The 2024 State of Product Marketing report reaffirmed our predictions: more and more people are transitioning into product marketing.

Still, though, there isn't a definitive route into the profession, with our latest deep dive into the nuts and bolts of the industry confirming the diverse origins of global Product Marketing Managers (PMMs).

While PMMs surveyed came from a variety of seniority levels, company growth stages, and company sizes, not all had longstanding careers in product marketing - not by a long shot. Many originated from other sectors, one as far-flung as an ex-Burger King Line Cook.

Wanna follow in their footsteps and make the transition from your current role to a product marketing position?

Just keep on reading to find out more.

Is product marketing a good job?

This is a fairly subjective question, which can only really be answered by those who are already in the trade.

Scott Shapiro, Director and Head of Global Product Marketing at Secure Code Warrior said:
“At the company I work for, product marketing sits in a unique situation - departments want to know how product marketing can add value. However, right now, it’s about taking that seat at the table and showing the value that we bring.
“Product marketing is playing catch up to product at many companies, but in my case, we’re partners and lean on each other to lead more effectively.

“One of our main benefits is that the Chief Marketing Officer has a strong product marketing background that can help drive home the value at the strategic leadership team level.
“This helps drive my credibility as Head of Product Marketing cross-company and helps me to return that favor in support of my team. It’s an ongoing journey to communicate and create that value.”

Product marketing is indispensable when it comes to influencing internal goals and strategies to reach that company-wide end goal.

But oftentimes, product marketers are misunderstood within their role. Which is something we’re dedicated to fixing.

Equip yourself with first-hand knowledge, techniques, and stories to amplify your role as a product marketer, establish your authority, and elevate your strategic value with our book: Product Marketing Misunderstood.

The relationship between marketing and product marketing

In the 2024 State of Product Marketing report, we asked product marketers where they were positioned within their organization, and to who they reported. 

A wide range of respondents said that they reported to some form of marketing as their lead; 9.8% report directly to their CMO, 9.4% to their VP of Marketing, 7.2% to their Head of Marketing, 2.5% to their Senior VP of Marketing, and 1.4% to their Director of Marketing.

A bar chart from the State of Product Marketing 2024 report that shows who product marketers directly report to. 19.5% to director of product marketing, 10.5% to VP of Product Marketing, 9.8% to Chief Marketing Officer, 9.4% to VP of Marketing, 7.6% to Product Marketing Manager, 7.2% to Head of Marketing, 5.8% to CEO, 5.1% to Sr Director of Product Marketing, 4.3% to Head of Product Marketing, 2.5% to Senior VP of Marketing, 2.5% to CPO, 1.4% to Director of Marketing, 1.1% to themselves, 1.1% to General Manager, and 1.1% to CCO.




We also found that PMMs work most closely with the product team (19.4%) and the marketing team (18.4%), reflecting the core responsibilities of product marketing in bridging the gap between product development and go-to-market strategies.

Table from the State of Product Marketing 2024 report which shows which teams product marketing work with most. 19.4% to Product, 18.4% with Marketing, 16.3% to Sales, 10.8% to Leadership, 10.7% to Customer Success, 9.4% to Sales enablement, 8.1% to Business developement, 6% to engineering, and 0.9% to other departments.

This also consolidates the notion that there’s a nicely-established relationship between product marketing and marketing within a typical organization.

This is beneficial because as a marketer, though you may not understand the intrinsic responsibilities, you likely already have an idea of how the product marketing team functions on a day-to-day basis.

This prior understanding of the role can be used to prompt a smoother transition into a career as a product marketer.

What is product marketing responsible for?

Product marketers sit between and work alongside a multitude of different teams within any given organization.

Check out our video above. Or, if you prefer reading, our guide “What is product marketing?” gives you the best insights into what the role entails, including:

  • What a product marketer does
  • The difference between product marketing and marketing
  • Why product marketing is so important
  • What a product marketing strategy entails

And much more.

What is Product Marketing? | The complete 2023 guide
Product marketing is the driving force behind getting products to market - and keeping them there. Product marketers are the overarching voices of the customer, masterminds of messaging, enablers of sales, and accelerators of adoption. Learn more in this complete guide.

