How to Write a B2B Product Manager Resume [+ Examples]
Interested in learning how to write the perfect B2B product manager resume? Well, you’ve come to the right place!
Your B2B product manager resume is your first impression with any hiring manager or recruiter. That makes it one of your most powerful tools when applying for a new product manager job.
Some with less experience but a better product manager resume have a higher chance of success than someone with more experience but a mediocre resume.
It’s all about how well you articulate your experiences, curate your resume, and showcase your skills.
It’s possible for you to be an expert in product management and have all the proper certifications and still not get a PM job. Since your B2B product manager resume is what gets you in for an interview, you need to showcase all your expertise, knowledge, and experience on that single page.
Doing so proves to be hard for a lot of people who tend to focus on unimportant stuff in their resumes. For example, adding work experience that’s irrelevant to the job they’re applying to.
These small mistakes stack up and increase the chances of rejection. However, it’s not that hard to ensure that your resume stays concise, on-point, and targeted. It’s a matter of following a few rules and templates.
This comprehensive B2B product manager resume guide contains all the information you need to curate your next resume and land your dream job. Here are the subjects of focus in this guide:
- The correct format and way of writing a B2B product manager resume
- Examples of B2B product manager skills for your resume
- Tips on setting yourself apart
- Things to avoid when writing a resume
How to Write a B2B Product Manager Resume
Writing your resume requires you to be concise, clear, and relevant to the job you’re applying to. This means you need a robust understanding of the B2B product manager job you’re applying to and the industry.
This allows you to analyze your prior experience and choose what’s relevant. It’s an unwritten rule to restrict your resume to a single page. Therefore, it’s crucial to choose relevant experience so you stay under the single-page limit.
The hiring manager or recruiter doesn’t have a lot of time to review each resume that comes to them. They, for the most part, skim through every resume. Therefore, the more skimmable your resume is, the greater your chances of success.
In some cases, if you find out more about the hiring manager, it’s possible to write your resume such that they’re inclined to accept you.
In any case, writing your B2B product manager resume is as much about relevance as it is about great writing.
Many product managers tend to waste valuable resume space by mentioning things like:
- Entry-level job experience
- Side projects unrelated to the job and industry
- Prior experience in a separate industry
- A list of skills without any indication of how you use those skills
- Mentioning every single job title and role without a clear sense of a career path
These things either make your resume irrelevant or boring. The hiring manager doesn’t have time to find the things relevant to their company. Even if they do, providing an over-the-top view of things without results is no good.
That’s why every single part of your resume needs to work on differentiating you from other candidates while making it easy for the hiring manager to go through it.
What is the Best B2B Product Manager Resume Format?
Most resumes follow one of three specific formats that work for every industry. These formats are:
- Reverse Chronological
- Functional
- Combination
The reverse chronological resume format is among the most common formats. It lists your most recent work experience first, going back however much you want.
It’s ATS compliant, so it works with all sorts of companies. An applicant tracking software (also known as applicant tracking systems) is an automated tool that looks for specific keywords and phrases to determine whether a resume goes to the hiring manager or not.
Most large organizations in the B2B industry use an ATS today. That is why it’s best to stick with a resume format that is ATS-compliant.
Moving on, the functional resume format emphasizes skills over experience. The point is to draw more focus toward your skills and how they are relevant to the job.
However, this resume format isn’t ATS compliant. Therefore, it’s best to avoid it when applying for a B2B product manager job.
Last but not least, the combination resume format is a mixture of both the reverse chronological and functional resume formats. It features the properties of both of the other two formats, placing equal emphasis on your work experience and skills.
It’s an ATS-compliant resume format, and it’s the ideal one to use for your B2B product manager resume.
A job-winning resume is one that shows both your work experience and skills, proving said skills through your experience.
What Sections Do I Need to Include in My B2B Product Manager Resume?
Product manager resumes need to be professional. Therefore, they don’t differ much in what sections you add to your resume.
For example, use a resume builder and check out their templates. While every template looks different, the sections remain the same. However, it’s up to you what sections you want to keep. It also depends on where you are in your career.
Let’s say you have 15 years of B2B product management experience. At this point, you don’t need a section for interests at this point because you have enough work experience to fill in several pages.
In any case, here are all the sections of a B2B product manager resume.
B2B Product Manager Professional Header
A professional header is a necessity regardless of where you are in your career and what company you’re applying to.
It lists all your basic information and contact information. However, listing too much information on the professional header is also a bad idea.
For example, adding your home address is unnecessary unless a company asks for it. It’s more convenient to add a city name with your state’s abbreviation. In most cases, even that’s not necessary unless you’re applying for B2B PM jobs in other cities.
