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I work in product management and have been an interviewer in hiring cycles for a number of functions: product management, engineering, design, data science, legal, QA, marketing. Candidates for product management, more than any of the other functions, are often strong but a wrong fit. PMs at B2B companies do very different tasks than PMs at consumer web companies. There are a lot of skills that go into product management, and different companies have very different opinions of their relative value. Look at the component skills: customer empathy, process refinement / project management, technical understanding, data manipulation skills, strategy/business, lateral/upwards management, and vision setting. For leaders, there's also org design and hiring. Almost nobody is super strong at all of these. Where are you strong and where are you weaker? What do the companies you're hiring for actually need? I'd recommend getting tighter on your criteria for your next job. If you ruthlessly self evaluate, you'll probably realize there are only a few companies out there that can perfectly leverage your experience, so think about what you want to learn and consider lowering your "level" expectations (if you're looking at director positions, look at first-level manager or senior IC instead) to broaden your experience. 15 phone interviews to 7 onsites is solid, but 50 applications to 15 phone screens is low. Most companies are going to be very cautious when hiring external senior PM managers, so consider a stronger emphasis on networking to evaluate fit and the company's needs, so you can tailor your interview to demonstrate the right skills. You said the feedback is often "interview for a different role". Did you interview for those other roles? What's different about those roles from the one you want? |
One thing to try... if the shop isn't probing you to find out what you want to do as a PM, then you need to be probing the shop to find out what they're looking for.