Transition to a Product Role
Hey. I have close to 6 years of Experience in Sales and Customer centric roles but recently I have developed an interest in Product Development. For reference, I have an Engineering degree in Computer Science and MBA as well.
A few questions for clarity:
- Is it possible to make this transition into a Product role at this stage of my career?
- If I want to teach myself the skills of a product manager, how should I start and what resources should i refer to, to begin with that can start the learning process?
- You can always transition into a PM role. It’s not difficult.
- Is there anyway you can transition internally in your current org? Or work on assisting your product teams on some of their activities?
Yes. So my current organisation is a product-led organisation. The idea right now, is to build the necessary skills and portfolio and then work for a lateral hiring in the same organisation. But I have also kept my options open for roles outside.
If I were interviewing someone trying to get into PM laterally, I would ask first why their current company isn't willing to offer them a role.
So my view is moving to product in your current company is the correct way to approach this apart from founding your own product led co.
Leverage your MBA degree to get into that role..you must have a vast alumni who has been working in Product Development, you can consider reaching out to those. That's the whole objective of an MBA degree in addition to gaining skill and personality development.
Try for internal roles or fake for some points in CV mentioning how contributed to the Product Development in your current organisation and what were its overall+ve implications