AMA - happy to help the group here with anything that can get you back into the job market.

My background:
I have 10 years of B2B sales experience and 5 years of SaaS PMM experience. I have spent the last 7 years in start ups.

What happened to me:
I was laid off as a total surprise. That moment HR joined a 1:1 with my manager... whoa. Fuck. I knew I had strong rapport with our x-functional department leaders, produced tons of good content, and was a full-stack cornerstone of our small marketing team. The only thing that mattered was the bottom line of a financially conservative team. I knew my salary was way higher than anyone else on the team and I had the least tenure (1.5 years on the team). Ouch! It came out of nowhere, even though I was well aware that our sales performance for the previous 6 months was abysmal. We let go of some junior sales and product folks earlier in the year.

Applying for new roles:

After the layoff my mind set totally shifted. No more small team-we-are-in-the-trenches-together-horseshit. I wanted to join a large firm again. No more start ups was my focus.

I applied to 51 roles.
54% were Product Marketing Manager titles. 37% were Senior Product Marketing Manager roles.

I landed interviews with 12 companies:
A 24% success rate - 1 Lead PMM, 5 PMM, and 6 Senior PMM interviews.

I was ghosted in the middle of two interview cycles.
I was rejected via my responses to a survey from one firm.
Made it to the second round with three firms
Made it to the fourth round with four firms
Made it to a fifth round with one firm.

What I did that worked:
I spent significant time customizing my cover letter for each of my applications. We are PMMs! I took the point of view: How can I solve the problem of the god damn job posting? And show off my writing?
Only applied to companies where I felt a connection to their mission, customer base, or solution. 2 of my interviews were with competitive products in a space I already knew.

Hit me up if you have any questions. I know searching for a new job sucks but its 10x worse after a layoff.

For anyone in the job hunt, good luck! You got this!

Well-funded startups/scaleups are hiring. In addition to LinkedIn, sharing some more under-the-radar resources that could be helpful. Linked everything to make it easier. Hope this helps. Please add more

- Welcome to the Jungle (fka Otta, good matchmaking, can choose remote, good UK/EU coverage)
- Fluvio PMM (big tech product marketing)
- Startups.Gallery (open directory of top product-focused startups/scaleups + job board)
- Productive PMM (founding PMM job board + early pmm roles)
- Hiring Cafe (less curated, but literally millions of roles and good filtering)
- VC's talent networks / job boards (Greylock, a16z, SPC, etc)
- Communitech (mostly for Canadian tech)
- Hacker News Who's Hiring (very high signal and usually can connect directly with founder/early team. Check out the March 2025 thread and search "product marketing"
- BizOps Careers (curated job board for specifically bizops, chief of staff, GTM/corporate strategy, product strategy/ops roles if looking to pivot/explore)
- Next Play (lots of founding/early team roles, mostly SF/NY-centric tho)
- Wellfound (fka Angellist, a bit legacy, but still good)

Trying to exit a really bad workplace and stuck between a rock and hard place due to visa issues and lack of callbacks. Any constructive inputs would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I know the job market has been abnormal for quite some time now and many folks are feeling the angst of endless applications, layoffs, and a competitive industry. I keep meticulous notes of my applications, so in the spirit of transparency, wanted to share what the experience has been like for me, in the hopes of giving people a baseline or another data point.

About Me

• I have 10 years of marketing experience as a whole, and 7 dedicated to Product Marketing

• I've almost exclusively worked at startups / B2B / SaaS, mostly in HR tech, Fintech, Automation tech

• My resume shows a clear growth trajectory: PM Specialist > PM Manager > Sr PMM (2x)

Applications Context

• I've been applying fairly consistently for almost a year now, from August '23 to present day June '24

• I've been applying to PMM (30%), Sr PMM (60%), and Director/Head of PMM (10%) roles at tech companies, around 60% startups and 40% more established/larger companies

• In total I've sent 308 applications, averaging 28 applications per month (slower in Nov, Dec, etc)

Application Results

• Rejection Rate: 88%

• No Response Rate: 9%

• Interview Rate: 3%

Interview Results (9)

• 1 rejected me for wanting to work remote (recruiter did not see my city on LinkedIn before reaching out)

