Hello there Reader,

The biggest bottleneck in your job search is at the application stage.

65% of PMs who have landed a role last year submitted more than 50 applications.

Candidates are spending 15 minutes to 1 hour applying to a single role. That means they’re spending upwards of 100+ hours simply applying for jobs.

That’s crazy.

And with conversion rates below 5%? That’s a ton of wasted time.

That time can be better spent.

I want to help you get more interviews and save time on your job search.

Today, I’m going to break down the most important (and least important) things you need to do for your CV.

If you want more help, though, Product Sphere is running a workshop in a few weeks.

Spots are limited.

PMs will walk away with everything they need to take their application conversion rate from ~0% → up to 30%.

Your CV is what every recruiter and hiring manager will see before they interview you.

But most PMs undersell themselves with documents that describe responsibilities instead of impact.

Too many CVs apply bad advice and end up in the reject pile—it’s time for you to do what works instead.

In the workshop, you’ll learn and apply tested techniques that have helped 100s of Product Managers go from 0% callbacks to as high as 30%.

Below, I’ll cover the highlights.

Let’s jump in.

What matters most

First, we’re going to start with your customers.

Who are they? Recruiters and hiring managers, right?

You’re a PM, so now you should be thinking about what problem your customer has.

And how to solve it.

What are your customers looking for when they open up your CV?

Impact.

I’ll say it again: Impact.

Don’t just take my word for it.

Here’s a Product Director at Wise I interviewed last month who said:

“If there are no numbers…no.”

“If there are no outcomes…no.”

“If people say orchestrated…made the roadmap…this and that…and no outcomes? No.”

If you’re not showing impact in your resume, and it’s not clear in the first 10 seconds?

It’s going in the reject pile.

How to show impact

The X by Y by Z method is a powerful formula for crafting impactful bullet points on your CV.

Compare these two examples:

Drove 25% increase in user engagement and 15% growth in revenue by conducting market research and implementing data-informed feature prioritisation.

Versus the weaker alternative:

Responsible for product adoption strategies and market research activities.

The difference is clear—one showcases measurable impact whilst the other merely lists responsibilities.

This distinction could be what separates your CV from the stack of applicants who never make it past the initial screening.

Here’s the formula for each bullet point (or as many as you can):

Accomplished/Delivered/Led/Improved [X]
as measured by [Y]
by doing [Z]

Here’s another example:

Scaled [Product] to 215k subscribers, generating €50M annual revenue within 2.5 years, by tailoring a 0-1 consumer subscription for underserved customers seeking an everyday spending account.

Take these examples and the formula, hand it over to your LLM of choice, and get to re-writing your bullets.

Just make sure you audit its work.

Your elevator pitch

After a quick scan for evidence of impact, the next thing your customers will read should be the tl;dr for your application.

The professional summary.

What goes in a good summary, though?

Not the crap an AI matching score tool will score well!

Recruiters aren’t moving applicants to the interview stage who describe themselves this way:

I’m a dynamic Product Manager who loves solving customer problems in a complex environment, delivering impact while collaborating cross-functionally. I thrive in environments where I can…blah blah blah your customer has probably stopped reading by now.

Honestly, that’s not differentiating at all.

Compare that, to this:

9+ years of Product Management experience driving innovations in retail, fashion, public transport and deep tech. Worked on major e-grocery services, size prediction systems, AR and AI-based try-on tech, driving $1B+ in revenue, and brought millions of people across the world to their destinations. Seeking Product Manager roles in FinTech.

Guess which one got the interview and landed a role at one of the highest ranking places for product careers?

I’m sharing real examples from clients, by the way.

Clients who I have helped go from no interviews to offers in a matter of weeks.

Here’s what your customers want to know:

Years of relevant experience
Types of products you’ve built and for who
Impact and outcomes you’ve achieved
Validation you’re looking for what they’re offering

If you can nail that in 4 lines, you’re already ahead of the hundreds of applicants for every role.

Measuring success

We’ve talked about what matters for your customers and how to show it. Now I want to talk about what should matter most to you (besides getting the interview, of course).

It’s application conversion rate (ACR).

Calculating it is simple:

# of First Round Interviews

# of Job Applications

Measuring it doesn’t have to be hard.

Shockingly, too many PMs don’t bother.

If you’re applying to hundreds of roles I get why, that’s more overhead.

But even if it only takes 50 applications to land your job, the PMs who succeed faster in their search absolutely do measure it.

I’ve built what I believe is the most comprehensive job tracking resource available and my clients use it on their searches.

Want a peek? Just reply and I’ll share a quick video demo of it.

What matters least

You now know what to prioritise. Here are some rapid fire tips of what to stop wasting your time on.

Skills

Take out that table of “skills” that isn’t working.

An ATS isn’t auto rejecting you because the word “strategy” didn’t appear enough times.

In fact, it’s not auto rejecting you at all for the contents of your CV—but that’s a whole post on its own.

The best converting CVs I’ve helped with don’t include the Skills table.

So take it out.

Just make sure the core keywords (like product strategy) show up with context in your bullets.

Education

Did you graduate before 2024? I bet many of you did.

Put your education details at the very bottom.

It’s old news.

Not relevant anymore.

Your degree matters, yes. But it matters less now than your experience.

Design

It pains me to say this, because I love a beautiful product, but boring works.

Why?

Because of your customers.

They need the right information in the places they expect to find it.

When they open up a CV and have to hunt for information? That’s unnecessary friction.

Friction can kill your ACR.

Keep it simple.

Single column layout.

Use colour sparingly.

Clear separation of sections with a separate font size, and colour, for a Heading, Subheading, and the body copy.

Add in a divider line for a splash of colour if you must.

Most PM roles don’t mention anything about design skills. If they do, then have a version for that.

How to get more help

It’s impossible to cram every piece of advice or answer all the questions specific to your situation in a single newsletter.

So if you are stuck with what to do next, or just want to get some hands-on help, I have two different ways you can do that:

1. Join my next workshop

We’ll work on your CV and you’ll walk away with everything you need to boost your application conversion rate.

It’s happening on 6 November.

But the spots will be limited so everyone gets hands-on help.

✦ Secure your spot

I’m going to share new resources I’ve built that have been tested and proven to work with clients who have landed interviews and roles at companies like Revolut, Monzo, Meta, Monday.com, Wise, Google, Anthropic, and many more.