Jeff on going from being an East Asian Studies major to a product manager

In this episode, I speak with Jeff Hartsough, a product manager at Cisco. Though he wasn't initially sure what he wanted to do when he graduated college, he knew he wanted to be able to use his Chinese language skills. From being an East Asian Studies major, to the first product manager hired at a start up, to being a product manager at a multinational technology company, we hear from Jeff about what it's like to be a product manager and how to leverage your network.

This episode is best for: homing in on what you're looking for so that you can leverage your network effectively; learning about product management; how to enter that kind of role if you don't have a technology background

Contents:

1:00 - Meet Jeff

06:09 - Jeff's first job out of college (analyst at Nielsen)

09:12 - Pivoting to product management

12:36 - Summary of Jeff's path after his first product management job at a small LED company and deciding to go to business school

13:58 - Leveraging your network (part 1)

17:36 - Learning how to be a product manager 

21:06 - Other career paths considered

24:30 - Getting a consulting role and leveraging your network (part 2)

27:23 - Deciding to go to business school, applying, and leveraging a safe-to-fail environment

37:21 - Being a product manager (what he likes and what someone might not like)

43:05 - Being a product manager (day-to-day at different sizes of companies)

56:42 - Lessons learned