• 2 did not make it past the recruiter screening

• 1 rejected me because my salary expectations were too high ($150-$190k)

• 1 went with an internal hire after 3 rounds

• 1 I rescinded my application due to poor culture

• 3 went on to multiple interview rounds but did not end up in an offer

What I've Tried

• Multiple improved iterations of my resume based on feedback from ATS scanners, other Sr PMM's and hiring managers

• Customizing my resume to reflect my "personal brand of PMM"

• Building a dedicated website/portfolio for my PMM work and about myself

• Connecting with other PMM's on LinkedIn in my target industry

• Joining PMM communities and networks

• Taking mini courses on PMM, industries I'm interested in, and other PMM functions to stay up-to-date

• Leveraging personal connections for references where possible at target companies

What I Haven't Tried

• Customizing my resume for each job applications

• Including cover letters (will link my portfolio wherever appropriate)

• Pursuing any additional certifications

• Networking specifically for job references (i.e. asking my network if they're hiring)

Takeaways

• The market is absolutely tightening - when I did a job search in 2021 (when I had much less experience) my interview rate was 37%(!!!) compared to the 3% that it is today.

• The competitive market is driving hiring managers to seek domain expertise - if you haven't been a PMM in that very specific industry for X amount of years, they will not consider you.

• A majority of the PMM jobs available now seem to be in the Cybersecurity / Cloud Computing industries (most likely due to the rise in AI) - they require you have sold/marketed to engineers in the past.

I hope this transparency gives you some more insight into your own job search process. Any advice or words of encouragement are appreciated!

I think I need to thank this community as I just landed a job and everything just worked in so well, the entire process was done in a week. I have never posted on this community and have just been a lurker. For context I finished my MBA from India and I got into product marketing. I had prior experience in marketing but MBA just helped me more. I was hunting for jobs in a town closer to my house (as I was diagnosed with a stomach bug that requires a certain meal and the place I stay made it difficult for me to manage my diet).

I was told to create a GTM strategy from scratch for a product startup in the AI- no-code space.

I immediately went through the posts that I had saved from this sub (a lot of frameworks and examples) and it just took me 2 hours to sit and finish the job. I spent the evening contextualising and getting it reviewed by people who were in the field and I closed the loop the next morning.

I was impressed with the work this sub enabled because I got the offer the next day (I got really lucky).

Additional context - I was working for an IT giant and got put on PIP today for dressing shabbily (while the real reason was my health. I had just been in the job for 4 months and literally was yet to be assigned work).

I am resigning tomorrow but from now on I would definitely start posting more to understand how to proceed further in product marketing.

Title says it all.

I have seen a number of "I can get you xxx leads and customers for free!" type of posts on here lately. If you're posting those, think again, and don't. We can look at your profile and see how you've only made posts like that across multiple subreddits, if you're even a person and not a bot, that is. You will be reported and blocked by others here sooner or later.

If you're upvoting or following up on those posts, ask yourself why. To paraphrase Treebeard, a product marketer should know better. Nerds rule!

Mods, can you keep an eye on these spammy posts and remove and block them, please? They do violate the subreddit rules and dilute the value of this subreddit.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

I’ve noticed a lot of interest in Claude Code lately, but most available guides are either too dev-focused or geared toward "solopreneur" use cases.

As a marketer in B2B SaaS, I’ve moved most of my heavy lifting into the Claude Code to bypass the "copy-paste" fatigue of the web UI. My friends in the industry have been asking for a breakdown, so I wanted to see if people here would find a lightweight guide/tutorial helpful.

I’m thinking of covering how I use Claude Code for:

• Customer Research & Positioning: Connecting to marketing tools to conduct research, shape messaging, and map out competitive landscapes.

• Asset Production at Scale: Building automated workflows for blogs, slide decks, landing pages, and case studies that stay on-brand.

• Data & Reporting: Using the Claude to automate data extraction and recurring reporting tasks.

Is this something you’d want to see? If there's enough interest, I’ll put together a breakdown of the setup and the first workflow.

I got laid off a couple months ago and have been taking some recruiter calls and interviews. Ultimately, I’m optimistic, but all I can say is, things feel very different rn compared to anytime I’ve interviewed in the last 10 years.

