Navigating the Product Hiring Landscape
Trends, challenges, and strategies for product leaders and job seekers in a shifting market.
👋 Hey, Sam here! Welcome back to The Product Trench. Every other Wednesday, I cut through the noise to share actionable insights, no-nonsense advice, and stories related to product management and leadership.
Was this forwarded to you? You can join by clicking below.
Intro
If you're feeling like the hiring landscape has been a bit of a rollercoaster lately, you're not alone. Product hiring is balancing between optimism and uncertainty, with founders and companies trying to grow cautiously, one calculated step at a time. As 2025 approaches, there's hope for new opportunities—but success in this market requires a proactive and informed approach.
To unpack this more, I sat down for a written interview with Heidi Ram, Senior Recruiter at The Product Recruiter (a division of Martyn Bassett Associates). Heidi has spent years helping startups and scale-ups across North America build winning product teams. With her finger on the pulse of the evolving job market, she offers valuable perspectives on hiring trends, the current state of job-seeking, and how candidates can stand out in an increasingly competitive space.
In our conversation, Heidi and I touched on:
What's really happening in the current job market?
The cautious approach many founders are taking towards hiring.
Challenges for both junior product talent and top product leaders.
Strategies for standing out in a competitive market.
Whether you're a product leader or just starting your journey, these insights will help you find opportunities others might miss.
So let’s dive in.
What is happening in the market?
The good news is that the market is showing improvements. More companies are hiring, and more people are posting "I'm happy to announce I will be joining..." on LinkedIn.
Additionally, this time of year provides a line of sight to a new year, which evokes a sense of relief that another tough year will end and the hope that a more prosperous year will soon begin.
What's happening with employers?
Broadly speaking, with some exceptions, investment remains conservative, and founders are playing it safe. In a recent interview with Maria Pacella for Betakit, Maria was quoted as saying:
The result for most companies is a fear of risk and a default to playing it safe.
I couldn't agree more. We see that when it comes to hiring.
For example, last week, I spoke with three founding leaders who had spent time "feeling out the market" while "thinking about" making their first Head of Product hire. This is basically kicking tires.
They all took a passive approach to hiring with an online posting while socializing their ideas across the executive leadership team networks. They all also concluded that they weren't ready yet, and the applicants who expressed interest weren't the right fit, which resulted in the role being put on hold.
I find that fascinating. After all, most tech startups are a product business—the product generates revenue (ARR). So what does it say about your company when you determine you are not ready for someone to ensure value is delivered to your customers and opportunities for growth are realized? Is the delivery of that done in a scaleable, repeatable way?
Additionally, job postings are never an accurate measure of candidate quality. Our experience with a recent posting generated almost 530 applicants, of which none had the actual experience our client wanted.
What is the market like for job seekers?
While it's not easy to be a job seeker in this market, it's especially hard to be a less experienced candidate (junior PM) or, on the other end, the most senior product leader. Why?
Junior Product Talent: Before the downturn, the product function had become almost a celebrity function in itself, attracting candidates from fresh graduates to industry professionals outside of tech. Many who joined the product party before the downturn did not have the opportunity to "crush it" in their roles as they expected they would. When downsizing began, this cohort was often included. Now, unemployed, with little actual product experience, few outcomes to boast about, and in a market with few companies willing to hire the least experienced.
Top Product Leaders: "Getting to profitability" often meant making a tough business decision to remove the CPO's highest salary. Given that most companies only employ one CPO, there are simply fewer opportunities—and the larger the business, the fewer opportunities.
How to find a job in this market?
While LinkedIn and other platforms try to solve the problems that exist for employers and job seekers, their systems and workflows are far from perfect. Someone somewhere is always pitching the next AI bot that will "match" candidates to jobs in a way humans can't, but for now, we are left with these imperfect systems.
Today, most candidates need to run multiple streams of work to generate top-of-funnel engagement that will convert one to an offer.
Stream 1: Your Community
Most people get jobs through someone they know. Everyone you have ever worked for, with, or partnered with needs to know you are in the market and ready for your next adventure.
Help others understand who you are professionally with a thumbnail of what you've been working on most recently, including the scope and scale of work. Don't assume people who know you or know of you will know the value you deliver and what you've done.
Stream 2: Read the Posting
Read the job posting in its entry and only apply if you are relevant to what they have outlined they are looking for. Always submit a resume to an employer's website - don't rely on Linkedin alone. Ignore the number of applicants. Most of those applicants didn't read the posting, and they won't get interviews anyway. Stay focused.
