Unlock Your PM Career: Best Side Projects to Get Hired!

Speaker A: Foreign. Let's just jump right in. If you're trying to break into product management, I'm sure you've heard it a million times. You need a side project. But here's the real question. What kind of project actually gets a recruiter's attention? Well, that's exactly what we're going to break down right now. And bam. This quote just says it all, doesn't it? It hits on this massive misconception out there. So many people, maybe you've felt this way too, think they need to grind away learning just enough code to cobble together some simple app. They think that's the golden ticket. But here's the thing. Hiring managers aren't trying to hire another junior developer. They're looking for a product manager. And trust me, that is a totally different beast. So first things first, let's just totally tear down this myth, okay? The one that's probably causing a ton of stress and wasted hours. This idea that you have to be a coder to have a side project that actually impresses anyone. I mean, it's such a classic trap, right? You're scrolling through job descriptions, you see technical skills, and your brain just screams, oh, no. I need to learn to code and build something. But what if I told you that you can show off every single core PM skill a recruiter is dying to see without writing one single line of code? Seriously, this right here, this completely changes the game. On the one hand, you've got what you think they want. I gotta code an app, show my technical chops, make it look slick. But the reality, it's so different. What they actually want is to see that you can find a real problem, that you can dig in and understand it, that you have the guts to start something, and that you can tell a great story about the whole process. What you learned, what went wrong, everything. That story that's worth so much more than another to do list app. Okay, so if they're not looking for a coder, then what are they looking for? It really just comes down to a handful of core things that make a great pm. Well, great. Just take a look at this list initiative. Did you start something on your own leadership? Did you get other people on board? Impact, empathy, passion. What? Do you notice what's missing? Yeah, there's nothing here about coding. Not a thing. And honestly, getting bogged down trying to build an app can actually pull you away from showing off these skills. The cool thing is a. A killer. No code project can nail every single one of these. And this really gets to the whole Point of the side project. It's not just another bullet point on your resume. Think of it as your secret weapon for the interview. It's where all your best stories are going to come from. Stories about leadership, about figuring out tough problems, about making something happen. The project, that's just the car. The story you tell about the journey, that's where you're trying to go. Okay, so myth busted. We know what recruiters actually care about. So now let's get to the good stuff. The step by step playbook for creating an amazing side project that shows off all those PM skills. No code needed. So this is the big question, isn't it? If I'm not coding, what am I even supposed to do? It can feel a little weird, uh, like someone took away your tools. But what you're really doing is shifting your focus to the blueprint. And guess what? The blueprint is the PM's real job. You're not the construction worker, you're the architect. So instead of just winging it and hacking some code together, you're going to do what the pros do. You'll use a real product management framework, the same kind of thing a PM at Google or Amazon would use. A framework like Circles, for example, forces you to think through the whole problem methodically. You know, understanding the situation, figuring out who the customer is, brainstorming solutions. Following a process like that shows you have structured thinking. And let me tell you, that is a huge, huge plus for any recruiter. And here it is. This is the playbook. It's basically a five step process. That is exactly what product managers do all day, every day. Okay, step one, find a real problem, something you actually care about. Step two, and this is so important, go talk to people, real humans, interview them. This is how you build empathy and check if your ideas are even on the right track. Then step three, brainstorm a bunch of solutions and figure out which ones make the most sense. Step four is creating that blueprint we talked about. Write up some user stories, make some simple mockups. With a tool like Figma, you can even just use PowerPoint. And finally, step five, take those mockups back to the people you talk to and see what they think. Get that feedback, that whole cycle. That, my friends, is product management in a nutshell. Alright, so you've done all that, you've gone through the steps, you've done the work. Awesome. But that's only half the battle. Now comes the crucial part. You have to package it all up. You have to turn all that hard work into a story. A Story that's going to get you hired. I mean, think about the difference here. Anybody can say, yeah, I did customer research. Okay, cool. But what if you said this instead? You know, I noticed all my friends were having a nightmare trying to plan group trips, so I decided to dig in. I interviewed 15 of them, and it turns out the real problem wasn't booking flights. It was just agreeing on a budget. That one insight led me to mock up a simple little polling tool, and when I showed it to them, 12 out of 15 said they'd use it tomorrow. See the difference? That is a story. So where do you tell this amazing story? Everywhere. Don't hide it at the bottom of your resume. Seriously, if this project is more relevant to being a PM than your day job, put it right at the top under experience. Blast it on LinkedIn. Post updates about what you're learning, share your mock ups, and then in the interview, when they hit you with so tell me about yourself. This becomes your perfect opening. It becomes your go to answer for pretty much any question they throw at you about leadership or problem solving or impact. Okay, I know what you're thinking. This all sounds great, but where do I even start? That first step is always the hardest, for sure. So let's just erase, uh, that problem right now with a few concrete ideas. You could literally start this afternoon. Check these out. You could start a blog or a podcast where you just talk about products in an industry you love. That's an amazing way to show passion and that you can communicate clearly. Or how about do a deep dive product teardown of an app you use all the time. Pick it apart. Suggest improvements with mockups that screams user empathy and product sense. You could even just run a survey about something, analyze the results, and post what you found. Boom. You just created impact with data. Or get really into the weeds and write up a full product requirements document, a PRD for a new feature you wish your favorite app had that shows you can do the real day to day work. Every single one of these is pure gold for a PM resume. So I'm going to leave you with a different question to think about. Stop asking, what app should I build? Instead, start asking, what problem do I actually care about? What's something I want to dig into to really understand and to try and solve? Because that is the question that's going to lead you to a project that gets you hired. So go on, go find that problem. Thanks for watching. Subscribe and like.