Essential product marketing skills

To become a product marketer, it’s essential to build up skills that are specific to the role. But as a marketer, you’ll have soft and hard skills that are closely related and easily transferable to a product marketing role already.

Madison Leonard, Product Marketing Lead at ClickUp, said:
“I fundamentally believe that having a generalist marketing background is hugely impactful for any specialist career.

"Even though you might not be sending emails, writing social posts, creating videos, or building landing pages yourself as a product marketer, most GTM plans will involve these marketing initiatives and it's vital to understand how each one should be executed and when.”

If you have experience working as a marketer, either in your current role or at a previous point in your career, this gives you a head start when it comes to working in product marketing.

As is the case with any role change, you’ll still have a lot to learn, but it’s definitely worth identifying transferable skills you already possess that you can continue to develop and refine to stand out to recruiters and make your life just that much easier once you’re in the role.

Hard skills within both roles include:

  • Understanding and implementing strong SEO concepts,
  • Knowledge of different content marketing formats (blog posts, social posts, videos, etc) and how to change your messaging to optimize each piece of content.,
  • How to complete thorough customer and market research, specifically in areas like customer engagement, churn analysis, customer retention, conversion rate optimization, and
  • Strong copywriting skills to improve your messaging and marketing content.

We’d recommend reading our article outlining 25 of the most important skills that PMMs need, before comparing these to your skillset. Use these as a benchmark for what you should be aiming for in your role.

23 key skills every product marketing manager needs
Product marketing is a notoriously difficult discipline to define. Product marketing is deeper than ensuring a new product launches successfully, and is all about being customer-obsessed.

How do I get product marketing experience?

With more people tempted by the prospect of leaving their current role behind and seeking pastures new as a Product Marketing Manager, we're keen to give you some advice on best practices for transitioning into the field and the product marketing skills that'll help you flourish.

We were lucky enough to be joined by an outstanding pair of product marketers plying their trade at Google.

Vincent Xu is the company’s Android Product/Partnerships Marketing Lead for the Asia-Pacific region, while Srikant Nayak is the Marketing Head of Android, Chrome, and Google Play Store for APAC.

Vincent: “From my perspective, there are three things that I would recommend you do: “Firstly, talk to people. If you're not in marketing and you want to find out more about it, reach out to some marketers.

Join the Product Marketing Alliance Slack channel where there’s a network of over 20,000 marketing professionals. Connect and talk to people about their experiences and how they transitioned into their roles.
“Once you've had a lot of experiences of talking with people, check out specialist product marketing books and read up on things.
Product Marketing Alliance is also super helpful. They publish tons of resources to help you understand what marketing is all about and what marketers do on a day-to-day basis.

"Once you read up, you can reflect and think about the existing skills you have that you can transfer, and identify areas for improvement.
“Finally, if you have the opportunity, I would recommend getting some hands-on experience. At Google, we have this thing called 20% projects, which is where you spend 80% of your time on your core role, and the other 20% you can spend experiencing something else.
"We've had people from, say, sales take up marketing projects for three to six or sometimes even nine months. If you can do something similar in your organization, I would strongly recommend it."

Srikant: “As a marketeer, you need to be curious – that's the most important thing for me. As I said earlier, you cannot do this job in isolation.

"No matter what function or role you’re doing, as long as you’re curious about the cross-functional conversations, and not just focused on the work you do, that's the first step to being a successful marketer.
“Then, as your curiosity grows, you might want to listen in on marketing conversations. I’ve had people come to me in the past and say, “Hey, that's an interesting project. Mind if I sit in on your meetings?”

"I did that myself when I used head marketing at KFC Asia. I was interested in the development function and I would sit in on one of their meetings each week. It helped me understand how their function operates and think differently about the business.
“Also, communicate with the marketing leads in your organization. If there’s a project where you can add value, get involved.

"Maybe not every company has a formal 20% program like Google, but even so, there’s nothing to stop you from going out there talking to the marketing team and figuring out what they are working on.
“And another thing to your point on reading: I think marketing seems very glossy and glamorous from the outside, but that might not always be the case. Doing your research and understanding what you are signing up for before you commit to marketing is important.
“Lastly, there are so many different types of roles within marketing. It differs depending on whether you’re in a local, regional, or global setup, and which company you’re a part of.

