Why every PM should own their name as a domain
Before I get into the how, let me make the case for why. As a PM, your job is to ship things that create value. Not having a personal website while job searching is a bit like a chef who doesn't cook at home — it raises a quiet question about conviction.
But more practically: recruiters google you before they call you. What they find shapes the conversation before it even starts. Right now, for most PMs, they find a LinkedIn profile that looks identical to the next PM's LinkedIn profile. A personal site at yourname.com is 10 minutes of reading that makes you three-dimensional before you've said a word.
There's also a meta-signal here that's specific to PMs: shipping your own website proves you can ship. It shows initiative, technical confidence, and the ability to take an idea from zero to live. Those are not small things to signal in a job search.
The Real Reason I Did This
I was in the middle of a job search with 20 days of runway. I had a strong CV but nothing that showed how I think. A recruiter can read my resume in 30 seconds. I wanted something they'd spend 5 minutes on — and remember. A personal site with a real case study is that thing.
The tools I used
Total Cost Breakdown
The exact steps — and what actually happened
- Use your real name if available (firstnamelastname.com)
- If taken, try firstname-lastname.com or add "pm" at the end
- Avoid hyphens if possible — they're harder to say out loud
- Buy it even if you're not ready to build yet — domains get taken
- Give feedback in rounds — "make the headline punchier", "the skills section is too long", "add a case study section"
- The AI will generate a single index.html file with all CSS and layout included
- You don't need to understand the code — just evaluate the output like you'd evaluate any product
- Spend real time on your headline and About section — those are what people read
- Make sure your folder has: index.html, your CV as a PDF, and your headshot as photo.jpg
- The temporary Netlify URL works immediately — share it while DNS propagates
In GoDaddy: My Products → Domains → DNS. Find the A record with name @ and change its value to 75.2.60.5 (Netlify's IP). Find the CNAME record with name www and change its value to your Netlify site URL.
- Save both records in GoDaddy
- Go back to Netlify and click "Verify DNS configuration"
- Wait 10–30 minutes for DNS to propagate
- Netlify will auto-provision your HTTPS certificate — no action needed
The honest friction points nobody warns you about
I want to be real here, because every tutorial makes this sound frictionless and it isn't. Here's what actually caused confusion:
⚠️ Real friction I hit — and how to get past it
If you bought a domain AND their Website Builder product, you'll see a drag-and-drop editor — not a file manager. There's no "upload HTML file" option here. The solution: ignore the Website Builder completely. Go to Domains → DNS settings and update the records to point at Netlify instead. You're using GoDaddy for the domain only.
After updating your DNS records, Chrome may show a "Your connection is not private" or "ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID" error. This is normal. It means the SSL certificate hasn't been provisioned yet — not that something is broken. Give it 15–30 minutes and refresh. It resolves automatically.
Also completely normal. Netlify is checking every few minutes to see if your DNS has updated. Once it detects the change has spread, it automatically generates your SSL certificate. You don't need to do anything except wait.
If you're building with an AI tool, inline image pastes may not save as actual files. The workaround: include your photo as a file in the folder you drag to Netlify, named exactly photo.jpg. The site references this filename and will display it automatically once deployed.
What this actually does for your job search
The site went live on the same day I started sharing it. Within the first 48 hours, three people who found it via LinkedIn reached out — not because I posted it, but because they googled me after seeing my profile. That's the compound value of owning your own URL: it works when you're not working.
It also changes the conversation in interviews. Instead of walking through your resume, you can say "I'll send you my portfolio before we talk" — and walk them through real thinking, real decisions, and real outcomes before you've spent 30 minutes on a phone screen. That's a different kind of first impression.
And perhaps most importantly for PMs specifically: your portfolio is itself a product you shipped. The headline, the case study, the positioning — you made product decisions to build it. That's not nothing. That's proof of the thing you're trying to prove you can do.
Want to see what the end result looks like?
The portfolio I built using this exact process is live at vijetabhatia.com. If you're building your own and want to compare notes or get feedback — reach out on LinkedIn. I'm in the middle of a job search myself and happy to help.
