I've spent 6 years in management consulting. I want to move into product management. The problem is that my resume reads exactly like a consulting resume, because it is one.
Consulting bullets talk about workstreams, decks, client deliverables, stakeholder alignment. Product JDs want roadmaps, discovery, OKRs, shipped features. These aren't the same language and I'm getting filtered before any human sees me.
I've done some PM-adjacent work inside projects: led a software selection process for a client, ran user research as part of a process improvement engagement, owned the product roadmap for an internal tool we built. But these are buried in descriptions of broader consulting projects and don't pop.
Do I restructure around function (what I actually did) vs. client (the typical consulting format)? Has anyone done this transition and found language that actually worked?
5 replies
pm_priya
yes, restructure by function. traditional consulting format (client name, engagement type, your role) buries the transferable stuff. you want hiring managers to see "led user research," "owned roadmap," "shipped internal tool" without having to decode the consulting context first.
you can still include client/context as a sub-line, but lead with what you did, not where you did it.
corp_refugee
i made a similar move three years ago (big4 to product). the thing that helped most: i added a short "Selected PM-Relevant Work" section above my full work history. pulled out 4-5 bullets from across all my projects that were genuinely product-flavored and grouped them. gave hiring managers something to anchor on before they read the consulting prose.
it felt a little weird but it got me through more screens.
pivot_pat
this is interesting, kind of a highlights reel approach. does it look strange to have the same work show up twice, once in the highlights and once in the actual role description?
corp_refugee
honestly i don't know if anyone notices. nobody has ever asked me about it in an interview. the goal is to get to the interview, not to make the resume perfectly elegant.
recruiter_rita
from a recruiter's perspective: we spend maybe 15 seconds on the initial pass. if i see "Senior Consultant at [Firm]" and then a wall of client engagement descriptions, i'm probably not mapping that to PM unless something jumps out.
the function-first restructure that pmpriya and corprefugee are describing is the right call. make the product work unmissable, don't make us work to find it.