That said, the following are some crucial parts of the professional header:
- Your complete name as it shows up on your documents and professional platforms
- Current job title (B2B Product Manager/Enterprise Product Manager)
- Professional email address (not your company email address)
- Complete phone number
- Links to professional platforms, including LinkedIn, your personal website, and a portfolio
Make sure you make it easy for hiring managers to find relevant information on you.
Professional Work Experience
Your professional experience section needs to be the bulk of the resume. Mention your current and prior roles in reverse chronological order to provide a sense of your career progress.
If you have multiple promotions in a single company, keep that section together. However, always separate work experience in other companies.
If you’re a seasoned B2B product manager with tons of experience, you need to eliminate work experience that’s not relevant to the job you’re applying to.
This includes experience in other jobs, other industries, and with products that have nothing to do with the company you’re applying to.
By doing this, your resume remains on-point and concise, and also helps the hiring manager.
Furthermore, when you do add some work experience, it’s important to mention relevant aspects of it. For example, instead of over-the-top phrases, talk about certain pain points and your solutions to them. You also need to mention the final results of your actions.
Quantifying your effect on a company helps recruiters understand your value.
Moving on, with each work experience entry, make sure the following information is present:
- Your designation at the company and career progress within that company
- All your notable achievements with the right reference data, results, and overall impact
- Experience with B2B products
- An accurate timeline to represent your progress and growth
It’s crucial to list keywords related to B2B product management while making these entries for the ATS.
Other Additional Sections
An effective product manager resume needs some additional sections to provide a better outlook of who you are. The following are some acceptable B2B product manager resume sections:
- Skills – Adding a list of skills is important in a B2B product manager resume as these are part of the keywords that an ATS looks out for. Furthermore, it’s easy to validate these skills in your work experience section.
- Education – Many companies still require B2B product managers to have a robust educational background. That’s why it’s a good idea to provide, at least, your highest level of education. If you have space, list all your relevant degrees
- Certifications – A certified product manager has a higher chance of success so it’s a good idea to mention your certifications.
- Language – This is an optional section where you mention the languages you speak and write. Avoid it if you only know one language.
- Interests – This is another optional section that provides minor insight into you as a person.
- References – Some recruiters contact references to learn more about you and how you work. It’s a good idea to add a couple of references to your B2B PM resume.
- Achievements – While your achievements are a part of your work experience section, in some cases, it’s best to have a separate section for them. A key achievements section highlights your career highlights and top skills.
Adding a product manager resume summary is also a common practice. The summary provides a short and quick overlook of who you are, your experience, and your accomplishments. Most people add the summary in the professional header.
B2B Product Manager Resume Experience Examples
As a B2B product manager, your work experience section needs to only mention experience in the B2B industry.
If you’re a junior product manager, it’s okay to add any product management experience.
However, if you have ample B2B experience, then you need to add experience that’s most relevant to the company you’re applying to.
It’s best to take a look at the job description to figure out what the company needs. Do some market research and general company research to understand the organization.
Then, decide what experience best relates to the organization.
You also need to add your skills according to the company. Then, your work experience needs to validate said skills and expertise.
As a B2B product manager, companies want to know more about your B2B product strategy. How do you adjust a product’s value proposition? What factors do you use to judge B2B customers?
For example, if you’re a B2B product manager in the software industry, explain how business needs (customer needs) shape software development. How does a business’ needs shape strategy development? What constitutes customer satisfaction in a B2B setting?
Your work experience section needs to answer these questions.
As for the entries themselves:
- Mention what pain points you have tackled and the impact of your solutions
- Talk about the tools and metrics you use and why
- Mention instances where you went beyond the scope of your job to accomplish something
- Talk about your skills. For example, talking about managing multiple projects shows that you have good project management skills
The most important thing to keep in mind is to provide quantifiable and tangible proof of your achievements and solutions.
Senior B2B Product Manager Resume Experience Examples
A senior B2B product manager’s resume isn’t any different when it comes to format. The difference is in your work experience and skills section.
Your focus shifts from job responsibilities to results. As a senior B2B product manager, companies want to know your career highlights. Therefore, you need to:
- Avoid mentioning soft skills and focus on technical skills only
- Stop explaining your responsibilities and duties and mention your impact on the organization
- Provide proof that your B2B expertise works
- Ensure your job titles remain uniform
As a senior B2B product manager, here are some examples of experience entries:
- I made changes to the supply chain based on market trends using industry knowledge and leading cross-functional teams.
- I improved the unique value proposition of all business units through a competitive analysis and an overhaul of the product development lifecycle, leading to X% growth.
- Developed a new product strategy by working with the project manager, development team, and software engineering team.
- Performed multivariate testing to determine the best final product version for a successful product launch.
- Improved business value by X% through several product launches.
- Created detailed technical specifications, designs, and mappings to drive product enhancements and support the product lifecycle.
