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[Music] all right thank you so much for joining us my name is rich what the co-founders here at product Jam we're talking with another successful of that Kevin Hart out there in Los Angeles Kevin how's it going today man thanks for working over the long it's going well man not too many complaints on my side glad to hear that glad to hear that so Kevin for those of the people that don't know you like talk to us a little bit about your background what got you interested it's product management yeah honestly I was always interested in becoming some sort of inventor and never get work are those skills in college I'm a psych major and once I graduated wanted I knew I want to be in business so I went into sales just because I wanted to exposure into soft skills that could potentially carry me into maybe that's product product development what is I just needed to better understand different business organizations and while I was doing sales I realized that although I can hit numbers I'm very much a task oriented person and I like seeing things from start to finish and started researching what other areas can I tap my skills into and product management came up I actually took a class called product school and there I got some fundamentals on one event if you have products manager well it doesn't actually prepare you for how to apply for the interviewing process how to market yourself if you don't have the traditional engineering background why are you there so I kind of table that conversation until this tail and the 2018 when I was just ready my company was going through a transition and I personally didn't want to be part of their transition journey as well so I decided this was the right time to look into product management mmm-hmm during the program over their products well you took their program out there in LA yeah get a black Santa Monica get out of it okay so having taken that program while you were taking that program with them did you do any interviews while you're taking the class or did you save it afterwards I've saved it till afterwards I was in the middle of being promoted and I knew that I wanted to at least give them that a fair shot before I dive into something new just because I wanted I didn't want to overcrowd my options at that time it was poor mainly for information gathering it's just a fit is it not if it is I'm gonna pursue that in a year or year and a half time so during this time that you how did you find the you know you get the certification assuming you're somewhat curious to see what would your chances are to actually getting interviews but what were your challenges on your childhood after you clean inaudible yeah I would honestly say that it was very discouraging seeing some of the bullet points that you find on applications because one yes I understood the concept but it's not like I actually did it practice that lived it so it makes you question do you really want to apply for this like put yourself in the new unknown setting and I probably started looking into it maybe September or October but it was always like now's not the right timing and probably being entirely truthful that came a lot from personal fear on I don't think I have what it takes to be a product manager wasn't there anybody that you could reach out to a product school that kind of give you some insight what did they say what was their advice on the best course of action they all kind of came from a similar background similar engineering technical background so I didn't actually find many similarities with most of them and not that it was discouraging but it just made me real is that my resources like for people who understand me and can actually help me ace a job interview from my perspective I don't trust easily for from people who don't have similar shared experiences because my thought is how could you know like yes all theory is good in practice but I care actually about the experience that let you to where you are because I can relate to that better than like you know this is what a product manager like you know practice should look like how do you live it it's everybody has their own brand and I need to find someone with a similar plan that's me so everybody else I was taking your program what I've heard that they have usually have about like 10 to 15 people purport none of them were coming from a sales background no I mean one guy I think he actually might be a current student he was a he had a sales experience in the past I don't actually remember how he got to where he is today maybe he was an entrepreneur I think that was the only caveat that these guys are trying to either start their own business or you know have some sort of exposure into that field in their current job okay so during the time that you were coaching with broad gym how many interviews that you averaged once I started going into like full product manager interviews probably six to eight I would say six to eight interviews a week and at the time I mean you the best of my knowledge you don't have an MBA No okay and in addition to that what you study over there at a school UCLA was your major I was a psych major more an uncomfortable psych social psychology okay so nothing that was like technical related computer science related at all yeah you know I was I thought I was good at computers but once I started researching what all these things I was like I have no idea what they're talking so you were averaging about six to eight in a recent week and how far did you get into these energy processes because round one usually doesn't require a whole lot of product or even technology because you know the recruiters are usually do at the very general like surface level screening of what your background and all that so like how do you think we prepare you in terms of when things got more technical round to the ground 3d feel like you were adequately prepared for those rounds you know the first I probably the first like round two and round three didn't go as well as I know had origin hope for or it gave me understanding the type of questions they'd have the follow-up questions they would ask to what I would say and allowed me to craft a better story so I started pulling metrics you know kind of based on my exposure into the sales process like why our business was driving certain initiatives and then try to place myself in the product managers shoes and use that in my interviews so I actually got to a point where they were inviting me on for on-site and then they wanted to extend the offer you know once we you know actually mean a person and I declined it because I didn't see myself wanting to waste you know a six hour flight to Atlanta just for the sake of getting that that businesslike exposure I found that you know that we've done additional calls on top of that as like a workaround but in the end they still really wanted to meet me face to face and now just like I'm not ready for that so I decided to withdraw my name from consideration and then move on to other companies I was in game with okay so what got you really over that fear because prior to this prior to coaching with us I mean I do this the same toxin you're gonna do a lot of stuff as well but people one of the most common questions is rich they're saying we prefer MBAs which we prefer having somebody that has a computer science or rich we prefer what do you do when you see a job description that says you know minimum three or four years of experience so before you were even coaching with us you weren't even hitting the send button