thinking of transitioning from marketing to product management, what are some hard skills you'd recommend learning ahead of applying/interviewing? (Bachelor's degree was in business/communication)

Coming from a Marketing background, you’ve probably got customer focus and communications down pat – those are very important parts of the Product Management "package". Depending on what type of marketing you are doing, here are some other areas worth highlighting or augmenting:

• Managing execution. Bringing a product to market is a great example. Even if it’s from a marketing angle, you can show that you've worked closely with product and understand phased delivery.

• Design thinking. Consider examples of times when you have dug deep to understand customer problems and ideated toward creative solutions. Bonus points if you’ve facilitated others in customer-centric workshops.

• Result-oriented analytics. Ensuring that your goals are measuring the right outcomes, and owning the tracking toward goal achievement will demonstrate that you take accountability for results.