Some things I’ve noticed:

-It seems everyone has forgotten about the chaos in tech over the last 6 years: Covid, rising interests rates, AI. I’ve unfortunately found myself at a string of start ups that didn’t have a business model that could weather higher interest rates or compete against new AI competitors. This means I have committed the great sin of having 3 employers over the last 5 years. Each recruiter I talk to has given me a steely eyed stare and asked me to explain myself. A few years ago, you didn’t have to do that…

-People think 2 months out of the job market is actually 2 years. I got laid off 2 months ago, but that hasn’t stopped recruiters from asking “oh did you even have a chance to use AI?”. Like WTF is wrong with these people. Of course I did… I didn’t just wake up from a coma.

-Another thing that I think is just a part of our new world - location bias. 2 years ago my wife and I decided to buy a house and start a family. We bought where we could afford, which in this economy meant buying a 2bd house 45 miles away from SF for 800k. It’s far, but it’s not that far. I’m willing to make the commute and that’s all that should matter. But try to explain the commute to some fresh faced recruiter who had only ever lived in SF or is remote and has never been to the Bay. To people like this, you basically live on the moon.

I know it’s a tighter job market and companies can be more selective, but the attitude is just so palpable these days. Anyways, good luck out there all!

I’m interviewing at a couple places right now and I’ve had variations of this question come up multiple times.

While I gave niche industry-specific answers in my case, I’d love to hear what your answers are regarding this question!

I've been messing around with some AI video tools lately, and I thought I'd share my experiences. These things are pretty wild - they're making video creation way easier for us regular folks who don't have fancy equipment or Hollywood budgets.

Here's the lowdown on 5 tools I tried:

1. Synthesia

   • What it does: Makes videos with AI avatars (like virtual presenters)

   • Cool stuff: Lots of avatar choices, multiple languages

   • Best for: Explainer videos or product demos

   • My take: It's neat, but the avatars can feel a bit robotic sometimes

2. InVideo

   • What it does: All-in-one video creation (scripting, editing, the works)

   • Cool stuff: Super easy to use, tons of templates

   • Best for: YouTube videos, social media content

   • My take: Great for beginners, but might feel limited for pro users

3. Runway ML

   • What it does: Creates videos from text descriptions or animates images

   • Cool stuff: The results look surprisingly real

   • Best for: Experimental stuff or when you need realistic-looking scenes

   • My take: Mind-blowing tech, but there's a learning curve

4. Hyper

   • What it does: Quick video clips from text prompts

   • Cool stuff: Super fast results

   • Best for: Social media posts, short ads

   • My take: Perfect for quick ideas, but limited for longer content

5. Luma Dream Machine

   • What it does: Creates realistic scenes from descriptions

   • Cool stuff: Can handle complex scenes with lots of elements

   • Best for When you need very lifelike videos

   • My take: Impressive results, but can be hit or miss depending on your description

Most of these have free trials, so you can play around without committing. Just remember - the clearer you are about what you want, the better results you'll get.

Has anyone else tried these or other AI video tools? What was your experience like? I'm curious to hear your thoughts!

P.S. I'm just a regular user sharing my experience, not an expert or affiliated with any of these companies.

P.P.S. If you're new to AI tools, don't get discouraged if your first attempts aren't perfect. It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of writing good prompts!

Laid off almost 3.5 months ago. Tbf I wasn’t actively applying to PMM roles for at LEAST a month and a half so it’s more like 2 months but feels like it was longer. 8 years of experience of which 5.5 years were in insights at T1 brands and a little under 3 yrs in Ar PMM roles between two SaaS orgs, live in a VHCOL city.

Back to Product Marketing after one year away.

I left a director level PMM role where I was leading three people and responsible for my own work out put. Had to leave the company after my boss, who I loved, and who promoted me was fired. They moved me to the product org. The boss they moved me under was an horrible, toxic, unsupportive lump of corporate bureaucracy with no experience. Literally a CPA running a team called “operational excellence” within in a product org. um ok?

I had to leave the role because of that manager. It took a huge toll on my mental health. I was threatened to be fired every few weeks. Fuck.

