Path of Most Resistance

It’s 2018. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m looking for a job.

Search queries: Product Manager, Associate Product Manager, Product Specialist, Product Operations, Associate Product Operations, Product Owner

Filters/Sort: “Experience level?” Entry-level. “Date Posted?” Last week (I’ve seen everything after last week). “Job type?” Full-time, Part-time, Contract, Internship, Temporary.

Can I apply for this job?
- “Must have at least 3 years of Product Management experience” Nope
- “MBA from a top program” Nope
- “Previous experience as a consultant (Bain, Deloitte, etc)” Nope
- “Obsessed with solving user problems” Well, yeah.
- “Voice of the customer” Yeah… ok maybe this is going somewhere
- “Previous experience as a software developer” God Damnit.

Moving to the Bay Area with experience in primarily the hospitality field, both as an operator and in a corporate environment, I somehow managed to pick one of the hardest career paths to get hired in. I’ve been through some interesting ups and downs, met many great people (and some not-so-great), spent way too much money on coffee/lunch meetings with complete strangers and plenty of emotional rollercoasters to boot.

From 2018 to now, I somehow made it out of the hardest time of my life and somehow managed to find my calling. While I’m not sure who may read this in the future, I wanted to make sure I documented this moment in time before it became an after thought. Whether it be for you as a reader or one day for my daughter to read, I felt that I needed to share my story.

So, where do I start?