9 Product Manager Resume Examples & Guide for 2023

You’ve spent your career building product roadmaps and presenting to stakeholders. You’ve even studied Agile methodologies and UX design.

But now it’s time for a different kind of project: writing that product manager resume.

Whether you want to get an interview at your dream FAANG or have set your sights on a small startup, you’ll need to make sure your product manager resume is eye-catching for recruiters.

In this guide, you'll find product manager resume examples together with advice and best practices. We'll help you bring your most important accomplishments forward and choose content wisely, so there's no wasted space.

Here’s what you will learn:

• How to best demonstrate the value of your skills as a product manager
• The top hard and soft skills that companies want to see
• How to make up for lack of experience in your resume if you’re just starting out

Product manager resume examples

Associate product manager resume

Paradoxically, recruiters can be very picky when it comes to entry-level product managers jobs. The reason is simple: they realize that people in these positions will grow into future company leaders.

Below are some tips to give yourself some competitive edge when applying for Associate Product Manager jobs:

• Compensate lack of experience with skills. Recruiters are always looking for hidden gems in entry-point candidates. But the key word here is relevance.

If you’re applying for a data-driven company, make sure to mention your data mining or data modeling skills to get an edge. If you’re applying for a less technical company, show soft skills in a real-world context, e.g. “led university presentations class for a year” in your skills section.

• Feature side projects relevant to the job. Frankly, anything can be labeled as a “project” these days, and that’s why it becomes so important to mention only projects relevant to the job application.

Also, make sure to include two key components when describing your projects to stand out: managerial qualities and tangible impact.

Senior product manager resume

Senior Product Managers are not your typical executives, and specific experience and even the way you frame your experience in a Senior Product Manager resume can go a long way.

Below are some tips to increase your chances of a successful application for a Senior Product Manager job:

• Frame your experience as ROI-driven. Senior Product Managers are here to make an impact. If you attach your work to tangible results, you’ll gain an extreme advantage over candidates that list all possible clichés on their resumes and hope for the best.

Remember, a targeted resume approach works best when combined with business outcomes for a particular industry or product.

• Double down on strategic skills. Things like “product strategy”, “global technical debt”, or “milestone deliverables” are no empty boast to senior product managers. It’s what they are paid to do.

Make sure to check job applications for keywords and weave the most common ones into your experience and skills sections.

• Showcase an exceptional product or industry knowledge. Senior Product Managers should know their product in and out. Mentioning a relevant background of successful experience with similar products will give you an upper hand over other candidates.

By the way, one of the most common questions for leadership positions we hear is Should I Include My Photo On My Resume? [Expert Advice]

Software product manager resume

In a way, the Product manager position emerged from the software engineering field. Hence, why software engineering trends tend to affect global product management trends.

The following tips will help you more successfully apply for Product Manager jobs in the software industry:

• Experience with non-technical software development practices is paramount. Agile, Scrum, Kanban, DevOps, extreme programming. Entire companies and teams are built and rebuilt following specific development practices.

Make sure to feature relevant Agile experience and skills, or you risk getting sidetracked too early in the process.

• Prioritize the technical background that impacts the product. A big chunk of great software product managers came from software backgrounds, so make sure to feature your technical skills and how they affected the product's performance all throughout your resume.

Don’t simply list technical skills. Demonstrate how they helped you improve the product and its performance, e.g. “reduced technical debt with…”, “improved customer satisfaction after…” and so on. Follow the “skill-action-results” pattern.

Technical product manager resume

There is some overlap with technical product managers and software product managers. If you have a strong engineer or developer background and are looking to become a PM, this might be a good place to start.

Here are a few things to note when writing a technical product manager resume:

• Lean into your tech background. If you’re an expert programmer and have lent a hand in the launch of any apps, include that in your skills and experience. This can work in your favor if you’re still transitioning into product management.
• Don’t forget soft skills. It can be easy to leave out soft skills when you’re putting so much effort into getting the technical skills right. As a TPM, you will be exercising some soft skills and companies will want to see how. Take the opportunity to show off your communication or problem-solving skills.

Entry level product manager resume

Entry level resumes can be intimidating for any industry. How do you fill a product manager resume with little to product manager experience?