for your resume but once you actually started doing that what do you think mentally change for you yeah yeah honestly the number of like interviews I was making I started to think of it as like a sales process so I just thought about as it you know if they tell me know like what's that gonna mean for me nothing I just move on to the next so it took away the weight of the interview so that was a little bit freeing in that sense but I found that as long as you can carry yourself speak the language but also ask the questions that they want to be asked they are more than willing to you know forego the lack of experience because they see the potential to do good work with you and all the other stuff matters less that's a very interesting point that you mentioned because I get a lot of people too that are saying am I too young to go for this job and when did you graduate from UCLA I graduated 2016 so about three years ago about three years ago right do you really feel like you know given your youth like did you feel many ages on what you're going through this interview process some people do feel like you know in it like product managers are out there management teams like should I really wait 28:30 to go after this role and like get some more experience somewhere else how do you feel about that I never really saw that as a barrier you know as much as I seem like a youthful soul I very much care about carrying myself with a professional brand that is you know trustworthy and able to get along with and as long as those qualities are reflected in the way I carry myself it doesn't matter how old I am people are going to want to talk with me regardless so I think it's like a perspective that you know everybody has to overcome on their own and realize that it doesn't matter at the end the day it matters is how much are you willing to ask the right questions to the right people at the right time and if you can't figure that out it's gonna be tough anywhere you go not just product managers very well sir so you did this program remotely in LA in my hometown which we're still trying to try to wrap up more people over there San Francisco took our priority this year I really want to go ahead and see if we can make more to focus on early next year but you I think in our hope we had find people that were taking this program fatality we had two other people you obviously Lourdes ties for me on the website so who would two ended up taking the product better job at Nike not as did you did you feel like you lost like did you feel like you there was any support that you need it that we weren't able to provide for you even though you were taking this program the other side of Coast personally no I think having that weekly and checking call was a good way to make sure that do I have any questions really reflect on my calls what do I need to prepare and I always felt comfortable asking those common questions when it came to the actual turning the coaching call apart from outside of it I felt whenever I emailed you guys questions it came back with an answer and the more specific I was in my questioning the better answer I'll get so it was a matter of how much do I really need this question answered how can I provide the most details so I can get the fastest response so it was very much how can I help you help me and that was very clear from the very beginning you know I didn't want to get in on a weekly coaching call you know sometimes I feel like why am I on this but being on that training myself too you know you always need time to reflect on your week and get better that know what mentality it's always gonna be helpful no matter where you're at yeah then so for the current members right now still go through the grind like what what would you recommend for these people back or you know the people that are going to be watching this that are just a few years out of school that are also coming out from a sales background and we're really thinking is this even possible because I think people focus so much on the job and focus so much on the interview sometimes that even like you've been there you're looking at these exciting position these exciting companies in your life but I don't have this business this forget even trying to do the interview they don't even you know they're discouraged from even sending out their resume what words of encouragement mm that's a good question first realize that all the recruiters well not all most recruiters might be pasted the job requirements from each page to the next so if you see something on that side that doesn't mean that's exactly what they're looking for there's something they're not telling you so take the interview and find out what that is and see if it's a fit for you second roll with the punches don't take every note personally it happens you're gonna get told no a thousand times in your life so why would you let this one bother you for the next few weeks months it's very much a numbers game there's tons of product managers jobs out there Hansa self software you know hardware companies popping up tons of innovation happening there's gonna be opportunities to grow and just because you got told no doesn't mean you can't get there next time so find the best fit for you grow and then get back to that in the invader stages it's about getting in the door getting the experience that you need and taking that and making it better next time absolutely man I mean if and when we actually start like a physical location out there now I know we would really want to extend you a warm it by to become an instructor because the people that have been the most successful in our program has traditionally come from some some business development background either tech sales or people that do training out there out here to finance in New York and because they really amber one the salespeople like to be able to create results from nothing takes a lot of like there's a lot of discipline and I know that driving try me enrollments out here for product it's like you're putting a lot of business development and lead generation effort and then you're gonna you know once you stack everything up all the Ducks are gonna be in a row and it's gonna start closing but even after that happening it's just really do that again and again month after month here you just need to close a job offer one time and you know he had to close for a profit every single month it'd be it'd be a very difficult for most people fathom but you know from Cote from my co-founder Cody and I we really beat you as a gold standard for members that are have really good habits you were always very specific in your questions you never complained about you know taking this thing remotely and not not feel like you got enough support I really did see that you you saw what resources were available to you and then you saw the delivery mechanism in which how to extract these resources and you created a very I think systematic gameplan to making sure how do want to make product to fit around being given what's available here because we do have a lot of information that we're constantly tailoring but on the other day very resourceful you know very resourceful so for anybody that is looking to make a switch from sales that are coming in younger and there's a lot of people that go into tech sales right out of school that's kind of like their entry point I know I did that coming down from my history degree you know Kevin Parke is definitely gaddy getz you reach out to then he's know much for the time we proud of you thank you we'll see you soon buddy all right [Music]