Why a Messy PM Career Path is an Advantage

Everyone thinks PM career paths look like this: Junior PM → PM → Senior PM → Director → VP Clean. Linear. Predictable. Mine looked like this: Graphic Designer → Web Developer → Content Manager → Associate Producer → Art Production Manager → Producer → Founded a Spirits Startup → Started over in Pharma → Head of the PMO My path is messy. All over the place. And confusing to recruiters. But here's what that meandering path taught me: • How to manage creative teams (design background) • How to ship under impossible deadlines (gaming) • How to build teams from scratch (spirits startup) • How to navigate strict manufacturing guidelines (pharma) The people who climbed straight up? Great at one type of project. In one industry. With one methodology. I can manage projects anywhere. Because I've managed projects everywhere. Most people think career detours are failures. They're actually your competitive advantage. The project manager who only knows tech can't manage pharma projects. The project manager who's worked across gaming, spirits, and pharma? They can manage anything. Straight career paths look clean on LinkedIn. But career zigzags show that you're building multiple skills. Look for the side paths to keep growing.

Your “chaotic” career might be the thing that turns you into an operator who can fix what others avoid. Most people think you need a perfect linear path to reach executive-level operations work. Not true. If you’ve jumped roles, industries, or departments, here’s the secret: You’ve been training in systems design without realizing it. I learned this the long way. I’ve worked in marketing, proposals, process improvement, healthcare ops, data analysis, enterprise automation, and now AI-enabled workflow design. At the time, it looked scattered. Now I see it clearly: Every role taught me how work actually breaks, and why systems crumble long before people do. If your path has been messy or nonlinear, here’s how to turn that into an advantage: 1. Stop defining yourself by your last job title: Your value is in the intersections. 2. Treat every job like systems training: Every broken workflow you’ve touched matters. 3. Shift your identity early: Show up like someone who designs better systems — not just someone who survives bad ones. 4. Use your range: Pattern recognition is an executive skill. You only get it by seeing many environments. 5. Focus on clarity: If you can fix fragmentation, reduce cognitive load, and make work make sense… you’re already operating above your title. That’s how I built my career.nAnd it’s how you can build yours. Your path doesn’t need to be straight. It just needs to be yours.

My career started with writing minutes, not strategy. With scheduling meetings, not making decisions. Almost 3 decades later, I lead CHF 100M+ portfolio transformations across European banking. No MBA. No PMP when I began. No family connections in finance. Just curiosity, resilience, and the willingness to solve problems others avoided. The journey wasn’t linear: 🔹Years 1–3: PMO Coordinator Curiosity beats certification. I read every post-mortem report, sat in every lessons-learned session, and asked uncomfortable questions about root causes. 🔹Years 4–6: PMO Analyst Messy projects teach the most. I volunteered for the impossible timelines, unclear requirements, and angry stakeholders. Each crisis was a classroom. 🔹Years 7–10: PMO Manager Risk is only useful when it’s actionable. I stopped reporting what happened and started predicting what would happen, in business language executives could act on. 🔹Years 11–15: Portfolio Management Strategy is the filter. Every initiative had to answer: “How does this create competitive advantage?” If I couldn’t explain the value, neither could anyone else. 🔹Years 16–20: PPM Lead It’s no longer about projects: it’s about decisions. Now I help organizations transform how choices get made, resources get allocated, and value gets realized. What made the difference wasn’t technical knowledge: ➡️Emotional Intelligence: Every project problem is a people problem. Stakeholders don’t resist change, they resist uncertainty. ➡️Adaptability: Each role required unlearning the old way before mastering the new. ➡️Problem-Seeking: I ran toward crises, not away. Credibility is earned in the fire, not in the classroom. ➡️Business Curiosity: I studied the business, not just the projects. That’s why executives started calling me into the room. ➡️Relationships: I helped people succeed before asking for anything. Networks built on mutual value last decades. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲: 📍Expand influence, not titles. Your career isn't about climbing a ladder - it's about expanding your sphere of influence. Each role should teach you to think at a higher organizational level. 📍Solve leadership problems. Start solving problems that matter to leadership, even if they're outside your job description. 📍Experience > credentials. Certifications validate what you know. Experience demonstrates what you can do. Executives hire for impact, not credentials. 📌 𝐓𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐏𝐌𝐎 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: Organizations are drowning in initiatives without clear value alignment. They need strategic portfolio thinkers more than ever. But success requires more than ambition. It requires courage to take on challenges that stretch you, and persistence to learn from every failure. I started with minutes. You may start somewhere different. But the principle is the same: Your ceiling isn’t set by your background. It’s set by your mindset. ______