Every statement needs to validate your product management skills and expertise.
Listing B2B Product Manager Resume Skills
Including B2B product manager skills is crucial because it shows what kind of products you are familiar with. This is why you only need to mention technical skills and not soft skills.
Recruiters gauge what soft skills you have by analyzing your resume. For example, continuous promotions in a managerial and leadership capacity show excellent leadership skills.
Training team members and managing a cross-functional team shows good communication and interpersonal skills.
Therefore, you only need to mention technical skills that differentiate you from other candidates.
The idea isn’t to list every single technical skill you have. Instead, you need to list skills relevant to the job. Does the job require product marketing input? Mention a product marketing tool you’re good with.
Is the B2B product an online tool or software? Mention any programming languages you know.
Furthermore, don’t mention generic software in the skills section. There’s no point in mentioning Microsoft Office as a skill. It doesn’t help your case.
In any case, the following are some B2B product manager skills that are relevant:
- Product Development
- Agile/Scrum
- Tableau, Jira, or Sketch
- User Experience Design and Deployment
- Programming Languages, such as CSS, Python, and HTML
- Relational Databases like SQL
- Market Research
- Technical Support Specialization
- Product Marketing
- B2B Business Tactics
Keep in mind that it’s important to show a demonstrated ability to utilize each skill in your resume. Validate each skill in your work experience and achievements sections.
Furthermore, try to cut down to only 5-6 skills that are most relevant.
Listing B2B Product Manager Resume Education
It’s important to list your education because it provides insight into your background. For example, if you have a degree in computer science, it becomes a plus point when applying for a B2B product manager job at a software company.
Furthermore, you only need to list your bachelor’s degree and above. If your educational background doesn’t match the job you’re applying for, it may be wise to remove this section and increase focus on the certifications and work experience section.
On top of that, when you’re making an entry in this section, mentioning your degree name and college is a no-brainer. However, another thing you need to add is your thesis or a relevant college project.
Academic achievements are as important as work achievements, provided they’re relevant to the job.
If you’re creating a timeline for your academic background, it’s a good idea to include certifications within that timeline too. This is crucial if you made a career change towards B2B product management as it shows your learning progress.
Listing Product Management Certifications
Certifications are a great way of validating your credentials and improving credibility. There are tons of product management certifications that companies hold in high regard.
These certifications become a necessity if you don’t have strong product management background.
As a B2B product manager, it’s advisable to have at least a couple of certifications from well-known institutes and organizations. Furthermore, it’s also a good idea to get certification by an institution within your industry.
For example, in the software industry, getting a certification for a relevant programming language proves to be useful.
In any case, the following are some well-known certifications and courses to enhance your resume:
- Certified Product Manager by Product HQ
- Product Manager Certification by the Product School
- B2B Product Management by The Chartered Institute of Marketing
- Certified Technical Product Manager by Product HQ
- School of Product Management by Product Management University (by Proficientz)
Make a habit of checking the job description to see if an organization requires a specific PM certification.
Listing B2B Product Manager Achievements
It’s a good idea to have a separate section to list your key achievements. However, you still need to make an effort to include minor achievements in your work experience section.
It’s important to provide context for these achievements to provide a sense of scale. Your job is to impress the hiring manager and you do that by mentioning results that stand out.
Mention these achievements from a business perspective. This means including the pain point, your solution, the results of your solution, and the overall impact on the organization.
Vague statements that don’t provide any real information. Here’s an example:
Helped improve the timeline of the product launch using a new strategy.
Here’s how you need to mention this achievement.
Helped push the product launch by 2 months by identifying operational inefficiencies in the product development department, leading to 15% more sales above the projected numbers.
This statement provides more information and quantifies your achievement.
B2B Product Manager Resume Example
There are a lot of product manager resume examples online to learn from. Most of them offer a great template to work with.
However, we found a B2B product manager resume sample that works for every B2B PM, regardless of your industry.
Credit: EnhanceCV
Keep in mind that this example is only a reference. You don’t need to follow this exact format and template. The important thing is to notice what sections are there and how each section complements the other.
On the top, you have the professional header with your basic information. Followed by that is your career summary that provides a quick outlook of who you are and where you are in your career.
Notice how there’s a work experience section and a separate key achievements section. This allows you to add your career highlights to the key achievements section while your work experience section shows your methods and processes.
Furthermore, the resume only lists relevant technical skills. The education section lists only graduate degrees, and there’s a reference section.
In this case, the person is utilizing their extensive work experience and network to prove their worth.
However, if you don’t have as much work experience, you need to add a certifications section too.
B2B Product Manager Job Application Experience
If you’re applying for B2B product manager jobs but not hearing back, you need to first check whether your current resume is ATS compliant. Since most companies use an ATS, it’s possible that the software is rejecting your resume.
