Ramli John

Author of Product-Led Onboarding (+30K copies sold) | First Round Fast Track Mentor | Content Director at Appcues.

⭐️ Follow me for helpful tips to onboard, delight, and keep your customers coming back to your product.
📔 Author of Amazon #1 bestselling book "Product-Led Onboarding." 👉 𝙎𝙀𝘼𝙉 𝙀𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙎, Founder of GrowthHackers.com: "Product-Led Onboarding is 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭-𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 embarking on the critical activity of improving their user onboarding." 


⚡️ I use my multi-disciplinary skills in marketing, design, and software development to help product-led SaaS companies analyze their whole customer's journey and funnel to identify growth opportunities to 2-3X their MRR. 

Often, that means designing and implementing experiments to increase activation rate (trial-to-paid or free-to-paid conversions), decrease churn rate, or increase average revenue per user (ARPU)

If you asked my friends and colleagues how they would describe me, they'd say I'm resourceful, proactive, and entrepreneurial

►► CONTACT INFO
▷ Send a connection request
▷ Write me a note at ramli [at] ramlijohn.com

Founder

A weekly show and newsletter for marketers looking to level up their marketing and career. I interview world-class marketers to uncover the secrets, strategies, and frameworks behind their wins. In each episode, guests reveal three things:  (1) a marketing power-up,  (2) a real-world example of that in action, and (3) a power-up that’s helped them take their career to the next level.

Ramli "RJ" John

When your product team skips user research (and just builds fast with AI)... 🤡


AI lets you ship in days, not weeks. But without user research, speed just gets you to the wrong place faster.

A product leader was about to ship a feature last week. AI-assisted code. Cloud deployment ready. Built in 3 days.

Then someone from customer success flagged something: "This solves a problem our users stopped complaining about 6 months ago."

One conversation. Saved weeks of wasted effort.

We can build faster than ever. AI tools, cloud code, vibe coding—the speed is real.

But speed without direction is just efficient wandering.

The real question isn't "Can we ship this?"

It's "Should we?"

That's where user research becomes non-negotiable.

Here are 5 ways to quickly validate ideas before you ship:

1. Run a 5-second test on your concept (does it communicate what you think it does?)
2. Send a quick survey to your target segment (10 questions max)
3. Do 3-5 unmoderated usability tests on a prototype
4. Interview 5 users who match your ICP (even 15-min calls work)
5. Card sort your information architecture before building navigation

None of these take weeks. Most can be done in days.

Tools like Lyssna make this even faster. You can recruit from 690K+ vetted participants, run moderated or unmoderated tests, and get results before your sprint ends.

Speed is a competitive advantage.

But only when you're building the right thing.

What's your go-to method for quick validation?

PS. Save this for the next time you're tempted to ship something fast without validating it first. Future you will thank you.

Join the AI Product Leaders Summit on 3/24 at PLSummit.ai. Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

The AI Product Leaders Summit is back on 3/24 with 15 speakers. 500+ product leaders already registered. Join free: https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

Every speaker is actively building AI products or leading teams through AI transformation right now. No theory. Just what's actually working (and what flopped).

The lineup:

→ Deepti Pradeep  and her team (Adobe) on how Photoshop got 100k+ of users in 30 days by launching inside ChatGPT
→ Jacob Bank (Relay.app, ex-Google Gmail/Calendar) on the 3 AI agents every product leader should "hire"
→ Mickey Alon (Foldspace AI) on Agent-Led Growth—when your product does the work for users
→ Christine Itwaru & Katy Nardozzi (Userflow) on dogfooding their way to better product decisions
→ Joe Formica (Lyssna) on where AI misleads product decisions (and how to avoid it)

Plus two expert panels:

→ Angela Sze (Sr. Director of Product at Fullstory), Shannon Vettes (CEO/CPO at Usersnap), Lauren Schuman (VP of Product Growth at Close) on shipping AI features without losing customer trust
→ Betsy Shaak (VP Product Voxpopme), Greg Leach (Sr. Director at 7shifts), Partho Ghosh (VP Product @ Uberall), and Priyanka Sahni (Product Lead at Meta) on how product teams are using AI to cut the busywork

Here's what you'll walk away with:

1. How Adobe turned ChatGPT into a growth channel (and whether you should too)
2. Which AI agents actually save PMs time vs. pure hype
3. How to ship AI features without confusing users or breaking trust
4. Where AI creates blind spots in product decisions

March 24th. 10 AM - 3:30 PM ET. Virtual. Free.