Here are a few tips to follow when writing an entry-level product manager resume:

• Pull experience from places other than work history. If you’re a fresh graduate, odds are you don’t have much work experience. If you’ve done internships, great. You can also include projects, training, and relevant courses.
• Keep your contact info professional. Now that you’re entering the workforce, you’ll want to shed that “.edu” email address and choose a professional name. Stick to some version of your real name - your initials, first name, and last initial, first initial and last name, etc.

Agile product manager resume

Depending on your interests and experience, you might want to focus on a specific nice. Fortunately, there’s always a demand for experts in systems like Agile methodologies.

Read below for a few tips on writing an Agile product manager resume:

• It’s okay if there’s some variety in your job titles. Even if you’re experienced in Agile, it may not be the focus of every role you’ve ever had. If that’s the case, tailor the experience to fit job-specific skills.
• Include outside skills like languages. This resume example shows the addition of a language section. If you speak more than one language, this can be a big advantage. Especially if you will be collaborating with international partners and stakeholders. Do a bit of research on your target company and see what unexpected skills might be useful.

IT product manager resume

An IT product manager has most of the same responsibilities as a PM, but IT program managers work more closely with technical tasks.

If you’re going down the path of an IT product manager, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Don’t get too hung up on statistics. This may seem in opposition to everything else in this guide, but it is possible to include too many numbers and figures. You always want to give specific examples, but too many stats make the reader lose focus. Aim to strike a balance between the two.
• Tailor your skills to your target job. The candidate in this resume example cites communications technology in the summary as their industry. Sometimes it pays to pick a niche within a niche. A communications technology company will pick your resume out of the sea of generic IT product manager resumes.

FAANG product manager resume

If you have built a career coming up through FAANGs, there are plenty of reasons to want to stay there. You can learn a lot in major tech companies and each one has something different to offer.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing your FAANG resume:

• Think about what makes you unique and consider finding a place for it. Recruiters for FAANGs especially see hundreds of resumes a day. Consider what would make a major company want to hire you over everyone else. Have you worked on a major project? Had something published on the subject? Traveled the world for work?
• Don’t forget the basics. FAANGs are major companies for a reason. There is a lot of structure built on a strong foundation. Choose the operating systems and technical skills that you’re confident in. FAANGs want skilled employees who will benefit the company.

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5 best components of a product manager resume

1. Experience relevant to the job you’re applying for
2. The right skills for the job (based on the posting)
3. Quantifiable achievements (Provided technical support for the online certification of 2000+ companies from 19+ industries across 4 languages)
4. Examples of what makes you unique (Your usual day or your favorite books)
5. What you’re most proud of (displayed creatively)

Choosing a format for your product manager resume

The most common resume format, and the one you’ve probably seen the most is the reverse-chronological resume. These have work experience as the focal point and list work history from most to least recent.

These are the best choice for product managers who have been in the business for more than 10 years. This format highlights a strong career trajectory and shows growth over time.

Alternatively, a good choice for both experienced and entry-level candidates is a hybrid resume format. It combines elements from different formats to show off your strengths.

Hybrid resumes are a great choice for students and career changers who may have developed relevant skills outside the workplace. You can bring the focus to relevant projects and accomplishments without drawing attention to short work history.

If your history doesn’t quite fit the mold, there are other resume formats to choose from. If you know the company you’re applying to work for is looking for creativity, there are ways you can make your resume stand out while remaining professional.

Product manager resume header: how to form the best first impression

Your resume header will be the first thing recruiters read. It’s essential that you make a great first impression.

This section is straightforward, but getting it wrong can mean the difference between being approved for an interview and getting rejected.

Let’s take a look at two examples of a product manager resume header.

This first example has a few mistakes that need to be resolved.

First, the role of “Product Manager” can apply across many industries. From industrial to banking to technology, this role can look very different depending on where you work.

Hiring managers will prioritize applicants who have relevant industry experience. That’s why it’s important that you’re specific about your title in your resume header.

Just putting “Product Manager” isn’t enough. You should also include the industry you specialize in.

Also, it’s a bad practice now to include your full address. It’s unsafe to have your full address floating around, and at this point in the hiring process, it’s unnecessary to include it. Simply stating your city and state/province is enough.

Now that we’ve covered those tips, let’s take a look at a resume header that checks all the boxes.

This example is much better.

For one thing, the title is descriptive. The hiring manager will know right away that the applicant has experience in the SaaS industry.

They also included the URL to their LinkedIn profile for more context.