"You might not be interested in everything that marketing has to offer, so figure out which part appeals most to you and pursue that.”
What entry-level PMMs need to do to advance in their career
Unlock the secrets to product marketing success! Nine industry experts reveal career-boosting tips, essential skills, and must-have resources for aspiring PMMs.

How do I enter product marketing with no experience?

One of the biggest pieces of advice? Once you’ve taken courses like Product Marketing Certified Core to get yourself knowledgeable in the field, get yourself a mentor.

How do you do this?

Vincent: “Readers might be wondering how they can source a product marketing mentor.
“Number one: don't be afraid to ask. You might be thinking, “If I reach out to this person, am I bothering them? What if they don't respond?” But often, people are just as excited to be mentors as you are about learning.
“I had a lot of mentorship throughout my career, so paying it forward is super important. When someone reaches out to me, I take that as an honor. And, what's the worst that can happen? They don't respond – big deal! There are thousands of other marketers you can reach out to for advice.
“And then once you set up a time to chat with someone, having a general roadmap of what you want to get out of the discussion is pretty important. Think about the questions you want to ask.

"It’s a good idea to do a little bit of background digging on their professional experiences too, so you can have a more informed conversation.
“At the same time, you want to leave the discussion open to new ideas and topics. You might start with three or four general questions, but let the rest of the conversation flow and build a rapport with the person.
"The conversation might end up going in a completely different direction from what you expected and that's okay. Setting up that rapport is critical.”

Srikant: “I completely agree with Vincent. He mentioned that there's no harm in asking; in fact, being a mentor is a very gratifying experience, so you should think that you're allowing them to mentor you.
"People genuinely love sharing what they have learned. If you go with an open mind and you have a genuine question, people will more often than not be happy to help you out.
“There’s also a psychological safety in mentorship, so don't hold back. It's a space where the more you share about yourself or your business, the more they will care, and the better the quality of the conversation will be.
“The third thing I'll say is about picking the right mentor. It's difficult for somebody to completely understand the context that you operate in, so if possible, my advice would be to pick a mentor who is loosely connected to your business and will understand the context that you operate in. However, they still need to be removed enough to be able to give you objective feedback.
“Lastly, if you’re the mentor, make sure you listen. Listening is the best thing you can do for your mentee. Also, be sure to ask tough questions and give brutally honest feedback.
"At Google, we use a framework called Radical Candor – it's also a published book. The two main principles are caring personally and challenging directly; if you're able to do both, you’ll be a fantastic mentor.”

Sign up for the PMA Mentor Program, get expert guidance from PMMs from the likes of Adobe, Slack, Microsoft, and access advice and resources that’ll help you boost your career credentials.

Benefits of transitioning to a product marketing job

Product marketing is a well-loved role by those within the field. Here’s why:

It’s a cross-functional role

Many consider the product marketing role to be stimulating because of how varied their daily responsibilities are.

As a product marketer, you’re constantly working with various internal departments and in different areas like sales enablement, customer and market research, product development, and many more.

This is an incredible opportunity to widen your knowledge of different internal functions within an organization and develop your collaboration and communication skills.

You drive alignment and collaboration within your organization

As a PMM, you have to liaise between business, product, and customer to ensure you’re meeting the customer’s needs, whilst also producing great content and driving sales for the organization.

This may seem like a large responsibility, but it is an incredibly valuable trait to have.

Aligning overarching goals, objectives, and values within your company is essential in facilitating success, especially when it comes to understanding how you need to work together to meet customer needs, before using these insights to improve your product and the customer experience.

You can experience the product’s life cycle

Other departments such as sales, or design work on a specific period of a product’s life cycle. However, product marketers are lucky in that they typically get to have a hand in the whole process.

Become a member at Product Marketing Alliance and gain deeper insights into the skills, knowledge, and expectations of various product marketing roles with the PMM career table.

A faded image of the product marketing career table that is available if you're a member.

How to get into a product marketing career

There are many ways you can start a product marketing career. Here are some steps you can take to become that bit closer to becoming a PMM.