To do that, you need to use an ATS-compliant resume format and use relevant keywords throughout your resume.
Furthermore, don’t try to send out too many job applications. This happens when you’re in the early stages of your career. Instead, choose an industry you want to specialize in and then apply for B2B product manager jobs in that industry.
This makes your job applications more targeted, improving your chances of success.
Furthermore, it’s a good idea to add a cover letter with every application. A product manager cover letter not only gives off a good impression but also answers some questions that hiring managers have.
A tailored resume, a good cover letter, and targeted job applications provide a smooth experience and improve your chances of getting to the interview stage.
How Many Pages Does Your B2B Product Manager Resume Need to Be?
The average hiring manager takes around 10 seconds to skim through a resume. That means longer resumes are counter-productive.
That’s why it’s always best to limit your resume to a single page. Your B2B product manager resume has to be concise, short, and simple.
Five B2B Product Manager Resume Tips
Following a resume template allows you to design a good resume but keep these five resume writing tips to ensure you craft a great resume.
1. Quantify Everything
It is imperative that you provide a tangible and quantifiable value to each claim you make. For example, if you’re mentioning that you helped improve sales, talk in numbers.
It’s even better if you provide a before-and-after outlook. Furthermore, it’s crucial to provide context when you’re mentioning an achievement.
Before you got yourself involved, what was holding the company back? What solution did you come up with and why? What kind of improvement was there as a result of your involvement? What impact did this improvement have on other key metrics, such as revenue?
Think of it as storytelling, and numbers are your facts.
2. Business-First Approach
As a B2B product manager, you know that the person buying a product is not the user, for the most part. Therefore, your resume needs to talk about how you help improve business value more than it does about how your actions improve user satisfaction.
You focus on the professional buyer persona so your target audience includes the executive management of companies, business analysts, and key stakeholders.
It’s important to keep this in mind because then you use the appropriate grammar, sentence structure, and nomenclature.
3. Showcase Industry Expertise
B2C product managers focus on wider target audiences, so they aren’t industry experts. However, B2B product managers only thrive when they’re experts in a certain industry.
That’s how they know what another business needs, why they need it, and how much.
B2B product managers have clients with direct demands and expectations. These are better understood if you get how the industry works.
Therefore, your resume needs to show that you have ample knowledge of the industry. Use the right keywords and mention instances where your industry knowledge came in handy.
4. Mention Relevant Metrics
While B2C metrics are large-scale, B2B metrics are more direct and compartmentalized. For example, loyalty metrics are much more important in a B2B setting.
Things like customer acquisition cost and lifetime value are not that important for B2B product managers.
However, the rate of upselling is an important metric. Customer retention is another very important metric for B2B PMs.
Mention these metrics in your resume instead of the ones that are more B2C-centric.
5. Showcase B2B Priorities
It’s important to show how you manage B2B products as opposed to other products. For example, B2C companies prioritize their customers, while B2B companies prioritize workflows.
Therefore, you need to mention instances where you improved workflow.
Similar to that, B2C companies make the buying process simpler and more efficient. Meanwhile, B2B companies try to make the buying process more scalable.
B2B companies focus on providing a technical value proposition over building brand affinity.
B2B Product Manager Resume Don’ts
Here are a few things you need to steer clear of when writing your B2B PM resume.
Avoid Being Casual
In a B2C setting, casual is acceptable. However, as a B2B product manager, you deal with other companies and businesses. This requires the utmost professionalism in all aspects.
That’s why it’s important to remain professional when writing and formatting your resume.
Don’t Mention Other Industries
A B2B product manager needs to have extensive industry knowledge. Mentioning other industries implies your focus is on multiple industries and that there’s no specialization.
It’s best to show that your focus is on only one industry.
Avoid Mentioning B2C Metrics
Avoid any mention of user-centric metrics like CAC. Hiring managers need to see that you quantify your success based on hardcore B2B metrics.
If you must, mention broad company metrics like revenue and sales numbers.
Where to Apply with Your B2B Product Manager Resume?
It’s easy to find B2B product manager jobs in most large-scale companies. These companies often post jobs on professional platforms and well-known job boards. These include:
Make sure you add a dedicated cover letter with each job application.
Key Takeaways and Summary
Looking back at this guide, here’s a quick summary of the key points:
- Always use an ATS-compliant resume format and relevant keywords
- Provide context in your work experience section and use it to validate the technical skills you mention
- Use B2B jargon and metrics throughout your resume
- Showcase your industry knowledge every chance you get
- Customize your resume for every job application you send and get ahead of other candidates by always including a cover letter
Writing an effective product manager resume is a complicated task, but it’s possible with the right tools, knowledge, and direction.
Use this guide to craft your next B2B product manager resume and secure that interview.