If you are extremely relevant to the details in the posting, find the hiring stakeholder (company website or LinkedIn), find their email (there are tech tools for this), and email them to introduce yourself.
When I say "hiring stakeholder," I refer to the functional leader who loses sleep at night, wondering how to find someone like you. Whose ass is on the line if they don't find the right hire.
Stream 3: Targeted Engagement
This involves doing research and executing an outbound email campaign to business stakeholders when there is no obvious opportunity. I cover why and how to do this in a LinkedIn Live I hosted for CPOs.
Stream 4: Recruiters
Most people never get a job through a recruiter because recruiters work for employers who retain them for a specific set of experiences or level of candidates. Unless you are a match to their current portfolio of searches, your engagement with them is a long game over the course of your career.
However, you should still take calls from Recruiters when they reach out and build bridges. They are often a conduit into the hidden job market and senior roles. Employers are likely to justify retaining a Recruiter for leadership roles and tough to find IC roles, which require a targeted GTM strategy that will add specific experiences to the product org, (e.g., API Integrations, payments, or infrastructure tech debt.)
What is the hidden job market?
The hidden job market is mysterious. It is not necessarily a set of unadvertised positions, although that is part of it. The hidden job market includes opportunities that have not yet been converted into an "open position" in an organization. The hidden job market can be as nebulous as the time span from the moment a CEO realizes it's time to hire a product leader to the moment it's an approved position with a budget. That time span can take as long as two months.
That example of the hidden job market is so hidden that it isn't even a job yet! Accessing hidden opportunities can only come through human-to-human engagement. Consider a CEO who goes to bed at night thinking about or worrying about the product leader they intend to hire. That CEO will likely take a call from someone whose carefully curated inbound message is aligned with their business and customers and how they could add value to that CEO. I covered how to engage with that decision-maker level in a LinkedIn Live for CPO-level candidates.
Recruiters are also likely to be influential in these hidden opportunities. The work we do at The Product Recruiter includes being a resource to CEOs and CPOs who require real-time market insights for future strategic hires.
How do you stand out and land a role?
If you're in the current hiring cycle and participating in the interviews, congratulations! That is a tall task in this job market, and the pressure is on not to squander the opportunity. The best way to stand out in an interview is to be all in! Employers want to invest in candidates who are both interested and excited about their business and the problems they are solving. So how do you do that?
Show Your Enthusiasm
Your job as a candidate is to communicate in such a way that reinforces interest and appropriately expresses excitement. This will help you stand out from candidates who communicate like they are just lukewarm on the opportunity.
To be all in, avoid language like:
"I'm not in any rush."
"I'm taking my time."
"I'm in the fortunate position to take extended time off while I figure out what I want to do next."
Optimize for Recency Bias
When speaking with a recruiter or employer, be mindful that in most instances, the reason they wanted to speak with you is because of what you've been working on recently. Most employers and recruiters are not interested in the entirety of a career and certainly not what you did immediately after graduating from University. Especially since many PMs begin their careers in engineering or in a CS role and then move into product after delivering value to their employer. Be careful that when given an opportunity to communicate your story, your starting point is what you've delivered most recently, not what you did in 2016.
Listen to the Question
I know this sounds obvious, but nervousness during an interview or an active mind that jumps to all the possible ways to answer a question can cause some candidates to talk around a question instead of answering it.
Work to discipline yourself to actively listen to the question being asked and then answer exactly that question first before offering more information is essential. Showcase this skill as the very nature of the Product Manager's role is someone with excellent communication.
Qualify Questions
Not sure what the interviewer is asking? Qualify the question. Just like a Product Manager is not a professional candidate, an employer is not a professional interviewer. They may not know the best way to probe for what they need to understand. Ask a follow-up question to ensure you are providing them what they need to make the interview successful.
Close by Confirming Interest
Always end an interview by verbally communicating that you are interested. You don't want to be the candidate who is so fixated on the question/answer portion that you leave the meeting with the employers thinking that you did not seem to appear interested. Remember, you need to be all in! Ways to showcase this are:
"I'm excited to continue the discussion. What's the next step?"
"After learning more today, I'm even more interested in your organization and confident I can deliver what you need done."
What tips do you have for those not getting to the interview stage?