Register for free: https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

What's the biggest challenge you're facing with AI products right now?

PS. Tag a product leader who needs to see this. They'll thank you for it. 😊

It's been 2 years since I've had a podcast show. Tomorrow, that changes! Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path drops at 8 am ET. 🎉


I waited because I didn't want another show. I wanted something that actually aligned with what I'm building—a media and community brand for product leaders.

The first episode is "The AI Adoption Pressure."

Your team is scrolling LinkedIn, seeing posts about AI replacing jobs. Leadership is pushing hard on adoption. Everyone's overwhelmed. No one knows where to start.

Two product leaders faced this exact moment. Same pressure. Completely different approaches.

Greg Leach (Sr. Director/GM of Expansion Revenue at 7shifts) built a cross-functional AI committee. Volunteers from every department. Monthly demos drawing 100+ people. Department budgets for experimentation. Bottom-up learning across the entire company.

Joseph King (Sr. Director of Product at Crucial Learning) took a different path. His team invested in sending four leaders to Kellogg for AI certification. Frameworks first. Leadership alignment before company-wide rollout. Top-down, methodical approach.

Both worked. But for very different reasons.

This episode breaks down what each leader did, why they chose their approach, and what you can learn from both paths.

No generic advice. Just real decisions, real trade-offs, and real outcomes.

🎧 Search "Product Leaders Lab" on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Tomorrow. 8 am ET. See you there!

The Product Leaders Lab podcast show drops 2/24. 🎉 I can't wait to share real stories from product leaders. Here's a sneak peek at what's coming in Season 1:

→ Greg Leach (Sr. Director of Expansion Revenue @ 7shifts) - How creating an AI adoption committee with 15% of his company reduced automation tasks from hours to minutes—without hiring a single AI expert.

→ Michelle Green (Director of Product @ Cohley) - Why showing designs to customer success before they're "completely baked" saved her team from building the wrong AI feedback flow.

→ Christine Itwaru (VP of Product @ Userflow) - What happened when her "hands-off approach" to build trust led to the biggest launch failure of her career—and how she recovered.

→ Matt LeMay - How he recovered from a feature launch failure and how his team showed him grace.

→ Joseph King (Sr. Director of Product @ Crucial Learning) - How this product leader cut through the AI noise—turning curiosity into capability and education into strategic advantage.

→ David Pereira - Why stepping back from product decisions as a new leader felt like giving up control—until he realized his team was his product now.

→ Shannon Vettes (CPO @ Usersnap) - How she made the biggest bet of her career only 6 months into her leadership role with an AI feature that changed the trajectory of the company.

→ Netali Jakubovitz - How she created an entirely new role called "Prompt Ops" to scale AI across her platform without drowning her team.

And many more. I'm still recording episodes for Season 1.

The Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path is not another interview show. Here's how it works:

One tough scenario. Two veteran product leaders who've lived it. Completely different approaches. Documentary-style editing (20-25 min, not 60+ min rambling).

If you're a VP, Director, or Head of Product with a defining leadership moment you want to share, DM me or tag them below. I'm looking for more guests!

Launching Tuesday, February 24, 2026. Stay tuned!

Building a community for product leaders (VP and Director-level). Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

Most product onboarding fails because of "click tax." More clicks = higher drop-off. AI can fix this. Here's how...


First, here's what the traditional flow could look like:
→ Click on Document Templates
→ Pick a template
→ Update the template
→ Save and send

4 steps. Each one adds cognitive load. In B2B, it's worse. You've got multiple personas with different expertise, different outcomes they're chasing.

One-size-fits-all education doesn't work.

AI can fix this. The shift: Don't educate → generate.

Instead of teaching users how to navigate your platform, help them generate the outcome directly.

Anvil did this. Now users just describe what they need: "Create a template for a B2B SaaS purchase agreement."

Then they watch it get built. Custom-made for them.

From 4 steps to 2. From education to generation.

Tools like Foldspace AI are making this possible without custom code. Your team doesn't have to build an agentic experience from scratch.

This is where activation is headed. Less hand-holding. More instant value.

How are you using AI to reduce click tax in your product?

