5 Tips to Build an Impactful Product Manager Resume for FAANG Organizations

The resume isn't just your first impression for a company; it is a product that you make and reflects on your abilities. So, just like any other product, you need to create one that is aesthetic and clean. 

The definition of a proper template depends on your role and the company to which you apply. For example, consumer product companies value UI for appropriate product experience. Hence, a clean, easy-to-read resume with a pop of color will stand out. 

• Ensure to use a professional theme while choosing the overall look/template of the resume. 
• Declutter and organize with bullet points and checkmarks. 
• Choose a readable and clean font. Keep it the same throughout the resume. You can change the font size but not the font style. 
• You can create an editable summary section reflecting your abilities similar to the job role. Change the section with every resume submission.
• Create sub-sections within sections. Example- Skills- Technical Skills, Soft Skills, Leadership Skills, etc. 
• Spacing matters, it makes the resume readable and easy for the eyes. 
• Keep clear communication and be truthful on your resume.

Keep in mind that the primary goal of the resume is to ensure that the viewer is convinced about your product management skills required for the job. You want to show the overlapping nature between the existing experience you've had and the experiences that are demanded by the job. 

We advise limiting your resume for Facebook, Google and other organizations to 3 different sections. 

Basic Information: Your full name, phone number, and email address can be included. It is not advised to include a photo on your resume. Addresses, LinkedIn, GitHub, and any personal websites are optional. You likely have included them in your application, so repeating them won't be necessary. 

Experiences: This is the prime area of focus and the meat of the resume. You need to concisely describe the overlapping work experience from any side hustle/work that can help you land a PM job role and the required experience for the job.

• Keep the experience description crisp and short; We recommend not more than four lines as per experience unless there is a very good reason for it. 
• We also suggested keeping each experience unique. Repetition of tasks done for more than one organization will take up unnecessary space on your product manager's resume. 
• Ensure that you remove any irrelevant sections and experiences from the resume. It is more beneficial to divert the users' focus on relevant experiences that will convey the message that you are fit for the company.

Education: Make sure to include the higher education degree if applicable. The section can have less emphasis than the experience section. 

• FAANG companies look for candidates who are keen learners and are open to evolving; any certification course done for upskilling in your field must be mentioned under this section. 
• If you want to include a section on skills and accomplishments, add that to the experience section. For instance, if you describe your proficiency in SQL, try to do it in the experience section by mentioning that you successfully used SQL to accomplish the project properly. 

Also, remember that you need to limit your resume to just a single page. If the resume stretches out, practice the primary product manager skill, prioritizing and cutting. 

Before you go ahead and fill out the resume, you need to reflect and find your strengths. 

• Highlight the relevant roles in your experience that match the company's job description.
• If you have worked on a project whose success can be highlighted through numbers and percentages, ensure to do the same.
• Add and highlight keywords like customer experience, feature delivery, cross-domain, large-scale products, product roadmap, risk management, scope management and product lifecycle.

A product manager's key responsibility is to ensure that they understand the users and their problems. In the process of job searching, the hiring manager is the user who needs to have a solution. For instance, after looking at a certain job description, you might find that the recruiter is looking for someone with the ability to: 

• Set achievable goals, execute plans, and evaluate trade-offs 

Reflect on your experience where you created a product roadmap, aligned a team to follow the same, managed deadlines and timelines, created metrics to measure impact, and incorporated the final user experience and feedback. 

• Be completely data-informed and user-focused

Highlight your analytical thinking here. Talk about how data-driven you are and how you can aggregate data like user research, stakeholder inputs, behavioral data, demographic data, etc. to build a strategy. 

• Lead a cross-functional team 

FAANG organizations like Google look for a particular type of leadership called "emergent leadership." You'll typically be working in cross-functional teams at Google and other organizations, and different team members are expected to step up and lead at different times in the lifecycle of a project when their skills are needed. So, the best would be to elaborate on your leadership skills, communication skills, and how you evaluate the impact of your decisions on various teams and their functioning.

A widespread mistake candidates tend to make is only to list the job descriptions in their experience section. They don't necessarily focus on showcasing the measurable impact of their roles. So, this is where you can use the 'Job + Impact' formula. For every position you list on the resume, make sure to describe concisely the project you completed and what the impact was.

• Quantify the impact 
• Use some action verbs such as initiated, achieved, drove, etc.

So, these are some helpful tips that you can use to create the perfect product manager resume. However, getting a professional hand in your PM resume for FAANG can be an added advantage. Prepfully associates with industry experts and experienced product managers from FAANG to review resumes, you can opt for the resume review services and reach out to the recruiter of your targeted company and role for expert feedback.