My career looks like a scatter plot. That's the point. Nuclear energy. Retail. Oil & gas. Big Tech. Vaping. Fintech. Now AI and crypto. Comms. Consulting. Talent Management. M&A. Internal Comms. HR. Coaching. I've spent 15 years building a pattern database that specialists can't touch. David Epstein's research in Range explains why this matters: in "wicked" environments – where rules are unclear, feedback is delayed, and patterns are messy – generalists consistently outperform specialists. We are living in an era of wicked environments. And for all the job-seekers out there, your cross-industry or cross-functional experience isn't a quirk. It's a competitive advantage. Because I worked in high-regulation energy, I can navigate compliance-heavy fintech without breaking a sweat. Because I managed crisis comms in one industry, I could handle over a dozen executive departures in another. Because I've seen how five different sectors approach the same people problems, I can spot what's universal versus what's just "how we've always done it." That's not a scattered career. That's cross-pollination. And it's exactly what complex leadership challenges require. If your trajectory looks more like a scatter plot than a ladder, you're not unfocused. You're building a dataset linear thinkers can't replicate. Own the range. Own your story. #NeurodivergentLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #CognitiveDiversity

Your project management journey won’t look clean on a resume. And that’s okay. You’ve jumped roles. You’ve changed industries. You’ve taken jobs just to pay the bills. But guess what? Every messy move taught you something your certification didn’t. → How to calm down a panicked client. → How to deliver when the plan blows up. → How to lead a team that doesn’t report to you. No course prepares you for that. Only doing it does. If your career looks like a patchwork quilt, you're not behind. You’re seasoned. You’re real. And when things hit the fan, you’re the one people will trust to lead. So stop worrying about being “on track.” PMs don’t need tracks. They need grit. Keep going.

I see product leaders making the same hiring mistake constantly. They're obsessed with finding PMs who followed the "perfect" path: → CS degree from top school → McKinsey/Bain consulting stint → MBA from Stanford/Wharton → APM program at Google/Meta Here's what they're missing: The best PMs I know got there "accidentally." My own journey proves this. A football player literally bought my mortgage company, which somehow led me into product management. No MBA. No prestigious APM program. Just a messy, winding path that gave me something those traditional candidates often lack: Real customer obsession. When you've actually run a business that fails if customers don't buy, you understand market fit differently. When you've been in the trenches solving real problems for real people, you don't need frameworks to tell you what matters. I learned something crucial in my years coaching executives and leading product teams at Indeed: The highest-leverage thing any product leader can do is hire great PMs. But "great" doesn't look like what most job descriptions ask for. The PMs who move the needle are the ones who: ✓ Talk to customers every single week (non-negotiable) ✓ Can tell the story of their failures, not just successes ✓ Understand that product is about people, not just features ✓ Bring diverse perspectives from unconventional backgrounds The cultural blind spot I see constantly? Product teams hiring for pedigree instead of customer empathy. They want someone who can build the perfect PRD, but can't spot the difference between features customers want vs. features customers actually need. Your "messy" path isn't a bug—it's a feature. That stint in sales? You learned how customers actually make decisions. That time in customer support? You know what breaks when products scale. That failed startup? You understand what happens when product-market fit doesn't exist. The question isn't whether your background is conventional enough for product management. The question is: Are you obsessed with solving problems that matter to real people? --- What's the most "unconventional" background on your product team that turned out to be exactly what you needed? I'm collecting stories of PMs who took the scenic route—drop yours below. #ProductManagement #Hiring #ProductLeadership #CareerAdvice #CustomerObsession #ProductStrategy #Leadership #TechCareers

The strongest candidates I’ve ever placed don’t have “perfect” careers. They’re the ones who’ve: worked in different industries, taken risks, moved countries, stepped away when life needed them, joined teams that scaled… and teams that sank. And every twist built something you can’t teach on paper: resilience, adaptability, curiosity, humility, and the ability to figure things out when nothing goes according to the plan. Yet so many job descriptions still expect a flawless, linear path... as if career growth happens in a straight line. (It doesn’t. Ever.) The next decade will favour candidates who’ve lived through the real stuff: restructures, relocations, pivots, messy startups, messy managers, wins they fought for, and setbacks they learned from. Because when the roadmap disappears... the people who’ve navigated chaos before are the ones who know how to move forward. Messy careers make exceptional hires. And I’ll stand by that every time. #Recruitment #Hiring #TalentAcquisition #Careers #PeopleFirst #Growth #CandidateExperience