Product Leaders Lab show drops next week. And honestly? It's never been harder to be a product leader.

The pressure to ship AI features. The endless stakeholder alignment. The decisions that keep you up at night.

Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path is where real product leaders share how they handled their toughest moments.

The decisions.
The tradeoffs.
The consequences.

Featuring stories from leaders at Google, Spotify, and more.

No theory. Just real leadership.

📅 First episode drops February 24

🎧 Follow & subscribe:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g2FsrjUb
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gWwS-Rv8
Apple: https://lnkd.in/gAzQJb7Q

See you there.

Building a peer community for product leaders (VP and Director-level). Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

Episode 1 of Product Leaders Lab is officially LIVE. 🎉 Leadership is pushing AI. Your product team is overwhelmed. They're watching what you do next. What do you do? 

Two product leaders faced this exact moment. Same pressure. Completely different solutions.

Greg Leach (7shifts) built a cross-functional AI committee. Volunteers from every department. Monthly demos drawing 100+ people.

Joseph King (Crucial Learning) was one of four leaders from his company who joined the Kellogg School of Management's AI certification. Frameworks first. Leadership alignment before rollout.

Bottom-up vs. top-down. Both worked. But for very different reasons.

This episode breaks down what they did, why they chose their approach, and what you can learn from both paths.

🎧 Search "Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path" on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

💬 Drop your biggest takeaway in the comments.
🔁 Share this with a product leader feeling the AI pressure.

PS. Thank you to the founding partners of the Product Leaders Lab: Userflow, Lyssna, and Foldspace AI. They've made this possible and whole 10-episode season possible.

PMs have been waiting on devs to build prototypes for decades. That's changing with Claude Code. So, I'm hosting a free workshop about it.

Jerome Valdez (Head of Product Design at Plotly, 20+ years experience) will share his process for building AI prototypes with Claude Code and Cursor—the tools he uses daily to ship working prototypes in hours, not weeks.

In this session, product managers will learn how to:

→ Validate ideas before committing engineering resources
→ Test concepts with users and stakeholders faster
→ Stop waiting for dev capacity to explore new directions

Jerome's tested Replit, Bolt, Lovable, Gemini, Windsurf, and more. He'll show you which tools actually work (and which don't).

This isn't theory. It's a live demo of his real workflow.

📅 Thu, Feb 26, 2026
🕛 12:00 PM EST (1 hour)
💻 Virtual (Zoom)
💰 Free

239+ product folks have already signed up.

Sign up for free here: https://lnkd.in/g5dGd3qB

Can't make it live? Register anyway, and I'll send the recording. 

But, you'll miss the live demo and Q&A.

See ya there!

A product leader recently told me their team spent 6 hours a week just looking at dashboards. Not fixing things. Not improving onboarding. Just checking metrics to see if something broke.

"We have all this data," she said. "But we're always reacting, never ahead of it."

This tracks with what I'm seeing across product teams.
You've got analytics. You've got dashboards. You've got behavior data.

But you're still playing detective, manually hunting for what changed, why it matters, and where to fix it.

So, when I saw FlowAI Insights by Userflow, it caught my attention.

It flips the monitoring model. Instead of you watching dashboards, it watches your flows and flags what needs attention.

Drops in completion rates. The exact step causing friction. Only the high-impact stuff.

Then it links directly to where you fix it.

The part I keep thinking about: teams are catching issues before users complain. Spikes in errors, step drop-offs—the silent killers that usually take weeks to surface.

Less time analyzing. More time improving.

Honestly, this feels like where product ops is headed. Proactive instead of reactive.

Are you spending more time monitoring than actually fixing things?

If you want to check it out: https://lnkd.in/g7msgNFg

ChatGPT isn't just a tool anymore; it's a growth channel. It's how Adobe got 100K+ new users in 30 days. They're sharing exactly how they did it...


Most product leaders are asking: "How do we add AI to our product?"

Adobe asked a different question: "How do we get our product INTO AI platforms?"

That reframe led to one of their boldest growth bets.

They launched Photoshop inside ChatGPT. Six weeks. Ungated. No login required.

Here's the shift that matters:

Instead of treating AI as a feature to bolt on, Adobe treated AI platforms as the new top of funnel.

Think about it:

→ Millions of people already inside ChatGPT daily
→ Zero friction to try Photoshop (no login, no paywall)
→ Users discover Adobe where they already are

This isn't about adding AI to your product anymore.

