00:00:00
in today's video we're going to be
00:00:02
talking about the top five AIS side
00:00:04
projects that you can go ahead and
00:00:06
present as a product manager when you're
00:00:08
out there on product manager interviews
00:00:10
should you choose
00:00:11
[Music]
00:00:15
to now to go ahead and start this thing
00:00:17
off the bat I am going to let you know
00:00:20
this there's probably more side projects
00:00:22
that you can go ahead and take on but
00:00:24
based upon the conversations that we've
00:00:27
had with our own hiring Partnerships
00:00:29
here talking directly to product
00:00:31
management hiring teams and recruiters
00:00:34
there's basically about 15 traits that
00:00:37
they find to be extremely attractive in
00:00:40
determining whether or not you're a good
00:00:41
product manager higher now you may have
00:00:43
seen this in one of my other videos
00:00:45
already but uh or may not so let me go
00:00:47
through them uh and if you don't have
00:00:49
one of these traits
00:00:52
relax here to help uh starting from the
00:00:55
very top this is the one that a lot of
00:00:57
product managers are really stressed out
00:00:58
about is actually successfully lach
00:01:00
product um one of the things that
00:01:02
companies always ask us about and I'm
00:01:04
not going to shy away from it that's why
00:01:05
I'm putting it all the way to the top is
00:01:08
actually like well like we want
00:01:10
candidates that have successfully
00:01:11
launched product unfortunately a lot of
00:01:13
product managers have not if you don't
00:01:15
have it don't worry cuz that doesn't
00:01:18
disqualify you 80 to 90% of the product
00:01:21
management Market has not successfully
00:01:23
launched a brand new product from the
00:01:24
very beginning from like con you know an
00:01:28
idea or concept all the way way to go in
00:01:30
the market but if you don't have that
00:01:32
the next best thing is actually um
00:01:34
driving user adoption and growth making
00:01:37
a market impact customer Centric
00:01:39
approach data driven decision- making
00:01:42
cross functional
00:01:43
collaboration you know whether or not
00:01:46
they have some type of innovation or
00:01:47
creativity strategic thinking
00:01:49
adaptability resilience effective
00:01:52
communication market research and
00:01:54
insight Revenue growth scalability
00:01:56
efficiency stakeholder satisfaction and
00:01:59
continuous is learning and Improvement
00:02:01
if you have any question or doubt or you
00:02:05
know would like a a little I would say
00:02:07
additional clarity as to what this means
00:02:10
well let's just go back over here to our
00:02:12
resume description bullets you can DM me
00:02:16
uh if you guys want access to these
00:02:18
resources I actually put together a
00:02:19
little kajabi mini course for a lot of
00:02:21
you that are looking for a product
00:02:22
manager job a lot of times I know when
00:02:24
I'm posting up uh if you're not
00:02:26
following me on LinkedIn yet maybe you
00:02:27
should when I'm posting up for a hiring
00:02:29
partnership
00:02:30
um a lot of times people are submitting
00:02:31
their rums over to me and they're trying
00:02:33
to get referred and I'm like
00:02:34
unfortunately I can't refer you the
00:02:36
looking that the way that it is right
00:02:37
now by the time I can get to them give
00:02:39
them feedback somebody else is already
00:02:41
taking the job so with that said like if
00:02:43
you want to learn how to put together
00:02:44
the resume template and if you also want
00:02:47
access to our LinkedIn cold DM message
00:02:49
templates uh to drive interviews
00:02:51
recently I've also done uh a YouTube
00:02:55
Interview with one of my friends and
00:02:57
also a member of my program recently
00:02:59
graduated he was Landing 20 plus product
00:03:01
manager interviews a week at his height
00:03:03
he was doing 26 product manager
00:03:05
interviews a week uh it was through cold
00:03:07
apply and then also through Co Linkin
00:03:09
outrage of course definitely some of our
00:03:11
hiring referrals as well uh but uh you
00:03:15
want access to these resources link is
00:03:17
in the description but let's go ahead
00:03:19
and talk about this like product launch
00:03:21
a success could be like Global expansion
00:03:23
launch strategic partnership launch
00:03:25
limited edition launch um Market
00:03:28
penetration like vertical Market
00:03:29
expansion demographic targeting
00:03:31
customized product offerings so it can
00:03:34
get even more specific within all these
00:03:36
different things so what does this have
00:03:37
to do with side projects well your side
00:03:39
projects go out there uh to go out there
00:03:41
and highlight how you make up for some
00:03:44
of these areas that they're not quite
00:03:46
sure whether or not you're the right
00:03:47