And finally, they included the right amount of information about themselves, including

• Name
• Descriptive title
• Phone number
• Email address
• City and state/province

If you want more ideas for stand-out resume headers, read through our guide Perfecting Your Resume Header so You Get Noticed.

What does the experience section in a product manager resume need to cover?

A strong product manager's resume experience section will show measurable accomplishments and steady career growth.

Having a career trajectory that goes from startups to FAANG makes you a good candidate, but recruiters will want to see how you got there. What did you achieve in those roles? What did you do for the company?

When writing your experience section, stick to 3-4 bullets beneath each role and focus on specific examples that demonstrate your success.

What doesn’t work in this example:

• Bullets list general responsibilities
• No mention of achievements

This candidate’s experience section is essentially just a basic job description for a product manager. This is boring for recruiters, and it will blend in with the hundreds of other resumes they’re sorting through.

Your achievements are more valuable than your responsibilities. Hiring managers want to know that you will make the company more money with your exceptional product management skills.

Let’s take a look at how to convey that in your experience section.

What works in this example:

• Includes measurable data
• Specific examples show positive impact

Now the hiring manager is ready to call you for an interview!

By using real percentages and statistics to back up your claims, you will stand out from other candidates.

Quantitative data add more trust and confidence in your resume and your abilities.

It’s also important to carefully curate what experience you show. If you have the good problem of too many achievements to choose from, include the ones that make you most qualified for your target job. Too many statistics overwhelm the reader.

For more ideas on how to create an actionable resume experience section, check out our guide How to Describe Your Resume Work Experience.

Best skills for a product manager resume

When adding skills to your product manager resume, there are a few best practices to follow.

Read the job description for your target role and tailor your skill section accordingly.

When looking at your skills section, recruiters are mainly interested in technical skills. They want to know immediately whether you have the hard skills needed for the job.

Soft skills are important for product managers to have but may require more context. For example, use your experience section to show off your communication skills by presenting to satisfied stakeholders.

A common mistake in the skills section is that candidates will add every technical skill and platform they’ve ever interacted with.

Technical expertise is not usually required of PMs, but an interview may include technical questions to see how well you can communicate with engineers and developers.

You don’t want to be caught in a lie by listing coding languages on your resume and then giving a blank stare when asked a basic question about them. It’s best to include the top skills that you’re confident in.

For more examples on stand-out skills sections, read our Resume Skills Section That Impress guide

Other sections to consider including on your resume

Recruiters read hundreds of resumes every day, many of which are unoriginal and repetitive.

No two people or career paths are exactly alike, so why not make your resume unique?

Showing hiring managers what you’re most proud of will make you stand out from other candidates and inject a little of your personality into your resume.

If you have skills that are outside the typical PM job description but can be useful in your role - like other languages or relevant hobbies - consider finding a place for them on your resume.

In the past, you may have done volunteer work or completed projects where you exercised the leadership and problem-solving skills necessary for product management.

Including your GPA is not recommended for a seasoned PM, but if you are a new graduate and have a GPA above 3.5, you might want to add it to your education section.

Depending on the role you’re applying for and what the company requires, other sections you may want to include are highlights, references, LinkedIn profile, awards, and publications.

Cover letter for a product manager

Attaching a cover letter to your resume isn’t always a requirement and the weight they carry varies greatly from company to company.

A FAANG recruiter might already be looking at hundreds of resumes and won’t spend additional time reading through cover letters. Smaller companies, however, might want to get to know each of their candidates on a personal level, and cover letters can be a helpful tool.

Cover letters provide a few opportunities that your resume doesn’t. You can tell an interesting and engaging story about yourself and show that you’ve researched your target company.

However, if the job listing does not require a cover letter, you can always opt to leave it out.

If you do decide to include one, you can read our product manager cover letter guide to get started. After that, you’ll want to review the cover letter checklist to make sure you’ve got a letter companies will love.

Key takeaways when writing a product manager resume

• Use quantitative data to back up your claims about your accomplishments. Did you improve revenue with a new product launch? Use real numbers to show your impact.
• Include a mix of soft and hard skills on your resume, and mirror the same keywords and phrases that are listed in the job description.
• To write an entry-level Product Manager resume, highlight your side projects, education, and skills to prove your passion and potential.

This guide shows the basics of writing a modern and effective product manager resume. We hope you find our techniques useful and will use them wisely when creating your resume. Let us know when you get the job you love!