It's about getting your product in front of AI users.

Want to hear the full story?

Deepti Pradeep (Sr. Director of Product Management, Growth at Adobe) is sharing the decision, the trade-offs, and what they learned—along with her team members Anthony Lewis (Principal PM) and Shalini Ahuja (Senior PM, Photoshop).

They're speaking at the AI Product Leaders Summit I'm hosting.

📅 Tuesday, March 24 | 10 AM - 3 PM ET
💻 Virtual. Free.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

What AI platform could be YOUR distribution channel?

🚀 Only 3 days to go! The first episode of Product Leaders Lab drops this Thursday! 🎙️ Don’t miss it, follow us and turn on notifications so you’re ready!

#ProductLeadersLab #Countdown #ProductManagement #LeadershipJourney #TuneInThursday

AI isn't optional anymore. It's the future of your business. But forcing it with memos and hoping it'll stick? That’s a recipe for failure. 

Building an AI-ready culture starts with genuine support, not just mandates. What’s your biggest challenge with AI adoption? Drop your thoughts below.

🎥🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 

#AITransformation #LeadershipTips #FutureOfWork #BusinessGrowth

Your biggest product launch just flopped. Do you protect your team or fix the product first? What do you do? Here's what Christine and Matt did...

Christine Itwaru (VP Product and Design at Userflow) knew two hours in. She immediately went into "mama bear" mode—told her PM to shut out Slack, took the heat herself, and shielded her team while they fixed it.

Matt LeMay (Product Advisor and Author) watched their Bitly relaunch get publicly destroyed. Roger Ebert posted about how terrible it was. People threatened to burn down their office! It took months before they could pivot.

One moved in hours. One struggled for months. Both eventually recovered.

This episode breaks down:
→ How to protect your team when everything's on fire
→ Why setting success criteria BEFORE launch saves you from rationalizing failure
→ When to fix fast vs. when a full pivot is the only path forward

🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. 
Search "Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path."

💬 What's the most common reason you've seen product launches fail? 
Drop it in the comments.

🔁 Share this with a product leader who's been through launch hell.

—

Thank you to our partners for supporting the show:

🏆 Userflow: Guide users, answer questions in the moment, and continuously improve product adoption—all without writing code.
🙋‍♀️ Lyssna: Create research studies, recruit the right participants, and gather feedback to shape products users truly love
🤖 Foldspace AI: The AI Operator that turns your SaaS AI-first in days. Their embedded agent understands your users' intent and executes it on their behalf. 

—

My favorite quote from this episode: "Someone's threatening to come to our office and burn it down. Should we delete that or keep it?" — Matt

People rush to add ChatGPT features or AI tools, expecting instant wins. But without a clear strategy, those features often flop after months of effort.

What's your biggest concern with AI adoption right now?

🎥🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts!

#AIstrategy #ProductGrowth #BusinessInnovation #TechTips

Two years ago, we thought AI would take our jobs. Turns out, standing still is what actually will.

I talked to Joseph King, Sr. Director of Product at Crucial Learning, about how his team went from fear to treating AI as a collaborator.

But here's the part that stuck with me:

His company had an AI strategy. It just sat in a Slack channel nobody checked.

Teams didn't know the company's actual stance on AI. So they guessed. Or did nothing.

The fix wasn't complicated. Document it. Share it. Make it visible.

Most companies aren't failing because they lack an AI vision.

They're failing because nobody knows it exists.

Does your team actually know your company's AI stance? Or is it buried somewhere?

🎥🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Search "Product Leaders Lab."

Meet Ramli John, the host shaping Product Leaders Lab and bringing product leadership to life! 🚀 Watch, engage, and leave a comment with your questions!

#ProductLeadersLab #MeetTheHost #DelightPath #LeadershipStories #ProductInsights

Networking Coach: Land 10-20 Product Interviews at Top Tech Companies✨Product & GTM Advisor🪄

Learn how to network to land your next job. My second cohort starts on February 17!
https://maven.com/dspeigel/networking-magic

Grow your product, grow your customers, grow your network.
I help executives build growth features into their products to land customers and channel partners.
I help individuals improve their networking skills to build the relationships they need to succeed.