Step one: Build your experience

While it’s good to develop transferable skills from your previous marketing experience, it’s also important to begin developing experience within areas more specific to a product marketing role. For example:

This stance is echoed by professionals who’ve been plying their trade in product marketing:

“Back yourself! Product marketing is based on a set of skills that a lot of marketers possess: strong copywriting, clear communication, passion for collaboration, and a strategic mindset.
“The best tip I can give for someone moving into this discipline is to quickly define what product marketing means at your company, as the remit and responsibilities differ by industry and business size.

"You’ll be set up for success if everyone has a clear understanding of what product marketing’s on the hook for from the off.”
Rory Woodbridge, Head of Product Marketing at Pleo

“It’s rare to find entry-level product marketing roles because product marketing is so strategic by nature. So, you’ll want to start gathering experience that falls into the product marketing wheelhouse.
“I’ve seen content strategists move into product marketing because they leaned into developing positioning and messaging. I’ve seen growth marketers take on persona work and salespeople take on collateral creation and enablement.
“As for me? I became a product, industry, and customer expert with roles in market research and pre-sales consulting. I could transition easily into product marketing because I intimately understood the value our customers got from our product.
“Interestingly, I’ve also hired people into product marketing roles without prior PMM experience who previously had roles as our target buyer (e.g.: an insights manager who buys research technology can be a great fit to transition into product marketing for a research tech company).
“The best advice I can give you is to be vocal with your manager about your career aspirations so they can look out for opportunities to get you more exposure to product marketing, even if it’s a project here and there.”
Morgan Molnar, Director of Product Marketing, Global Insights Business at Momentive

How to prepare for a product marketing interview
Ready to dive into the role of a Product Marketing Manager with two feet? Then you’re probably wondering how to ace your next interview.

Step two: Build your connections

Get to know people within the product marketing community. This opens you up to a lot of new opportunities and will also help you to naturally build your knowledge around the product marketing industry.

  • Optimize your LinkedIn profile: Begin following, connecting, and engaging with PMMs you admire and want to learn from. Join LinkedIn product marketing groups to get a feel of current trends, vocab, and conversations that you’d otherwise miss out on. (And don’t forget to follow us!)
  • Join our Slack community: Our Slack community is rapidly growing, so you’ll never tire of product marketers to learn from. Plus, each channel is filled with useful resources, content, job opportunities, and conversations to help you gather knowledge on how to be the best PMM possible.
Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp agreed:
“My recommendation to anyone transitioning into a Product Marketing role is to connect with other Product Marketers.
“Don't be afraid to reach out to them via LinkedIn or in the PMA Slack group. And keep in mind that most product marketers started their careers in other roles or departments. You're not alone in this career transition. Enjoy the ride!”

Step three: Learn everything you can about your product

Once you’ve found a product marketing position, it’s important to begin thinking like a product marketer.

Melis Carroll, Vice President of Product Marketing at Majesco said:
“My advice is to truly understand your product(s) – the good, the bad, the ugly – and understand what your customers and community think about your product and your organization.

"Your product and your organization’s brand are closely tied together and having a holistic view of your strengths/weaknesses will enable you to take the appropriate steps to market your products in the best way.”

Natasha Katson, Product Marketing Manager at Staffbase also had her ten cents, saying:
“Get ready to dig deeper into the product that you market to become the product expert. Use your knowledge about customers’ and prospects' interests to talk to your customers, and learn their pain points, and valuable insights.
“Lean on your knowledge about the customer funnel when working on the strategy and positioning for your product.”

Step four: Don’t shy away from learning from your new teams

As we’ve already established, product marketing is an incredibly cross-functional role. Why not take this to your advantage and learn from the teams you’ll be working with?

In doing so, you’ll understand your company in greater detail, while the quality of collaboration between you and your peers will flourish.