person for the job having said that
00:03:50
let's go back over
00:03:52
here the thing that I would say a lot of
00:03:55
people stress out about and if you don't
00:03:57
have it is product launch success is
00:04:00
actually well have you ever launched
00:04:02
anything it doesn't have to be a
00:04:04
full-blown product cuz a lot of product
00:04:05
managers are like rich like this was the
00:04:08
problem they put me on a team where I
00:04:10
was building internal tools man and I
00:04:12
you know I couldn't I couldn't like
00:04:14
there was nothing that I could do and I
00:04:15
was trying to move over there okay I
00:04:17
totally get it just chill out uh but
00:04:19
what could satisfy this well let's take
00:04:22
a look at it I'm going to walk you
00:04:23
through all five sort of uh side
00:04:24
projects right
00:04:26
now a customer facing chatbot for a
00:04:29
small business would get the job done
00:04:32
that is considered launching an actual
00:04:33
product that's it's it's consumer facing
00:04:35
it's client facing it's an external
00:04:37
facing product uh if you want to go out
00:04:40
there and highlight that you have like
00:04:42
driven growth with user adoption uh and
00:04:45
Market impact being able to put together
00:04:48
a CRM dashboard or social media
00:04:50
dashboard would really be
00:04:51
helpful uh if you want to show that you
00:04:54
have you know you're customer Centric
00:04:57
and how you approach the job of being a
00:04:58
product manager
00:05:00
uh you can go out there and do real
00:05:01
customer interviews and I'm showing you
00:05:03
I'll show you uh that you can honestly
00:05:05
very easily use chat GPT to help you out
00:05:06
with this one uh data driven
00:05:08
decision-making obviously knowing how to
00:05:10
put together a dashboard uh let's take a
00:05:13
look at a few other ones well effective
00:05:14
communication a product requirements
00:05:16
stock or technical product requirement
00:05:18
stock would
00:05:19
suffice uh market research and insight
00:05:22
Revenue growth uh dashboards would be
00:05:24
great and then like also like
00:05:26
stakeholder satisfaction uh I could say
00:05:30
like LinkedIn endorsements right so this
00:05:32
one's not exactly AI but you know we
00:05:35
kind of can let's go ahead and and and
00:05:38
um actually pop this one to the very top
00:05:41
so first things first is this is the one
00:05:43
that people stress out about the most is
00:05:45
because they've never successfully
00:05:46
launch a product maybe they're just
00:05:47
responsible for like features or like by
00:05:50
the time that they got over there it was
00:05:51
just maintenance mode a lot of times
00:05:52
it's timing is an issue well if you
00:05:55
build a chatbot for a small business
00:05:58
what they want to know is can you ship
00:06:00
something do you have some degree of
00:06:02
technical Acumen did you start something
00:06:04
did you finish something you don't need
00:06:06
to have this but if you feel like you
00:06:08
know you feel so compelled that you need
00:06:11
to have it and I'm a very big believer
00:06:13
in the placebo effect well not being
00:06:17
able to build most people are making the
00:06:19
assumptions that they can only do two
00:06:21
things I either did it at my company or
00:06:23
I didn't do it at my company 80 to 90%
00:06:26
unless you have more data than I have
00:06:28
access to 80 to 90% of the product
00:06:30
management Market has never fully
00:06:32
shipped anything out from I would say
00:06:34
Bare Bones Ground Zero scratch all the
00:06:36
way to Market so you're not alone now
00:06:41
the next thing people are thinking about
00:06:42
well should I just have like some kind
00:06:43
of Squarespace website or some kind of
00:06:45
you know some type of side project on
00:06:48
the side that shows that I worked on
00:06:49
something maybe like a small you know I
00:06:51
don't know goto market deck or like some
00:06:53
wireframes mockups maybe a portfolio
00:06:56
website yeah that doesn't really like
00:06:58
actually like show me what's the market
00:07:00
impact on that but if you have a chat
00:07:02
bot let's just say we all have friends
00:07:04
and family members that are
00:07:05
chiropractors doctors um gosh uh
00:07:09
somebody that owns even like a nail
00:07:11
salon or somebody that owns a dog
00:07:12
grooming service or a dry cleaner if
00:07:15
it's a product that's functional that's
00:07:17
a technical product it's functional
00:07:19
people are using it it's customer facing
00:07:21
it could be just for uh somebody's
00:07:23
Instagram page for their business right
00:07:26
that would suffice a product launch a
00:07:29
successfully launching a product if you
00:07:31
especially if you could back up the
00:07:32
impact and saying well you know my
00:07:35
cousin who has a dry cleaner or a
00:07:38