Want to land you next top tech role? Do you think 3-5 interview loops is enough? Think again. Even with 5 loops, the odds of you landing 2 offers timed closely enough to choose are very slim. After coaching 100s of PMs, the ones with the best chances of landing their dream role develop a pipeline of 10-15 interview loops per month. They do this through persistent networking, not just applications.

More about me:
15+ years of product leadership in AdTech, both B2B and B2C.

- Launched data products for audience capture (LiveRamp) and built audience integrations to top social networks and DSPs such as Meta, Google, The Trade Desk and many others.

- Built 0-to-1 campaign management tools for reporting, ad creative approval, and audience creation. Added product led growth go-to-market capabilities to a B2B SaaS influencer marketing platform

- Worked in two public company innovation centers taking products from 0-to-1 and scaling from 0 to $xxM.

David Speigel 🔮

If your job search plan is “apply and hope”…
You’re playing by yourself. What to do instead:

Most Product Managers say they want top 1% roles.
But their strategy looks like everyone else’s.

- Refresh resume
- Apply to 20–30 roles
- Prep for interviews
- Repeat

And then they’re sad when they get ghosted.

My POV (that's worked with 100's of PMs):

Applications are a visibility tactic.
Networking is a positioning strategy.

If you’re only applying, you’re volunteering to compete.
If you’re networking, you’re building leverage.

My framework breaks landing interviews into 4 parts:

1️⃣ Mindset

Networking isn’t “after you apply.”
It’s the strategy.

You move from transactional job-seeking…
to long-term relationship building.

From “Can you refer me?”
to “Here’s how I can add value.”

When your positioning is clear…
- Who you are
- What you want
- What you’re great at 

…outreach becomes natural.

2️⃣ Methods

1st-degree connections get you 2nd-degree opportunities.

That means:
- Building over 100+ meaningful connections a year
- Identifying super-connectors
- Reconnecting with past coworkers
- Using LinkedIn searches beyond job postings

Most people only search for jobs.
The successful few search for people.

Find hiring managers.
Find people engaging with their posts.
Build visibility before you ever apply.

3️⃣ Messaging

This is where people overdo it.

You don’t need a long message.
And don’t ask for a referral right away.

Keep it short. Be curious. 
Show you actually looked at their profile.

Find a bit of common ground. 
Maybe mention something specific. 
Add a small insight if it makes sense.

Then follow up once or twice if needed. 
Most people just miss your first message.

Remember, you’re not pitching.
You’re starting a conversation.

4️⃣ Management

Networking beats applications because it compounds.
Applications have no residual benefit if you get ghosted.

Networking builds:
- Relationships
- Market intelligence
- Referrals
- Future opportunities

You should aim for:
10–15 first-round interviews
6–7 loops
2–3 offers (at the same time)

That’s leverage.

That doesn’t come from hitting “Apply” 100 times.

Put yourself in the hiring managers' shoes:
They want to hire people they know or people in their network.

You can get into that circle.
But only if you build it intentionally.

So be honest:

Are you trying to win the application lottery…
…or are you building a career moat?

Free Maven Lightning Lesson next week:
12 Networking Message Templates in 30 Minutes
https://lnkd.in/gQjZ7aJ5

Our next cohort starts March 3rd:
https://lnkd.in/ghAtjReZ

“David, I’ve started to feel the magic!” I caught up with a former student 3 weeks after our first cohort. He wanted to share his amazing results:

“For the last couple of weeks, I started feeling the magic you spoke about during the cohort.”

Here’s what that “magic” turned into:
→ 6 total new interview loops
→ 3 from outbound networking, (1 unposted role)
→ 2 inbound recruiter messages, 1 was L7 at eBay!
→ 1 older application resurfaced

I asked what changed. He said something important:

“I updated my headline and focused my outreach.”

That headline shift, combined with narrowing his target company list exactly the way we structured it in the cohort, drove his connection acceptance rate from ~15% to over 50%. 

He nearly tripled his response rate!

“I checked my LinkedIn data. Each second connection request was accepted.”

He picked:
→ 200–500 employee companies
→ e-commerce / marketplace focus
→ California-based
→ Series B+

At one company with no posted job, he found someone with a shared background, built rapport in their native language, and that person advocated for him internally.

That’s what happens when you narrow your positioning, search for advocates, and turn cold contacts into warm connections.

He told me: “It doesn’t bring instant results… but it worked in a couple of weeks.”

