How to build work products to get jobs

The PM market is brutal—to differentiate, many are turning to the work product. Here's how to actually impress, instead of bungle your opportunity

The work product is one of the most underrated ways to get a job.

In a world where PM job postings are down 91% compared to two years ago, you need to do something to stand out.

And it works. 3 of the 6 laid off big tech PMs I helped get jobs last year used them. Since then, I’ve helped over 15 PMs and product leaders get jobs with this technique.

But, the cat is out of the bag. This is what I heard from a hiring manager at Meta this week:

Honestly, more of them have been a negative signal than a positive one. I got a few that helped me realize someone who I recommended in the interview doesn’t actually write Meta-level documents.

That’s not good! If you’re putting all the extra work in to a work product, you want it to perform for you.

So, today, we’re going to help you do exactly that.

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Today’s Post

Words: 6,344 | Est. Reading Time: 28 mins

1. The three types of work products

   • Why you need this advice

   • The three types of work products

   • Why work product work—and how to play into that

2. Building work products together

   • ‘Get an interview’ work product

   • ‘In Process’ work product

   • ‘Specific interview’

3. How to up-level these further

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If you only have 1 minute…

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1. An intro to work products

1.1 Why you need this advice

I’ve been talking to a lot of aspiring PMs the past few weeks, and the thing that’s come up most often is: it’s damn hard to get an offer these days.

The first thing I ask anyone when talking to them about job searching is their funnel. And this funnel was shared to me last Thursday by a PM with 9 years of experience:

• 4 months on the job market

• 17 first round interviews

• 11 second rounds

• 3 final rounds

• 0 offers

It’s a depressing drop.

This same PM has never spent a day on the job market before this, because every job in her career landed in her lap while she was in another job.

But when I asked her if she’d submitted any work products? The answer was no. My first inclination was: you need to do more of this!

Here’s why: your competition is.

So, you actually are at a disadvantage if you’re not.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying the interview process should be more work

Yes, I know this is a ton of work in an already soul-sucking process. I’m not saying it’s a good thing it’s come to this.

It’s come to this because of supply and demand. Demand for PM jobs is down. Supply of qualified PMs is up.

In the real world that we live in, the strictly dominant move from PMs is to get jobs with work products—and outshine those who don’t.

1.2 The three types of work products

Here’s what I explained to that PM about the three types of work products to consider.

PSA: One-size fits all doesn’t work

A lot of people I’ve talked to have tried to the ‘industry report’ strategy. The idea is:

• I’ll create this artifact on an industry. It will rock

• With this document, I’ll be able to use it for so many processes

• This way, I’ll get the most of the work product strategy with the least work

Nobody wants you essentially shopping around a blog post or slide deck to get a job.

For everyone I’ve talked to, this strategy hasn’t worked. Instead, I’ve found that very specific work products work best.

The fact is: it shouldn’t seem like you’ve created this work product for anyone else but that person.

Focus on these three types instead

These are the three cases where you would create a bespoke work product:

1. The ‘Get an Interview’ work product

   This is a work product that you build to send to someone in the hopes of getting a referral or an interview.

2. The ‘In Process’ work product

   This is a work product that you share with one or several people at a company during the interview process to differentiate.

3. The ‘Specific Interview’ work product

   This is work product that you create in response to performance in a specific interview.

This doesn’t include assignments they give you during the process. I’ve done a post on that.

When to use which work product

You might not have any idea what any of these things mean. Let’s break down when to employ these tactics.

1. If you’re not getting interviews: Use the ‘Get an interview’ work product

• If you’re having trouble securing offers…

  2. If you’re particularly excited about a role: Use the ‘In process’ work product

  3. If you’re messed up an interview: Use the ‘Specific interview’ work product

1.3 Why work products work—and how to play into that

Before we move there, though, let’s double-click into that Meta hiring manager at the beginning.

They’re getting sent work products, but these are used to disqualify more people than they qualify.

What’s going on here?

• The documents are often no better than an industry report.

• The documents show low work product quality bar that wouldn’t fly there.

• The documents don’t share unique insights that hiring manager has never seen.

So, if we flip these, we can create three principles of great work products:

1. Showcases that you would help create documents that up-level the culture

2. Demonstrate unique insight that’s valuable for the reader in their job

3. Is not a framework or AI regurgitation

These give us principles to lean on as we go through creating our own work products:

1. We’d prefer to be shorter, but more insightful

2. We prefer to draw on unique work or personal insights

3. We will not visit other websites or AI until we begin editing

Playing deeply into the principles in these ways will enable us to create a work product that doesn’t disqualify, it wows.