Nailing a PM interview is all about preparation and curiosity. Ensure your product resume is in good working order and best optimized to land you those interviews. Follow the checklist below:
✅ Do consider recency bias. While your entire career has helped make you who you are today, in most cases, your accomplishments at your last employer (or two) will be the reason you get hired, so front-load your resume.
✅ Do present outcomes. A resume is intended to showcase your contribution, scope, and scale. It is wise to always assume your audience knows nothing about you and the great things you've done. This is the time to brag.
✅ Do focus on data. This provides the hiring manager with tangible quantitative outcomes. Showcase all stats, numbers, metrics, dollars, customer names, integrations, investors, or analysts you've partnered with.
✅ Do communicate in the language of the product. If your resume sounds like a finance person, it introduces confusion and doubt that you really are a product professional.
✅ Do keep it to two pages (three is the absolute maximum). Hiring managers are busier than ever, and almost no one will read past two.
✅ Do curate. Every word needs to be processed by its reader, so stick to the main points and delete the excess.
✅ Do use a font size of 10.5 or larger. Keep it easy to scan.
✅ Do use black font. It has the greatest contrast and can be read easily. Modern, pale shades of gray are not accessible.
✅ Do make it easy to contact you. The goal of a resume is to get an interview, so streamline for that experience and put your contact (email + phone + LinkedIn) at the top.
✅ Do share your resume as a PDF. It's the most globally accessible format and will not get reformatted if opened by a different program (i.e., Word to GDocs).
✅ Do name the file with your first and last name. Make it easy for the hiring manager to find your resume.
❌ Don't add a photo. Photos belong on LinkedIn; in fact, there is a designated area to upload one.
❌ Don't include your home address. No one is going to mail you anything. Offer letters and other documents are sent electronically. If you are the hire, then you'll be asked to provide your home address.
❌ Don't make viewing it complicated. Don't share a resume from a drive that requires a password or download. This introduces extra steps, friction, and the likelihood of someone not doing and not reviewing your resume.
❌ Don't repeat your previous employer's name in every line of that employer's section. Readers will understand anything in that section happened while working there.
❌ Don't add the location of employers. Where an employer has their HQ is irrelevant. They need to know where you are.
❌ Don't overuse hyperlinks. Hyperlinks take your audience away from your resume and down rabbit holes that introduce friction and distractions and delay them from the action you really want: an interview.
❌ Don't use italics, underlining, or shaded text boxes. Products look modern now, so resumes need to, too.
❌ Don't add clip art, graphs, maps, and other designed assets. This may date the style of your resume or distract the audience from getting to what they care about: outcomes, accomplishments, scope, and scale.
❌ Don't write in the third person. Just don't. Please.
❌ Don't rely on an automated app. Don't think ChatGPT or other automation apps will produce an impactful resume that reflects your outcomes and will stand up against all the other candidates who took the time to "nail it" on paper.
❌ Don't write out a job description. A job description is not a resume!
❌ Don't add a skills section. If you are a senior leader, you are beyond a skills section. The outcomes, scope and scale you present should satisfy the hiring manager that you have skills.
❌ Don't include a cover letter. Unless you are asked for one - most tech companies will never ask for one.
❌ Don't include references. References are provided once you have been selected as the candidate an employer wants to hire. Often, the offer is presented as "pending references, background, and criminal check."
❌ Don't write in paragraphs. People don't read resumes; they scan them.
Closing thoughts
Navigating the current job market requires strategy, perseverance, and leveraging multiple streams, particularly when it comes to product leadership roles. While the current job market remains challenging, there is the light of a new and more prosperous year ahead. Good luck!
🙏 Thank you to Heidi! For more insights from Heidi Ram, including the latest on market trends and hiring strategies, you can reach her at The Product Recruiter or connect on LinkedIn. The Product Recruiter provides specialized recruiting services for startups and scale-ups across North America. Their team of talent scouts works on behalf of Founders, CEOs, and CPOs who need to make a strategic hire in Product Management, Product Design, or Product Marketing.
👋 And that’s a wrap folks. Thank you for reading.
If you enjoyed reading today's newsletter, feel free to forward it or share your referral link with someone! Or you can always hit the like button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack.
The Product Trench is a free newsletter. I may consider some type of paid tier down the line. Until then, if you find my work valuable, you can buy me a coffee.
See you next time.
— Sam ✌️
 | A guest post by
|