He ran the system and momentum showed up fast.

Here’s how I can help you, too:
https://lnkd.in/gbZSfFix

Sign up for Thursday's Lightning Lesson
(Or just watch the recordings)

Check out the course - next cohort starts Tuesday!

Open article: Maven | Unlock your career growth by maven.com

There are 4 main steps to a PM job search 
And most are skipping over 3 of them...

Many Product Managers obsess over interview prep

→ Case frameworks
→ Behavioral stories
→ Mock interviews

But interview prep is step 3

Not step 1

Remember, there are 4 pieces to this puzzle 
Too many over-invest in one that fits later

Here’s how it actually works:

1️⃣ Profile & Goals

Before you chase interviews, you need clarity

- Who are you?
- What roles are you targeting?
- Which companies? Which teams?

Once you clearly define that, you can communicate it

Once you communicate it, networking gets easier

Without this layer, you’re just spraying resumes

2️⃣ Land Interviews

Here's where most PMs struggle without realizing it

- You land 1 or 2 interviews
- You don’t pass
- You assume you need better interview skills

The real issue?
You didn’t build enough pipeline

Instead, aim for 10 first-round screens
That could turn into 6-7 loops…
...and 2 to 3 offers

That gives you leverage

And the only reliable way to create that volume of quality interviews?

Networking.

Not cold applications.

Applications have no residual value if you get ghosted

Networking builds relationships, context, and future opportunities…
…even if that specific role doesn’t work out

3️⃣ Interview Prep

Once you’ve networked, interviews change

You’re not guessing anymore

You already know:
- The team’s pain points
- The hiring manager’s style
- The “gotcha” questions
- The internal context
- The expectations

Interviews aren't interrogations
They become conversations

4️⃣ Offer Negotiation 

You can just accept your first offer
Or you can create options

When you have multiple offers, negotiation becomes a strategy…
…not something you do out of desperation

Here’s the reality:

You can hire someone to rewrite your resume
You can pay for mock interviews
You can even hire an offer negotiation coach

Very few people will help you build the part that actually drives everything else:

Your network.

If you’re getting ghosted by applications…
If you want to get noticed by top companies…
If you’re tired of hoping the ATS picks you…

You probably don’t have an “interviewing” problem
You have a “land interviews” problem

And that’s where I can help:
https://lnkd.in/gbZSfFix

Sign up for this Thursday's Lightning Lesson
Or just watch the recordings
Then check out the course

I’ve coached 100s of PM on how to land top tech jobs. Here’s what most miss:

(I can’t blame them though, I once thought similarly, 20ish years ago.)

They think "Networking" is something you do only after you see a job posting. 

I wish they knew that I landed a Director of Product role at Discovery Media and a Head of Product role at LiveRamp by connecting with the hiring team… before the roles were even posted!

Please, don’t only apply, then search for the hiring manager and recruiter so you can alert them of your application: “Hey, Look At MEEE!!!”

Technically that’s networking, but it’s not the main thing I teach.

In these situations, you’re playing from a position of weakness.

Stop and think about it. 

It’s HARD for hiring managers to get their company to open a new role on their team. When they do have that shiny, valuable new role, they don’t broadcast it out to everyone and anyone so random strangers they don’t know or trust can report to them.

No, that’s the 3rd or 4th best option.

First, hiring managers shop the role to:
Their inner circle
Private text threads
Private Slack channels
Well known PM communities

Next, they post the role on LinkedIn (without turning on Actively Hiring). This alerts their first degree network to see if anyone they know is interested.

Only after these first two options do they start accepting applicants.

When you’re actively networking, you can find the roles at steps 1 and 2 and skip the applicant line. Be in a list of 3-5 insiders instead of 500-1000 applicants.

I understand that at many companies roles have to be posted and applications accepted, etc. 

But don’t you agree that the insiders have a better chance?

My point: 
Many mid-career product managers ask me: 

“David, can you help me network after I submit my application?”

And what I’d like them to understand is that networking can be a very powerful ALTERNATIVE to submitting applications.

Yes. Do both. But let 80% of your time spent landing interviews be networking and only 20% be applications (and of that 20%, most of it should be networking after you’ve applied).

Consider joining my 2nd cohort next week to build your network. 

Improve your career fitness and build a moat around your career - whether you’re currently working or job searching.

taplio

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