“Become best friends with your product team counterparts! A lot of marketing professionals have already worked cross-functionally in their roles across teams like sales and creative, but product teams are a new type of partner that requires some relationship-building.
“Don't assume that your working style with your old cross-functional partners will work with product teams. Starting on the right foot with your product team will make you a better product marketer.”
Sean Lauer, Head of Product Marketing at MURAL
PMA insider membership

Common role transitions

Al Dea, Mentor, and Founder of MBA Schooled and Betterwork Labs provided us with different common ways to transition into a product marketing role. This is what he said…

1. Client Services to Product Marketing

Direct Relevant Experience to PMM: Product usage and adoption, understanding customer feedback, cross-functional stakeholder of PMMs, knowledge of “post-sale” sales process.

Saad Asad was the first marketing hire for a startup before he rose through the ranks to become Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Utmost. But prior to his hire, Asad was able to make the transition into Product Marketing from a Client Service Role.

“Previously, I worked in Client Services at a startup. In this role, I was focused on helping people learn how to use and adopt the software, managing accounts for renewals, and identifying upsell opportunities.”

In this customer-facing role, Asad gained important customer-facing skills that would eventually prove critical to becoming a product marketer.

“PMMs have to know about the customer, inside and out, and I was working with customers every day. I knew the exact pain points of our customers as well as valuable insights about how they interacted and engaged with the product, all important things PMMs need to know.”

After the transition from Client Services to Product Marketing, Asad was able to gain additional skills that rounded out his PMM experience, including product and feature launches, managing customer events, and writing content.

In terms of advice, Asad encourages those who want to transition into product marketing to talk to marketing leadership at your existing company and see how you can help out on side projects. He also encourages people to learn the core Product Marketing tasks and deliverables.

“Learning this in a safe space can help set you up for a switch internally, which is easier than changing from a completely different role at another company or industry,” Asad said.

The takeaway: If you’re coming from client services, lean into your knowledge of working with customers, know their pain points, and gain cross-functional knowledge of working with marketing to provide customer feedback.

2. Sales to Product Marketing

Direct Relevant Experience to PMM: Sales Enablement and Training, Product Positioning, Customer Feedback, Core Stakeholder of PMM. After spending a few years in sports and event marketing, a guy we'll call 'Kirk' went and got his MBA.

He held a Brand Management Internship before moving into a career in sales in the software industry. After a few years of sales experience, Kirk was eager to flex more of his creative and strategic muscles.

“I really enjoy thinking strategically and writing, and I was looking for a role that would allow me to do it."

After a handful of informational interviews with colleagues within his company and from his undergraduate and MBA networks, Kirk knew that Product Marketing was a great fit.

As someone who worked in Sales, Kirk quickly learned that his skillset was valuable to a lot of Product Marketing teams.

“Since Account Executives are a core stakeholder of Product Marketers, I learned I could use my experience in Sales as a way to position myself for product marketing roles,” Kirk said.

Product Marketers regularly work with Account Executives on activities like sales enablement, product training, and getting customer or market feedback. During his interviews, Kirk was able to really hone his pitch.

“I talked about how I could add value to the team by being the test for anything we put in front of sales or account executives, and how I could apply that knowledge to let them know what might work and what would fall flat,” Kirk said.

That pitch resonated with a number of teams, and eventually, Kirk found a role.

Finally, while Kirk did network externally with Product Marketers at other companies, Kirk did focus most of his efforts on internal roles.

“While I enjoyed the company I was working at and wanted to stay, I realized that because I was making a role/function transition, that would be easier to do by staying within my company.”

The Takeaway: If you’re coming from sales, lean into the fact that being a stakeholder of PMMs is a valuable asset and strength.

3. Product Manager to Product Marketer

Relevant Experience to PMM: Managing the Product Roadmap, Writing Messaging and Positioning Statements, Building Products, Cross-functional Experience, General Communication.

As a risk-taker and curious individual, Rene Hardtke, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Integrate has always followed her interests and curiosity. This has allowed her to build a career with multiple stops along the way in roles in technical writing, communications, and product management.

After managing a series of features in a product roadmap and leading an agile development team, Hardtke yet again saw her next challenge presented in a product marketing role and made the transition to Product Marketing. Given her stint in Product Management, this felt like a natural transition.

After all, some of Hardke’s existing skills prepared her for such a role. Her ability to communicate effectively, through multiple mediums and with multiple audiences, made her a great fit for a transition into product marketing.

