Transitioning from construction project management to product management.... industry to tech. Any advice on getting my foot in the door and landing an interview?
Your path to landing a product role will depend on being able to show how your skills from the current role translate to the new world, and proving that you can bring value to a product team on Day 1 when you join. Here is how I would tackle this:
- Identify the similarities between product manager skills and yours - there are planty of parallels between building software and construction. Scan through job postings, listen to recorded interviews of PM and start identifying which skills of yours and why are relevant in product. For example, roadmapping skills of a construction professional are superior to most software PMs in my opinion, becasue you have to deal with more hardcore constrainst and curveballs to delivery.
- Update your resume to speak "software product management" language - re-write your experience to showcase your PM-relevant skills based on (1).
- Reach out to companies that build software that is related to construction. That might be your best bet, because those folks will value your expertise and market knowledge immediately. I suspect it will be much easier for you to get a foot in the door.
- When reaching out, write a very good summary of WHY you want to become a PM - this is a the most common challenge I see with folks switching crafts. Your inability to articulate WHY you are excited about product management and feel like it's the right fit for you will cost you many opportunities.
There is a lot of overlap between Product Management and Project Management and I've found good Product Managers are also typically good Project Managers.
Experience managing complex Construction projects will certainly be impressive to hiring managers, but you need to show that you understand how your experience maps to the software world.
Typically this means being ok with a less rigid and more agile approach that I don’t think is possible in Construction, but is often preferred in the software world. In Construction you probably wouldn’t finish and stain the floor before you put up the frame - but you might in software.
If you want to be more informed on software development, you can take an online course or bootcamp focused on agile development process, and some 101 courses around user experience.
As you educate yourself, get in the habit of really evaluating the software you use every day - think critically about what problems you are facing with it and how you would solve them to improve the overall experience. It’s common in early stage interviews for a hiring manager to ask you about what software you use and how you would improve it - so this will help you build up your product sense while also preparing you for interviews.