chiropractor was booking on average uh
00:07:41
you know or as a dentist was booking on
00:07:43
average this many patients a day and
00:07:45
then it went up to this uh as a result
00:07:47
of this chatbot because the problem is
00:07:49
when they're working with a patient or
00:07:51
when they're on the job they can't pick
00:07:53
up the phone they don't always have a
00:07:54
front desk receptionist speed to lead is
00:07:56
very important so we automated a chat
00:07:58
bot for them if you feel so compelled to
00:08:01
that would satisfy it the second thing
00:08:04
that you would uh in terms of like user
00:08:06
adoption growth and Market
00:08:08
impact the stuff that I didn't list like
00:08:11
cross functional collaboration
00:08:12
Innovation creativity it's really hard
00:08:14
to show a side project to go out there
00:08:16
and be able to satisfy that a lot of
00:08:18
times it's overkill for you to do so uh
00:08:21
even if you did but you can go out there
00:08:23
and largely communicate it in terms of
00:08:26
like user adoption Market impact data
00:08:29
driven decision making and then you also
00:08:31
got like market research revenue growth
00:08:33
the reason why I listed out the CRM or
00:08:35
social media dashboard is one of the
00:08:38
biggest problems that hiring teams have
00:08:41
like for heads and directors and VPS of
00:08:43
product is waiting for their data
00:08:44
analyst to always get back to them data
00:08:47
analysts are always late and when they
00:08:49
get back to them with the reports and
00:08:50
the charts and the graphs it never looks
00:08:52
the way that they need to and during
00:08:53
this time they're just waiting so if you
00:08:56
have like a SQL certification and you're
00:08:58
able to put together these Dash
00:08:59
dashboards that you can present A lot of
00:09:01
times people have a certification people
00:09:03
ask me all the time what's more
00:09:04
important certification to side project
00:09:05
I say side project because certification
00:09:09
does nothing for me as a hiring manager
00:09:11
I have to know what you learned in there
00:09:13
can you show me something so even the
00:09:15
people that have a SQL background is
00:09:16
like can you show me a dashboard was
00:09:18
like well all of those numbers and
00:09:19
metrics are proprietary information it's
00:09:21
actually illegal for me to show it so
00:09:22
you don't have anything so if you
00:09:24
actually had something again if you feel
00:09:26
like you're compelled like you need a
00:09:27
side project uh um having like a side
00:09:31
project that is presentable to actual
00:09:35
interviewers CU essentially speaking
00:09:36
they're your customers if you have
00:09:38
something that you can show it makes for
00:09:40
a much stronger case than somebody
00:09:42
saying well I did all that cuz every
00:09:44
hiring manager has been burned by some a
00:09:46
candidate not just for product that said
00:09:48
that they knew how to do all these
00:09:49
things and then when they actually got
00:09:51
on the job well uh actually I didn't do
00:09:54
this because we had somebody do that uh
00:09:56
we had another girl that did this and we
00:09:58
had another guy so what did you
00:10:00
do they all have like a nightmare story
00:10:03
like that so if you can actually present
00:10:04
them something and actually walk them
00:10:06
through it if you feel like you need a
00:10:07
side project to make for a stronger case
00:10:08
on the interview present them a CRM or a
00:10:11
social media dashboard because what they
00:10:13
care about is customer analytics so
00:10:14
that's like user adoption and growth
00:10:17
Market impact that's like you know
00:10:19
showing them that you can make as a
00:10:20
result we understood that our Target
00:10:22
demographic was between these ages and
00:10:24
they were signing on during these times
00:10:25
showing them data- driven decisionmaking
00:10:28
showing them that hey you you can go out
00:10:29
there and uncover market research and
00:10:31
provide them with insight to make better
00:10:33
decisions and you can actually you maybe
00:10:35
you didn't play a direct impact to
00:10:37
revenue growth but you were be able to
00:10:38
hand over this information for another
00:10:40
team that did that is very attractive to
00:10:43
a hiring
00:10:44
manager now another thing that you can
00:10:46
do is like when you're showing them
00:10:47
customer Centric approach we had
00:10:49
somebody that was interviewing with a
00:10:50
company that was building an app for
00:10:51
diabetes and they actually interviewed
00:10:53
some of their friends and family members
00:10:54
with diabetes and actually took all that
00:10:56
information put into a report these days
00:10:59
with chat GPT you could very easily say
00:11:02
you know I only recommend that you do
00:11:04
this for a company that you really