“I can’t put enough emphasis on the value of good communication, both written and verbal. From writing messaging and positioning to internal negotiations, a PMM who can effectively communicate is set up for success,” Hardtke said.

In terms of advice to people who want to transition into Product Marketing, Hardtke encouraged people to follow their interests and curiosity, even if they don’t yet have the title. “Product marketing is a quickly evolving role,” Hardtke went on to add.

The takeaway: Product Managers work hand-in-hand with Product Marketers and have an intimate understanding of the Product Roadmap.

A stock image of two people shaking hands

4. MBA to Product Marketing

Product Marketing is starting to become a popular post-MBA path for MBA graduates.

Prior to getting her MBA from Babson College, Priyanka Tiwari, Director of Product Marketing at Interactions LLC was a software developer and embedded systems engineer for a cloud storage company.

Wanting a career change, Tiwari went to get her MBA, but she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do. To find this role, like many, Tiwari did many informational interviews with people in jobs she was interested in at companies she was interested in.

“During these conversations, there were no expectations, just a chance for me to learn about what they were doing, and demonstrate my interest in PMM,” Tiwari said.

Networking and informational interviewing paid off, and Tiwari landed a PMM role after graduating from business school at a cloud storage company, the same industry that she previously worked in, but in her newly desired role.

“I encourage people to change one thing at a time when they are making a career transition. When I took my first PMM role in the same exact industry I was in pre-MBA, it helped me ease into the transition, and it certainly was a great value add to the company I was working at because they were confident in my past experience,” Tiwari said.

“I still very much use the technical skill set that I developed as a software developer. Your old strengths still matter, so don’t forget that they exist.”

Erin Nevruz, Principal Product Marketing Manager at Celigo who transitioned into the PMM role after business school, agrees.

“In addition to my MBA, my past experiences in Marketing Analytics and on the agency side were valuable to positioning myself for a Product Marketing role,” Nevruz said.

Previously, Nevruz gained experience with cross-functional marketing initiatives such as market size, pricing, competitive intelligence, and demand generation, all of which gave her exposure to the work outputs as well as to the many of the stakeholders who work with product marketers.

“Product Marketing tends to be a strategic role, which requires a comprehensive understanding of many facets of marketing. My MBA helped me augment my past experiences to make me a good candidate for Product Marketing roles,” Nevruz said.

In terms of making the transition, one decision that Nevruz made (and what helped) was choosing an industry that she had expertise in.

“This gave me direct expertise and specific experiences to draw on during my interviews, and I think this ultimately helped me land a position,” Nervuz said.

The takeaway: Business School can be a great way to pivot to Product Marketing. Make sure to leverage your past experiences, skills, and strengths, and to identify roles and opportunities that you are interested in, but that represent the right amount of change from your previous role or experience. (not too much!).

5. Content Marketing to Product Marketing

Direct Relevant Experience: Content, Messaging, Positioning, Enablement, and CampaignsTom Banks started off his career in content as an SEO copywriter and moved to an inbound and digital consulting role.

He then started working in digital marketing and focusing on lead-gen and sales enablement.

But over time, Tom proactively went out of his way to work on projects with the Product and Engineering team, and over time he built up credibility and trust.

“As a marketer, I always made it my business to know my product inside and out, regardless of my role. This enabled me to work on product and engineering-related projects, and use my skills of messaging and lead gen to work more closely with product,” Banks went on to add.

Eventually, Banks was contacted by a headhunter for a digital marketing role, but he let the recruiter know that he was interested in Product Marketing roles. A few months later a role opened up and Tom transitioned.

Tom contends that “most marketers have done some form of product marketing, even if they have not worked in an official product marketing capacity. Since most marketers have worked on campaigns, messaging and positioning and slide decks, personas, etc., you already have a decent base.”

The other skill that Tom mentioned was customer empathy, which isn’t just for marketers.

“In a prior life to my marketing career, I worked in hospitality management. And whilst this probably doesn’t have any direct transferable skills, I think it helped instill my laser focus on customers and the customer experience.

"I tend to take that picture of the customer being immediately in front of me in everything I do. I think this is at the heart of product marketing.”

