881 pages, published in 2014

If you flip to the back of the book, you can read our credentials: Google. Microsoft. Apple. Startups. Hiring committee. Oodles of interviews and coaching sessions. Yadda, yadda, yadda. That’s all very well and good, but that won’t tell you who we really are and how we got here, writing a book on landing a product management job. I (Gayle) come from a deep engineering background, but I’ve also spent a lot of time working with candidates: interviewing them for dev and PM roles, conducting mock interviews, coaching them on how to strengthen their answers, teaching them concepts that they don’t understand, and discovering what their goals and passions are. I learned two things through this. First, I learned how much even good candidates could improve their interview performance, with a bit of help. Second, I learned how little information there was about getting a product management role. Lots of people talked about how to be a good product manager, but few people talked about how to actually break into that field. Except, of course, for my amazing coauthor, Jackie. I stumbled across Jackie’s blog on Quora, the question and answer site.

GAYLE LAAKMANN MCDOWELL (Founder and CEO, CareerCup.com) and JACKIE BAVARO (Product Manager, Asana)