- Episode: Land your dream job in today’s market: negotiation tactics, job search councils, and more | Phyl Terry *** Listen: Apple Spotify YouTube
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- Never Search Alone
Product & GM/CEO Councils
- Executive Councils ($$$) If you are a Director/VP/Chief Product Officer, or GM/CEO then join one of our Councils (we pioneered bringing these to Silicon Valley in 2003 with Google, Amazon, and others).
- Associate Councils ($$) If you are an individual contributor or first-time manager, then join one of our Product Councils for up-and-coming product leaders.
- Help the Never Search Alone community?
- We are a volunteer-led community helping more than 10,000 job seekers. You can help in a variety of ways.
- Donate to building the Never Search Alone platform
- Invite Phyl to speak on AI (100% of fees will be donated by Phyl to the NSA platform)
- Connections – if you know senior people at Salesforce, Slack, or Calendly and can help us get donated software (we are not a nonprofit but we are run like one), then get in touch with one of our admins.
Volunteer?
- Recruiter – If you are a recruiter, and would like to join our recruiter network where you provide limited free coaching on Candidate-Market Fit to NSA members, then apply to join us (btw, recruiters love this because they get to give back but control how much they do).
- Salesforce Admin – if you are a SF Admin and know how to build flows (if you know flows, you know everything we need) and want to volunteer your expertise, then please apply to join our volunteer team.
- Data Analyst – If you are an experienced data analyst who can roll up your sleeves and help us, then please apply to join our volunteer team.
- Volunteer Team Coordinator – If you have experience as a chief of staff or coordinator and want to help us coordinate our growing team (and manage recruiting/interviewing of new volunteers), then please apply.
- Typeform/Formsite - we are also looking for a volunteer who has experience building surveys and forms in Typeform or Formsite. If that's you, then please apply.
- JSC Match – while we use a lot of technology to match job seekers, we need one more long-term volunteer to help run the matching service (and deal with outliers, etc). If you can make a 2-year commitment of 10+ hours a week, then get in touch.
Phyl's Other Projects
- Slow Art Day – Inspired by Steve Jobs' focus on art, Phyl started this movement 15 years ago to help more people learn how to look at and love art.
- Product Team Slow Art Offsite (links below) – Phyl has now designed and tested a great offsite for product teams (and other teams). Take your product managers out to the museum to build and inspire your team. You can run it on your own. Here are the free guides for leaders and for participants.
- WBRG – This high school business literacy program is getting rave reviews from students and parents. Find out more at WBRG.org and apply to have your high-school-aged children participate next summer.
Books
Phyl is an avid reader. Thinking is critical to good product management and books are machines to think with. Here are a few books you might check out.
- All of Marty Cagan's books – and don't just read them. Re-read them. Turn Marty into your distant mentor.
- Creative Destruction – by Philippe Aghion et al (2021)
An academic book, yet important for product managers to read and understand – especially in this AI era. Creative Destruction (CD) doesn't just destroy jobs, it creates net new jobs. But key lesson: be close to the technology frontier...that's where job opportunities will be and where you will be able to create the best long-term Candidate-Market Fit. - The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life
I highly recommend that job seekers read this short book at the beginning of their job search. The book is a synopsis of Stoic thinking and will help you and your fellow job seekers let go of all that you do not control and focus on the few things you do. This helps manage the emotional challenges of looking for a job and will help you cultivate some objectivity around yourself and how the market sees you.
- Richer and More Equal - by Daniel Waldenström (not yet released)
Another academic book, this provides an important counter-narrative to the "inequality is getting much worse." Relevant for product managers to consider because the implications are that the magnitude of increasing consumer wealth will open up possibilities for new products and new markets. This article presents a summary of the book. - Landmark Series of ancient books - edited by Robert Strassler, et al (ongoing)
This series disrupted the world of classics publishing and demonstrated a new product vision for how a book should be designed. All product managers should look at, read (at least one), and get inspired by this series. - Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (2010)
Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for this book and the committee really got it right. This is a *great* book. The daughter of parents who migrated north, Wilkerson interviewed 1,800 African-Americans who were part of the Great Migration and then tells the story of three of them. Wow. Great product managers need to know how to tell stories and can learn a lot from Wilkerson. - Personal History by Katharine Graham (1997)
The Pulitzer Prize committee also got this one right: Personal History is terrific. The autobiography of the first woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company (the Washington Post Company), Personal History will teach you a lot about the experience of women in the 20th century. I re-read this regularly and treat Graham as one of my distant mentors who has a lot to teach. - Coach Wooden and Me (2017)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar tells us the story of his 50-year friendship with Coach John Wooden. It doesn't matter if you are a sports fan or not – this book is beautiful. At a time when Americans are more lonely than ever, Abdul-Jabbar reminds us of the power of friendship (and friendship is one of the key benefits of a Job Search Council). I recommend you listen to this one. It's a treat to hear Abdul-Jabbar narrate. - The Age of Reconstruction by Don H. Doyle (2024)
I read a lot of history and what I'm always looking for in a good history book is this: does it change my mind?; does it show me a new way to see something? The ability to shift perspective is key to great product management. And Doyle delivers with this book. He reframes the era of radical Republicans and Reconstruction right after the Civil War in a powerful way. - Ancient Greece: A History in 11 Cities by Paul Cartledge (2009)
Paul is not only the leading classicist in the world, and not only a great writer for a general audience, he's also a friend and partner to me in the Reading Odyssey, our nonprofit which aims to help adults build a habit of lifelong learning. And he's just an amazing human being. Pick up this short book. It will help you see the world in a new way. - Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt (2011)
This is the single best book on strategy and, Marty and I agree, it's required reading for every product manager. In Never Search Alone, I encourage job seekers to get this book (it will help them understand what I say about how to craft Candidate-Market Fit). And I myself re-read this book often. And so should you.