“Let me burst your bubble first: there’s no standard career track anymore. Your father’s career playbook - engineering degree, join a good company, get promoted every 3-4 years, retire as General Manager — is as relevant today as a Nokia 3310. The professionals who are thriving today are the ones who understand how the landscape has changed. They’re ready to explore unconventional paths and make calls based on opportunity, not tradition.” I came across these lines in an article by The LHR Group, and they couldn’t have been truer. It reminded me of my own journey. My career path is far from linear. I started out as a lawyer, then did an MBA in Analytics, and today I’m working as a Product Manager. For the longest time, my father told me to do a traditional MBA after BCom because it was considered a safe option. But I explored different paths and then did a Tech MBA. It didn’t make sense to him until now — when he sees the advent of AI in almost everything. The truth is: traditional career paths are dead. The most exciting opportunities today aren’t on a straight road — they’re at the intersections. Law taught me how to think critically and structure arguments. Analytics sharpened my ability to make data-driven decisions. And product brings those skills together to solve real problems for users. I’ve learned that switching paths isn’t always a setback — it makes me more adaptable. Every pivot added a new layer to how I structure problems, decode them, and build things that matter. So if your journey feels messy, nonlinear, or “all over the place,” you’re probably on the right track. The world accepts non-linear résumés more than you think - it rewards people who can adapt, connect dots, and reinvent themselves. Would love to hear - has your career taken a few non-linear turns too?

"I can't apply for THAT job - my background is all wrong!" I hear this excuse almost daily from brilliant women who are talking themselves out of life-changing opportunities. Like earlier this week, I spoke to a brilliant lady who believed that with her entirely medical background, she would never make it in tech without a ton of certifications. But let me give it to you straight: that's BS. What everyone calls your "random" or "irrelevant" experience isn't baggage - it's your secret weapon that nobody else has. Take my own "messy" career path: Started as a lawyer (hello, advocating and negotiating for a living). Jumped into HR (plot twist!) where those same convincing skills helped me build a department from scratch in markets where leaders were... let's say "sceptical" of HQ and HR And now? I've mixed that negotiation experience and corporate career-building and career-developing know-how (and, okay, also my raging feminist spirit!), into something entirely new: helping brilliant women navigate corporate BS and get paid what they deserve So: 1 (legal background) + 1 (HR experience) = 10 (the pure magic that is WIN) See what happened there? Each "random" piece of my background created something way more powerful than the sum of its parts. My WINners are leveraging their "wrong" backgrounds for massive salary jumps: - The engineer who created an EUR 180K product manager role BECAUSE she speaks technical language other PMs can't - The former teacher who negotiated 42% raise for an L&D role when the hiring manager realized she actually understands how humans learn - The consultant who revolutionized operations because she saw patterns others missed The truth about your career that nobody tells you: Your unique combination of experiences isn't making you "unqualified" - it's making you irreplaceable and worth significantly more money in the right role. So what career move are you talking yourself out of right now because of your supposedly "wrong" background?

If certifications created leaders, every certified PM would be exceptional. But we know they aren’t. Certifications 'can be' useful. They can help learn the basics, build confidence, and help people enter the field. But confidence in a controlled environment is very different from competence in a real one. The real work is rarely calm. Priorities shift, pressures appear without warning, and stakeholders bring their own agendas. No exam or lab can simulate that. This is why I often say that tech certifications are like learning to swim in a bathtub. You can practice the motions, build familiarity, and feel prepared. But the bathtub is still safe water. The real test is when the waves hit, when there is no edge to hold, and when conditions change faster than your plan. The bathtub prepares you. The ocean shapes you. If you want to grow in this industry, sure, get certified. It may help. But do not stop there. Seek the work that is messy, ambiguous, political, and uncomfortable. That is where leadership is forged, and where your confidence turns into capability. ♻️ Share this with someone building their PM career. ➕ Follow for more lessons on delivery leadership.