Hege Thorbjornsen Starling

Great question! This highly depends on the role, what stage the company is at and what the requirements are in the job description - Product marketing can be so different at different companies With that said my recommendation is to think about your resume as an opportunity to product market yourself and your experience! Think of it less as a list of everything you’ve done, and instead use it as an opportunity to tell the story of how your experience makes you an excellent candidate to take on t ...Read More

In general I think there is a lot of overlap in the fundamental skill set needed between the two roles even though they operate differently. In consumer product marketing you’re targeting the end-user with your offering/product. In B2B you’re targeting other companies with your offering/product which then helps them solve a problem for the end-user. I love the consumer landscape and most of my roles have been with brands that target the end-consumer so take my answer with that caveat, but I’ll h ...Read More

There are multiple factors you could use to determine where to build a deeper focus but I don’t necessarily think that you have to make such a firm pick. There are definitely nuances between the two roles, but skills are also transferable. Crafting messaging/positioning, translating user insights into strategy, influencing product/technical roadmaps, and understanding market behaviors are all skills which at the core are the same across both B2B and B2C. It might be harder to cross over between ...Read More

There is definitely overlap between brand strategy/account management and product marketing especially because the two roles operate slightly differently at every organization. Brand strategy can translate really well to product positioning, messaging and storytelling while account management can translate well to go-to-market planning and roadmaps. I answered another question above on how to break into the PMM field including a helpful storytelling exercise to build out your PMM oriented resume ...Read More

Having identified what type of role you want next and why, already puts you ahead of the game and lets you hone your experience more and more towards the field. I would first explore to see how you can get (or maybe already have) actual working experience even if it’s project based. If you’re in a non-product marketing role currently, try to identify if you’re working on projects or doing anything that are core PMM skills and see if you could take on more of that type of work to build up your re ...Read More

This varies across every organization, but if you’re looking to move up from your current role, I’d recommend bringing it up with your direct manager in your 1:1 even if you think the leveling up is a ways away. Starting the conversation will allow you both to focus on the skills you need to work on in order to get there. In most medium or larger sized organizations there is a competency framework that is used for calibrating levels which has requirements for each role. More broadly speaking, th ...Read More

It all depends on the role I am hiring for and what stage a company is at, but on a general note, I would look for transferable experience and skills that could work well for the role. Crafting messaging/positioning, identifying user insights and translating them into strategy, influencing product/technical roadmaps, understanding market behaviors and trends, project managing projects from start to finish, Go-to-market campaigns (integrated or channel based), product development & packaging ...Read More