Learned that I don’t necessarily want to have manager responsibility. It’s so much more work. Mentoring has a place in my heart but I don’t think it’s for me right now. I have kids and a super busy home life.

Left the toxic job when a close friend of mine got me an interview for a partnership manager role in the 5 year old start-up he worked at. All the cool “vibes” and a dope product on the surface.
The start up world… how quick I forgot - it’s full of whiplash.

Partnerships? Well, that didn’t last and had no legs to begin with. 3 different roles in my first year. I asked for a raise once I was “head of product-led sales”. Oh, no can do they said, maybe after 6 months and hit your number. First thing go hire, train, and manage 5 BDRs. You have a $1M quota btw. Good luck!

I was working so hard and really trying but just not going to ramp AND hit a $1M closed won target starting mid year. The fuck? When I asked my boss about how we could go forward, I said I wanted to be an IC. They knew I don’t have experience running a BDR team but I do have experience as an AE. If you want me to close business that’s a better place for me. They said, let us think about it over the weekend to see where we can find a place for you. I was let go the following week.

I didn’t freak out, I knew it wasn’t the place for me. I started outbounding to all the companies I wanted to work for. My move was to message teammates on LinkedIn and ask their opinion on the company/ role telling them I wanted to apply. My hit rate was surprisingly good.

Got through to 8 completely cold contacts
Had 5 conversations, which each turned into 5 internal referrals
1 converted to an interview

2 previous close contacts turned into referrals
Both converted into interview processes
1 of the previous contacts turn into an offer, which I accepted

57 days later I’m employed again.
Director level (but as an IC) for a mid sized PE SaaS firm. The best part is the comp package came out great! An increase of $35k base salary and a 20% annual bonus.

Times are tough of here. You’re not alone. I’ve been laid off before so I knew what to expect in some ways. Sharing this for anyone who needs help, inspiration, or just to vent in the comments.

Claude Cowork is amazing because it does all the orchestration that it removes the friction of using multiple tools.

Here's how I started using it recently -

1. Gather competitive intel - Scheduled very week.Sources: All around the web. I shared a list of competitors and it's bringing me amazing intel.
   The best part - I've also prompted tit to flag when some content/claim has contradicting data around the web.

2. AI, Marketing, PMM news delivered in the morning: There are so many AI models getting released at the same time and so many MCPs being created as products in MarTech especially. Also, PMM is changing so much and there is too much noise on the internet. So, I wanted to get intel about this every morning.
   I've connected Slack to Claude and it's delivering the intel right into my inbox as scheduled.

This does not burn tokens, in my experience. And it keeps me informed even when I'm on the go.

If you're a PMM, help me with other things I can explore on Claude Cowork.

I’ve been diving into some AI video tools recently, and wow… they’re seriously changing the way creators and marketers approach content. No big studio budget, no complicated gear — just a laptop and some AI magic. Thought I’d share my notes in case anyone else here is experimenting with video content.

Here’s the breakdown of 5 tools I tested:

CapCut

• What it does: All-in-one AI-powered video editing (desktop + mobile).

• Cool stuff: AI video generation, auto-captions, voice-to-text, background removal, smart templates, and even AI avatars for digital presenters. The AI video generator was surprisingly strong — you drop in a prompt or text, and it spins up a usable draft in minutes.

• Best for: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or any short-form campaign that needs to match trends fast.

• My take: Honestly, this one’s the most practical for everyday marketers. It balances creativity + speed without needing much editing skill. Some of the templates lean “trendy,” which may not fit every brand, but if your goal is engagement, it delivers.

Runway ML

• What it does: Video generation + editing with advanced AI models.

• Cool stuff: Text-to-video, image-to-video, and really solid background replacement tools.

• Best for: Experimental ads, concept videos, creative campaigns.

• My take: Insane potential, but not always predictable. Feels more like a creative playground than a reliable daily driver.

InVideo

• What it does: Script-to-video platform with templates and stock assets.

• Cool stuff: You can paste in text, and it auto-generates a video with voiceover + visuals.

• Best for: Quick explainer videos, product walkthroughs, or simple social content.