00:11:05
really want to go out there and work for
00:11:07
like uh somebody recently did this for a
00:11:08
dating app hint hint that's a Recession
00:11:11
Proof business right there uh for a
00:11:13
dating app company that they were
00:11:14
interviewing for and they were able to
00:11:16
go out there type in the chat GPT I
00:11:17
don't think it's difficult for you guys
00:11:18
to conjure you know what are the best
00:11:21
questions for me to ask customers as a
00:11:23
product manager for a dating app uh come
00:11:25
up with 10 to 25 questions and then from
00:11:28
there gather up all the feedback and
00:11:30
then just you can type in the chat GPT
00:11:32
based upon you know all of these
00:11:34
different uh transcriptions you can
00:11:36
record those interviews get it
00:11:38
transcribed uh based upon all of these
00:11:40
different transcriptions can you help me
00:11:43
prioritize a list of iterations that we
00:11:45
can make on our product based on Direct
00:11:47
customer feedback if you show them this
00:11:49
they'll be knocked out of the way this
00:11:50
really shows that you take a real
00:11:51
customer Centric approach and uh I this
00:11:55
is very timec consuming even with chat
00:11:57
GPT I wouldn't recommend that you do
00:11:58
this unless you make it past the second
00:12:00
round and I also really wouldn't
00:12:02
recommend that you do this unless you
00:12:03
really want to work at that company cuz
00:12:05
it is timec consuming and that's time
00:12:06
you're taking away from interviewing
00:12:08
with other companies that you could get
00:12:09
hired from because in a market as
00:12:12
volatile as the one that we're operating
00:12:13
in right now with the amount of layoffs
00:12:15
it is a numbers game but if you're like
00:12:17
yo I would crush in the job this is my
00:12:19
dream company I would really want to go
00:12:20
out there and work there uh one way for
00:12:22
you to differentiate yourself in the
00:12:24
market is actually getting those real
00:12:25
customer interviews you can absolutely
00:12:27
go ahead and do so uh um now effective
00:12:32
communication effective communication
00:12:34
they're going to gauge you there's only
00:12:35
two ways to go out there and communicate
00:12:36
verbally and written communication and
00:12:39
verbally your communication is being
00:12:41
analyzed as I'm sure you already know on
00:12:43
the job hunt consistently just from like
00:12:47
how you're talking and how you're caring
00:12:49
yourself and how you're presenting
00:12:50
yourself right now is being accessed
00:12:52
through and through uh on the interview
00:12:54
already so the verbal communication and
00:12:58
how you're taking care of that that's
00:13:00
already being established when you're
00:13:01
talking about written well it's like do
00:13:04
you want me to give you some screenshots
00:13:06
of emails that have written before it
00:13:08
comes in the form of product
00:13:09
requirements docs uh so you can actually
00:13:12
show them and if you can go out there
00:13:13
and write a really clear product
00:13:14
requirement stock uh to go out there and
00:13:17
highlight that uh you have this
00:13:19
background there plenty of videos uh let
00:13:21
me know in the comments if you want me
00:13:22
to make one uh but there's plenty of
00:13:24
videos to go out there and highlight
00:13:26
that but you can also show them how
00:13:27
you're able to put one together with
00:13:28
trat
00:13:30
or like you know co-pilot or something
00:13:32
they'll be very impressed too so up
00:13:34
until now we've talked about uh chatbot
00:13:37
we talked about the CRM social media
00:13:39
dashboard so dashboards real customer
00:13:41
interviews talked about product
00:13:42
requirement stock uh another thing in
00:13:44
terms of stakeholder
00:13:46
satisfaction not exactly has to do with
00:13:48
AI but you can also go ahead and write
00:13:50
it out too is like getting endorsements
00:13:53
so if you take a look at like my
00:13:55
background right
00:13:57
here I have have two endorsements right
00:14:00
sometimes like it's actually hard uh
00:14:02
when you're like trying to get more
00:14:03
endorsements from people uh I'm going to
00:14:06
make another video about this but the
00:14:07
easiest way for you to get endorsements
00:14:09
from other people is to actually give
00:14:11
them endorsements first and then or also
00:14:13
write it for them because it's like
00:14:15
imagine going to your friend's
00:14:16
restaurant and you had a good time and
00:14:18
you're like hey like can you write a
00:14:19
review for us on Yelp like it'd be great
00:14:21
it's like great food good
00:14:24
service nice meal like like it's hard
00:14:27
you know writing like really good
00:14:29
reviews the people that write the most
00:14:31
passionate reviews where they get I get
00:14:33