The takeaway: If you’re coming from a content background, lean on your ability to create compelling content, messaging, positioning, and any of your knowledge about the audience/buyer that you create content for.

A stock image of someone typing at a computer.

6. Management Consulting to Product Marketing

Direct Relevant PMM Skills: Training and enablement, presentation and storytelling, customer empathy, market, and industry insights.

After spending 5.5 years as a management consultant, I was ready to make a career transition into a new field and opportunity.

Like many others, I took some time to understand my unique strengths, the projects I liked working on, and the skills I liked using. I looked out for opportunities that might be a good fit. After talking with numerous people in the industry, I landed on Product Marketing.

While I knew this was a career transition and that I was going to have to be crystal clear on demonstrating my value since I didn’t have the PMM title as a management consultant, I had a core set of skills that I knew could be valuable in a PMM role.

I made sure to 1) target specific types of companies where I could leverage this expertise, and 2) really drill into specific examples of how I demonstrated skills that PMMs use.

Many of the companies I targeted I had either done client work for or had collaborated with in some capacity, and I had direct experience with the two specific verticals I targeted (HR Software and CRM Software).

I had experience with the respective buyer and end users of those products. I could easily articulate the challenges, business drivers, and desired outcomes. However, I lacked direct experience working with sales, and I was a little unsure about some of the other PMM skills (e.g., Product Roadmap).

So, I made sure to probe those further during informational interviews. In advance of interviews, I made sure to prepare a few stories that I could use if I had to answer questions about those topics.

In the end, I landed a Product Marketing role at a Software company that had a direct relationship with my previous employer.

In addition to focusing on telling a compelling story about my transferable skills, I made sure to have specific examples of how I had done very similar things to what a PMM did, but just in a slightly different way.

Between the transferable skills and similar deliverables, as well as demonstrating my abilities through the interview process, it was enough to make the switch to Product Marketing.

The takeaway: You need to be thoughtful and intentional about the story you tell, as well as the companies you choose to apply to.

How do I learn more about product marketing without changing my job?

Top product marketing courses, certificates, and training
From CABs, personas, to customer segmentation, there are a whole bunch of tricks you need to master to stand out in the increasingly competitive PMM crowd and fulfill your potential. We’ve done the research and compiled a list of the best product marketing courses to help you master the essentials.

Product Marketing Certified: Core

From research to optimization, Product Marketing Core explores (cliche alert!) the A to Z of product marketing, and with PMMC in your pocket, you’ll have a richer understanding of the what, why, and how of every product marketing principle. And that’s a promise.

You’ll learn how to truly embody the voice of the customer. You’ll master the art of getting products to market - and keeping them there. You’ll understand how to roll out, test, and iterate everything you do.

You’ll walk away with career-enhancing hacks and skills. You’ll get all this and so much more. All on your watch.

Unlock the cutting-edge information and frameworks you need to succeed within the fast-evolving world of product marketing with our fully comprehensive and revised certification.

Get Certified

PMM Hired

PMM Hired has been created with the help of many leading businesses like Amazon, Etsy, IBM, and TikTok to give you more help through the application and interview process, and land your first or next product marketing role.

You’ll get:

  • Exclusive career advice from leading professionals
  • 400+ sample interview questions to put you one step ahead of the competition
  • Mock interviews for an in-depth look at how to answer the most commonly asked questions in PMM interviews
  • The inside scoop on what PMMs wish they’d known at the start of their career
  • A sneak peek at the types of tasks you’ll be asked to complete in PMM interviews
  • Live, monthly workshops to ask questions, practice for interviews, and pick the brains of experienced PMMs

Whether you’re just getting started or want to progress further into the field, PMM Hired is the tool you need to stand out from the crowd for product marketing recruiters. Gain invaluable knowledge, and level up your career. 👇

Get Hired

PMA job board

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Transitioning to Product Marketing Certified: Fundamentals

Product marketing is a cross-functional, dynamic, and rewarding profession that plays a crucial part in the success of any business.

The Transitioning to PMM Certified: Fundamentals course will empower you with the knowledge you need to start a career in this exciting and ever-evolving field.

Enroll today