How can you prove to hiring managers in the interview process that you can hit the ground running as someone transitioning to product marketing?

I find diverse experiences to be valuable to product marketing. When I think about research and influencing the roadmap, what is most important to me is:

• Can this person create a data-driven argument for change? That could be getting a client to adopt a product or changing an internal process. 
• Are they a strong project leader and can they organize diverse teams to get stuff done? This is a universal skill. Product Marketers often have to tackle ambigious problems and do so with a diverse, cross-functional team. Think of examples of how you've done this in the past. 
• Can they clearly communicate their ideas - and do so to different audiences? Especially can they clearly communicate customer needs?

As someone who didn’t start her career in product marketing and has since supported several internal transfers into PMM for perspective sharing and career growth, this question is near and dear to my heart. I can honestly say that some of the best PMMs I’ve hired and worked with have had very diverse backgrounds across sales, product, analytics, research, and marketing. PMM is an amalgamation of so many aspects of these roles, that experience in them often translates directly. It also helps you build empathy for your stakeholders in those positions that you’ll be working with closely as a PMM.

This brings me to another core competency hiring managers tend to look for in candidates: strong collaboration skills. PMMs are the hub of the wheel, bringing together almost every other facet of the org. Your financial model is going to be much stronger if you collaborate with your analyst; your customer insights will be much richer if you collaborate with your data, sales, CX and research partners; your marketing strategy will drive more revenue if you collaborate with each channel owner to leverage their expertise. Demonstrating that you know how to support, and lean on your partner teams when necessary, is important.

I’d recommend framing your skills in terms of what will be expected of you from an “inbound” and “outbound” perspective. In most of my interviews, I’m looking for candidates who are analytical and methodical in their thinking, can translate those inputs into strategies, and tap the creative side of their brain to bring those strategies to life with compelling messaging and creative. Being able to translate complex concepts into simple communications is key. Lastly, it’s important to show the hiring manager that you’re able to take educated risks and learn from past failures. Understanding how you’d apply those learnings to your role in Product Marketing will give them the confidence they need to take a chance on you.

There are three large buckets of capability a Product Marketer needs to be effective. To demonstrate that you will be able to build momentum quickly in a new role, you'll need to show that you have all three. Having all three of these would put a candidate in "unicorn" status.

1. Market Knowledge: You'll need to show familiarity with the broader market the company and product compete in. This includes competitor awareness and a strong understanding of the customer needs in that space.
2. Product Knowledge: This can be particularly difficult depending on the company you're interviewing with. Hands on experience in your background is ideal, but this may not be possible. In its place, read product reviews and track down as much publicly available information about their product as you can find.
3. Go-to-Market Knowledge: Once you demonstrate an understanding of where the company and product currently sit in their arena, you should show that you can turn that understanding into actions & recommendations.

You'll want to think carefully about how you articulate this understanding. My typical approach (which matches my personality and work style) is to ask questions paired with a brief explanation of the rationale behind the question. My goal with that approach is for the question to be deep enough to warrant a "how'd you know that" reaction from the interviewer (which you'll answer with the context you provide).

I have found that creating a sample 30-60-90 day plan (just a one slide with a small grid) based on how you would approach the position and challenges that were discussed. Ask to take 5 minutes on a Zoom call to walk the hiring manager through it and position it in such a way to level set how that you are on the same page.