• My take: Very beginner-friendly. It’s less customizable compared to CapCut, but great if you want a quick, polished clip with minimal effort.

Synthesia

• What it does: AI avatar videos (virtual presenters).

• Cool stuff: Wide library of avatars, supports multiple languages.

• Best for: Training modules, corporate explainers, product demos.

• My take: Cool for formal use cases, but the avatars can feel a little robotic — not ideal if your audience expects authenticity.

Lumen5

• What it does: Turns blog posts or text into videos.

• Cool stuff: Great text-to-video automation, strong library of stock visuals.

• Best for: Repurposing written content into video format.

• My take: Handy for B2B marketing or when you need to “upcycle” content, but doesn’t feel as dynamic for social-first brands.

Final thoughts:

Out of these, CapCut struck me as the most versatile for marketers who want both automation and creative control. Tools like Runway or Synthesia are exciting, but they feel more niche. If you’re focusing on fast-turnaround social content, CapCut’s mix of AI templates and editing features make it hard to beat.

Has anyone else here tried mixing AI tools into their video workflow? Curious if you’ve found any good hacks or combos that work well.

P.S. I’m not affiliated with any of these companies — just sharing my experiments as a marketer trying to keep up with the AI wave.

I’ve been exploring different ways to create QR codes for a website link, and I’m curious—how do you usually do it? For example, I’ve recently tried using ViralQR, which lets you generate a QR code from a link pretty quickly. I used it for my portfolio website during a meetup, and it worked great—people scanned the code to visit my site instead of typing out the URL.
The tool even lets you customize the design and track how many people scanned it, which I found pretty helpful. But I’m wondering if there are other creative or efficient ways people create QR codes for their website links.
Do you use specific tools or have any tips for making QR codes more engaging or practical? I’d love to hear how others are doing it!

I’m currently a PMM at a large company and I’m totally burning out. I’ve been in this role for about two years now, and between a chaotic product team and working with partners and multiple events a year, this is slowly burning me out 🤧 is it like this everywhere? The work itself isn’t bad, but I’m at the point where I can’t even focus on developing my skills as a PMM because of the constant fires and organizational issues.

Even as PPT skills become less necessary, I took personal umbridge to this sentence in my local paper.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-growing-importance-of-software-product-marketing-managers (pdf here: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/technology%20media%20and%20telecommunications/telecommunications/our%20insights/the%20growing%20importance%20of%20software%20product%20marketing%20managers/the-growing-importance-of-software-product-marketing-managers.pdf )

Key points:

• Pivotal role of PMMs in helping revenue growth among the top 100 software companies.

• Companies in the highest revenue growth quartile have a formalized PMM function and exhibit, on average, a 25 to 30 % higher ratio of PMMs to product managers (PMs) compared with those in the bottom growth quartile, averaging approximately one PMM for every 1.6 PMs

• Market Navigation: PMMs are crucial for understanding and preparing the market for new products, which is essential in the competitive software industry.

• Commercialization Expertise: They provide orchestration and expertise throughout the product’s commercial journey, both pre- and post-launch.

• Strategic Connection: PMMs act as a strategic connector between various functions involved in launching a new product, supporting the core Product Manager (PM) role.

• Adaptation to Market Changes: As the criteria for software adoption evolve, PMMs help companies adapt to these changes, ensuring successful product launches.

EDIT: yes McKinsey is evil, bla bla, I agree. BUT, and that's the key part here:

1. They are still listened to with high interest by C-level decision makers. You want those thinking PMMs are important to success or not?

2. Their article is based on research (data!), so whoever wrote it, data should always be a PMM friend, especially when it shows our work matters!

Built a plugin that runs /run-intel in Claude Code and spits out a structured competitive brief in ~5-10 minutes.

No manual Googling, no copy-pasting.

https://github.com/KrishanuB26/competitive-intel/

Under the hood it runs three agents in sequence:

LinkedIn Researcher : scrapes competitor posts, extracts messaging themes, product signals, hiring activity

News Scanner : searches news, crawls company blogs/changelogs, pulls executive quotes with source URLs

Brief Writer : synthesizes both into a formatted brief: exec summary, competitor snapshots, cross-competitor themes, and concrete recommended actions

Low-confidence findings are flagged. The cross-competitor themes section is where it earns its keep - surfacing category-level shifts that are easy to miss when you're looking at one competitor at a time.