like the most like I think some of these
00:14:36
people they can write so well they might
00:14:37
as well write for Spielberg or something
00:14:39
is when you have a very uh pissed off
00:14:42
customer who all of a sudden they find
00:14:45
the inner Nobel Peace Prize inside of
00:14:48
them just flow right and just write
00:14:51
essays um but you could use trat you PT
00:14:54
to go out there and prompt out like help
00:14:56
me write a LinkedIn endorsement for my
00:14:58
colleague who's software engineer that
00:14:59
I've been working with for the past 3
00:15:01
years I really like the fact d uh make
00:15:04
it like time box it when you're like not
00:15:06
doing anything I think this is a great
00:15:07
way for Branding is like uh every single
00:15:09
week I'm going to go ahead and get five
00:15:12
LinkedIn endorsements out there for my
00:15:13
colleagues and it's reciprocity if you
00:15:16
do five you know at least three people
00:15:18
are going to write you one to so do five
00:15:19
for them for other people it helps them
00:15:22
out and uh you can use chachy BT to go
00:15:25
out there and craft up one for you to
00:15:27
and say hey if you don't feel
00:15:29
comfortable posting or you feel like you
00:15:31
know this endorsement that you know I
00:15:32
had chat gp2 right for you was Miss is
00:15:36
you know misinformed or misrepresents
00:15:38
our working relationship or you don't
00:15:39
feel comfortable so you should only
00:15:41
write reviews for people that actually
00:15:43
want to write reviews for you too uh you
00:15:45
don't have to use it or you can just
00:15:46
take whatever it is that you want out uh
00:15:48
but have them post for you and then boom
00:15:51
if you do that in a given year doesn't
00:15:53
take a lot you do three to five a week
00:15:57
you'll get faster at it
00:15:59
if you did even five a month that's 60
00:16:02
endorsements like a month you would
00:16:04
still out dramatically outshine most of
00:16:06
the candidates out there in like at
00:16:08
least 95% of the candidates out there
00:16:10
that's got like one or two even though
00:16:11
I'm in this business here I'm so lazy in
00:16:13
doing it but this could also
00:16:15
differentiate you especially when people
00:16:16
see it they might like it too so uh with
00:16:19
all that said uh
00:16:22
yeah these are the top five AI side
00:16:25
projects there are more but when I take
00:16:27
a look at like like at the end of the
00:16:30
day a side project is to try to elevate
00:16:32
your status as a candidate to make you
00:16:34
look better in the marketplace so when
00:16:38
we take a look at that it's like what
00:16:40
what are the side projects that is
00:16:43
reflective of what hiring teams want
00:16:46
when we're talking to hiring Partners
00:16:48
these top 15 here back to back to back
00:16:50
to back to back this is what they keep
00:16:52
telling us that they want like even
00:16:54
adaptability and resilience is like
00:16:56
somebody that understands how to
00:16:57
navigate somebody that's really
00:16:58
comfortable at change Rich somebody
00:17:00
that's like they're okay like being put
00:17:03
under like high pressure situations
00:17:05
dealing with obstacles and all that uh
00:17:08
it's really hard to have a side so IID
00:17:10
say a lot of these don't qualify for a
00:17:11
side project but the other ones if you
00:17:13
have it if you feel like it would help
00:17:15
you out if you're going to do it you
00:17:16
might as well do it right you should
00:17:18
actually have side projects that
00:17:20
actually are reflective of what hiring
00:17:23
teams these are your customers at the
00:17:25
end of the day directly are telling us
00:17:26
that they want from you having said said
00:17:29
that if you take a look at all of the
00:17:30
side projects that we listed here the
00:17:32
best bang for your buck is actually our
00:17:34
AI SQL certification because this I mean
00:17:37
the time that you're spending on one
00:17:39
side project satisfies one
00:17:42
two 3 4 five that's 3 that's 1/3 right
00:17:47
there that's 33% of everything else more
00:17:50
than 2/3 of this doesn't more close to
00:17:53
half of this doesn't even require a side
00:17:55
project because there's no side project
00:17:56
that you can show for like you know
00:18:00
strategic
00:18:01
thinking uh but like a lot of that it
00:18:04
could just be satisfied through your
00:18:06
interview response right so with that
00:18:08
said uh if you want to get access to
00:18:11
these resources link is in the
00:18:13
description also if you want me have a
00:18:14
look see on your resume ping me directly
00:18:16
in LinkedIn my Handles in the
00:18:18
description and in the comments I'll go
00:18:19
ahead and talk to you very very soon
00:18:20
please subscribe it lets us continue to
00:18:23
build out these resources for yall
