This episode, like many, came out of a spontaneous career discussion with a close friend of mine, Mike Amato, who is currently launching his career as an early-stage product manager kinda professional. He’s really good at helping entrepreneurs figure out what to build via user research, experiment design, and prototyping. He is highly empathic, and knows how to work with designers and engineers to build the truly minimum viable product to validate a hypothesis.

BUT… Mike has a hard time communicating this value to potential employers or clients. Any innovative company would be lucky to have him, but the traditional talent filters suck at seeing people like Mike for their potential.

If you’ve struggled with this problem yourself, definitely listen to this episode.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How bad the current hiring filters are at hiring relatively unproven people with extremely high potential, and how we get around this
• Treating yourself as a consultant, a company of one, “You, Inc.”
• Going above-and-beyond on the job hunt to catch employers’ attention
• Focusing your job hunting efforts on specific companies you find interesting
• Focusing on solving problems and adding value to their work, and how it’s 10x more effective at turning into a job than the classic job application method
• Building projects to invest in yourself, and to impress potential employers
• The concern about being “too different” with your approach to applying for jobs, and how it’s actually a great measurement of workplace culture!
• Mike’s vision for the future of EdTech (education technology)
• How having your own vision, mission, and processes helps you stand out from every other candidate and be seen as a trusted partner by companies
• and much more 🤯

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn and check out his portfolio at https://turtletuber.github.io/mikeamato. Check out Tract at Tract.app.

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