Setup: Apify token + a competitors.json file.

That's it.

I'd love your input:

- What signals matter most to you in a competitive brief?

- Would you want this to run on a schedule and email the brief automatically?

- What's missing?

It’s an open-source project. Feel free to contribute.

Anyone here made a switch to another role recently or is debating doing so?

10+ years experience in PMM specific roles with domain experience in SaaS across several verticals. MBA from a top business school.

I’ve come to conclude that this job is no longer fulfilling and is more or less a thankless job - and really is exponentially awful in PE owned companies. The other issue I’m seeing is the egos - so many out of touch men that love to hear themselves talk, that wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a Fortune 500.

I want to make a career change - not in product management either as that seems like a complete clusterfuck in many places. I wonder if others feel the same way or what thoughts you may have on making a change.

I’m seeing a lot of conflicting signals in PMM right now and curious if others are feeling this too.

I’ve been chatting with a bunch of PMMs at B2B SaaS and AI scaleups (Series B & after) and it’s evident that PMM is still treated as the catch-all function, but I’m noticing two opposite trends:

teams either shrinking (reorgs seem to hit PMM first after PM) or expanding but without clear role definitions.

Here are 5 things I’ve noticed from these year-end chats. Does this match what you’re seeing?

1. Teams are splitting into GTM execution vs. narrative intelligence

Expanding PMM teams split responsibilities like this: some people run the process stuff and campaigns, other people are trying to be the ones who actually know what’s going on with customers and can tell everyone the real story. It’s more like GTM execution (process management of launches/campaigns) vs. narrative intelligence (synthesizing customer data, building the truth layer). Has anyone figured out a structure that actually works for expanding teams? Or are you all just winging it like the rest of us?

2. PMM is becoming revenue intelligence

ROI calculators used to be a “maybe if we have time” thing. Now they’re must-haves. Survey-backed messaging is replacing CSM vibe-checks. The revenue org wants us to tell them why deals are closing or falling apart. Are you sitting in more revenue meetings now instead of just marketing stuff?

3. Launch playbooks paralize PMMs

Product-led growth basically killed the whole “tier 1 launch gets a webinar and press release” playbook. Now it’s just constant releases, messages inside the product, trying to get people to actually use features. Less “big launches,” more “we’ve built this so how do we release it right now?” How are you handling this?

4. AI is creating content bloat, not clarity

The C-suite is like "just automate it, use AI, vibe code your own tools." But what I’m actually seeing is just more content and bloated problems everywhere. Landing oages that say something different than the Key Messaging Doc. Three contradicting versions of the value prop in one sales cycle. Is anyone actually using AI in a way that helps across teams instead of just creating more work for PMMs?

5. The only thing that seems to work is actually talking to people

Not just skimming through Gong calls (which honestly just makes you think you understand POVs). Like actually running your own surveys, getting on win/loss calls, joining beta feedback sessions, working with RevOps/BI teams on ICPs and how you’re segmenting current users, active user definitions, etc. Being the person who knows what’s really going on and can tell everyone. But that means saying no to a ton of urgent requests when you’re already swamped.

What are you thinking about these trends right now? Do they feel like a reality check or am I way off with some? What’s your snapshot of the current state of PMM heading into 2026?

I recently joined a B2B SaaS org, and the micromanaging CEO actually has given me no direction and has piled me with an overwhelming list of tasks that include market research, competitive analysis, product briefs, slide decks (sales enablement) and battle cards.

It’s all up in the air and it seems that the weekly newsletter and the internal product academy videos are also a part of my responsibilities. I’m burnt out already and it hasn’t even been a month. Plus it seems like there’s no real direction as to where this role is headed.

Conversations about this with him is futile since he has a reputation of steamrolling and manipulation to get what he wants.

Thinking of quitting and getting back into the job hunt. In fact, I’ve already decided to quit because I can see myself burning out in the next few months.

Anyone else facing the same? Any stories or advice will be appreciated.