"How to get your first manager's job"

Last Sunday (Feb 25th, 2018), our 4th 2017-2018 SJTU-SV Career Club meeting was held successfully, the two-hour workshop was “How to get your first manager’s job”. This was a interactive session with presentation, case study and discussion, led by Vicky Xu and Ying Zhang, around 20 people attended.

Club ushered some new and young attendees, who are working at different possitions from different companies. At the beginning of the session, Vicky shared her experience of promoting people to managers in the past, let attendees get feeling of ‘people management position’ from different angels.

Hiring manager’s perspective

This part is to provide tips to become a good candidate. Internal candidate usually becomes first choice. Hiring manager will look for strong performer, who is senior enough and would like to working with people. A person with big picture view and matching personality will be a plus.

Candidate’s perspective

This part is to give idea to candidates where to find a manager’s role. A public job discription may not be the right choice for you, candidate should look for the ‘next unpublished opening’. There are also many brown bag tips for attendees on how to find those unpublished openings, and how to find the right sponsor.

How to get yourself ready

Candidates should always get themself ready when there is a position available. Execution is always number one, candidates need to show they have the capability of delivering on time, having the skill of planning and managing dependencies. Also, showing the ‘vision’ on product or technology, as well as the passion of working with people.

Two real case study

Vicky prepared two real cases, attendees splitted into two groups to discuss each case, analized the difficulties in the specific situation and provided suggestions to the candidate in the case, so the candidate can have an action item for next step.

Summary

In the end, attendees got a questionnaire survey about this workshop and the upcoming sessions. Here is a preliminary activity planning with different topics, we will choose the most popular topic for next workshop based on feedback.

What’s Next?