Curious - how you answered these questions?
in particular - this one:
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@JuanAllo, When questions about my resume came up, I tried to explain how I wasnāt a good fit with one of my past companies. I had a weird situation where I was a Product Owner for my Dev team, but I wasnāt part of the Product Management team. This company had a very well established PM team, and the fact I didnāt report up to it was very weird. The company had around 9 different products, each one with its own PM and PO. My specific team happened to be run differently, where I was a PO but I reported to the Dev team. I felt like I was an orphaned PO. Well, this answer was not suffice to the company. They argued that I should have done a better job incorporating myself within the company. Even though I explained how I did try, and the Head of Product asked why I was crashing his product team meetings.
I think a better answer of why I left the company should have been because another company came in and offered me a 30% raise. And I was in no position to turn down a 30% raise with a different company.
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Ah ok. I have a couple of these on my resume.
One of them I was there 9 months as a PM. I got an offer to be head of product for the whole business at a series B startup - thatās easy to explain
The second one (11 months), I was one of the 2 product managers to two product lines. The company decided to focus on the other one during the pandemic and basically killed my business and laid off practically the entire engineering leadership that I had built good relationships with and me included.
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Thatās going to be a gamble imo. Some people are fine with that pragmatic view. Weāre all working to make money at the end of the day. But so many companies put a focus on culture and the right type of people you kind of have to avoid just straight up saying youāre there for the money.
I think a lot of people who do interviewing would probably view, āI left for a big raiseā as a red flag.
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How did you answer salary expectations?
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@DanielleMarshall, I know what my personal salary expectations are. But to a given company, I do research to try to figure out what they are willing to pay, and state a little higher than that. Usually use Glassdoor.
I am also not afraid to price myself out of a job. If the range I am requesting is too high, then I probably wouldnāt accept the offer they had in mind. So, itās better that we know earlier in the process. This probably goes against conventional wisdom where you want to keep that info secret. But my personal belief is that you should be very open, and that the company has the same policy. This can backfire and hurt you though, so I might not be the best person to take advise about this.
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You have 2 choices when it comes to salary.
- Never tell them a number, use vague statements like, āSalary isnāt my driving factor. I want to make a fair salary for a company I like where the fit is right. Itās negotiable.ā etc. Or
- Be open and tell them what youāre looking for.
In my experience the vast majority of companies have a well-defined salary range and will offer within that regardless of what you say. Itās possible if youāre salary expectation is low, they might offer you on the lower end. But you never know. Iāve done both and I much prefer option 2. Just put it on the table. It makes it clear whether there is any reason to go forward with the process. Iāve been able to save a bunch of time by looking for a salary thatās over their range. And Iāve had multiple companies tell me that the salary would be 10-20k higher than what Iām looking for. Iāve never felt that saying what Iām looking for has been detrimental. YMMV, but thatās my experience.
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