What NOT to do on your Product Manager CV

Recently I looked at how to make a great Product Manager CV. This week, let’s look at what to avoid on this crucial document 💪!

I encourage every sitting or aspiring Product Manager to treat his/her CV as their first Product. After all, the CV is the silent representative that is to convince the recruiter to contact you when you are not there 👋!

So here is some advice on things you ⚠SHOULDN’T⚠ do on your CV:

🎯 Include your picture. Some markets find that inappropriate, as it’s your skills and experience that should land you the position, not your lovely face.

👨‍🎓 Put education before experience. No one really cares about your school or grades, even if you are a graduate. Only your skills and experience matter.

🏆 Undersell yourself. You can be modest day to day, even in the job interview. However, there isn’t anything wrong in slightly overselling yourself.

🕵️ Lie on the CV. You may however bend the truth as long as it is easy to explain, i.e. call your position “Product manager” if you did everything PM does, whereas the formal position was called “Executive senior business analyst”. In fact, best to already mention this fact on the CV itself.

📊 Disclose any numbers for KPIs from your previous employers — only relative numbers are safe to present. So, “Increasing user count by 40% is ok”, but “Increasing user by 40 000” can get you in trouble.

🕮 Go over 2 pages long. Everything that is most important to the recruiter should be on page 1 anyway. You are not creating your professional memoir, but a sales pitch of yourself.

📣 Build your CV only around bullet points. As Depeche Mode would sing: “They are meaningless and forgettable”!

📑 Provide a list of skills that are not really backed up by the rest of the CV. In fact, best to include those in different sections of your CV rather than a dedicated section.

🎭 Focus on your non-PM experience. If you were a developer or data analyst before a PM, provide minimum details about those positions and focus on how they got you closer to Product Management.

Are there other suggestions missing on this list that you would have included? Looking forward to your comments!

📌Do you know how to become a Great Product Manager? Visit http://www.drbartpm.com to learn everything you need to land this $100,000 per annum job!

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