Product Manager Wanted: HR’s Mission Impossible?
Human Resource professionals know that a well-oiled product management organization improves the chances of success for new products while increasing the long-term profitability of existing products. But let’s face it: HR is handed a tall order when asked to recruit for product management positions.
For one thing, while account managers close deals and engineers design products, the definition of what product managers do for a living varies immensely across companies and industries. This makes it difficult for the HR and hiring managers to simply rely on a job title to bring in appropriate candidates. Second, evaluating candidates can be challenging – if a new product bombs or was successful in a prior experience, what was the real contribution of the product manager? Third, there are typically fewer product management positions relative to other areas of the company. This results in fewer openings, thus the hiring process for product managers may not be as refined as it is for other positions in the company.
So how can Human Resources professionals and Product Management leaders work together to consistently attract and retain top product management talent? Here are a few questions HR professionals may want to answer before hiring a product manager:
1) What business problem is the product manager hired to solve and what functions must be executed to address this business problem? This may sound obvious. Yet, while product management position descriptions are usually well-crafted, experienced product managers are often puzzled by the contradictory presentations of the position given by each interviewer during the hiring process. Product managers are typically interviewed by many departments, such as Sales, Marketing and R&D, in addition to the department they hope to join. As a result, they witness the differences in expectations and lack of alignment across the company front and center. For example the VP of Product Management wants to launch new products while her R&D counterpart wants help prioritizing defects, Sales begs for better collateral and Finance wants someone who will positively impact profitability. In this situation, and in a good economy, the best candidates see a red flag and stop the process. In a bad economy, they try to please everyone to get the job and expose themselves to a potential backlash once they are hired, because they encouraged the wrong expectations and they can’t deliver for everyone. In this case everyone loses. A solution? Leaders in product management development methodologies, such as Pragmatic Marketing and others have codified each of the functions of a product manager (pricing, requirements, innovation, win/loss…), so take this as a guide to list the responsibilities that are expected of them and ensure that every department agrees with each function included or excluded from the position description.
2) Will the organization embrace the product manager’s role as you’ve defined it? or in other words, is your organization capable of handling someone who meets the requirements for the position? Product Managers want to be leaders, evangelists, marketers, strategists, change agents, financial analysts, accountants and project managers. Oh I forgot about sales support… and that’s what they like to do. However, what product managers see as a part of their job may create too much change and may be construed as a nuisance for an unprepared organization, reflecting badly on the product manager and their organization. Is the hiring organization ready to acknowledge a product manager insisting at every turn that the sales organization must be redesigned for their new products to be successful? Is the organization ready to consider the product manager’s recommendation to partner instead of building in-house? Product managers chose the profession because they like to lead and they do get frustrated when they cannot complete tasks they think they were hired for. Ensuring that all parties outside product management agree on the exact definition of the role and what it means to them will go a long way toward addressing these concerns.
3) Are all the position requirements really “must haves?” Since product managers dabble in so many different domains of knowledge, it is extremely easy to create a long list of skills that are required for the position. Loading up a job posting with too many “must have” requirements may result in too few applicants, effectively shutting out those that are qualified for the job. Spelling out specific priorities can help you prune the laundry list and improve the quality of applicants. Is industry experience an absolute requirement or merely a nice to have? Do you really need someone that can code Java, PHP and web services, or do you just need a product manager that isn’t going to get snowed by product development? Also, do not ask for a talent or skill as a “must have” that will not be used within 12 month of the hiring date. This will limit your pool of candidates and disappoint your new product manager if they aren’t provided with an opportunity to exercise these skills.
4) How will your interviewers respond to questions about the product management organization? Experienced product managers know that the most important factor to help them do their job is the respect the company has for the product management organization. As mentioned above, they can see firsthand through the interview process if the PM organization is respected or not. Among the red flags are: How many VPs of product management over the past 5 years? If more than 3 or 4, the CEO and the C-suite may have differing views on how new products should be developed and released. Does the PM organization have unfettered access to customers and prospects for win/loss analysis; do they have full right to use CRM tools such as Salesforce.com? Can they access and query the financial system to determine if their products are profitable? If not, the leeway of the product manager will be severely limited. In this situation top candidates may exit the hiring process because they know they won’t be able to positively impact the organization. The solution may no longer be in the hiring process but as part of an internal change management effort, to bring a specialized product management consulting organization who can teach execs state-of-the-art Product Management processes and techniques which, once in place, will attract A-level candidates. In addition, even the best candidates will have a difficult time interviewing successfully, if they’re walking into the hiring manager’s office blind. Only so much background information can be gleaned from the corporate website, so recruiters can improve the quality of the interview interaction by briefing candidates on the dynamics, expectations and landmines important to those on the interview panel. This is especially important when members (especially senior executives) are prone to stick by their first impressions.
In short, you can reduce the time that it takes to locate and hire high-performing product managers by emphasizing prep-work upfront. Coach and manage the candidates and the organization prior to the interview process, keep a laser focus on the essential roles and responsibilities of the position, and keep an open mind!
Barry Paquet (3)
mark (3)
David Locke (2)
Greg Strosaker (2)
kk (2)
Hey
I think u mentioned a couple of key points
- for a product manager’s role ‘ must haves’ should really be creativity/ ability to apply experiences across industries rather than java/.net etc/industry specific knowledge unless it is a technical product development role. But i guess these are not very easy to guage and hence people ask for industry experience hoping that if you successfully managed products for another company in that space you can do the same for us!! But then they loose out the chance to hire someone who may have been able to completely turn things around and create far greater value/with big ideas than someone who has no new ideas and is redoing what he / did earlier!
- prep-work upfront from the candidate/the hiring team/ recruiting team can go a long way in making good matches…effectively and in a timely manner
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Thank you Meena. As you state, past behavior is a good indicator of future outcomes, but it should not be the only indicator.
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I think the qualities mentioned above are enough to be a product manager.
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This is a very interesting article with some insightful takes. My firm specializes in this area for high tech companies and I have to say your comments are spot on. One thing I would like to add is that the reason it has been very difficult over the last few years to define the product marketing and product managemnt roles is because the processes by which most companies operate under today are no longer applicable to thier market dynamcis, and they have not proactively adjusted them. This becomes most visiable in marketing departments and as a consequence, thier roles become more difficult to define. Many times this can be corrected by updating the process.
Most markets have transformed from vendor to customer driven. Sales teams have alrady made adjustments because they interface constantly with the customer and naturally adjust to changing market dynamics. Engineering groups somewhat the same way becasue either they make products that sell or not. But marketing has remined the same, usually stuck in vendor driven dynamics and not in customre driven dynamics. By this I mean they will create product definitions based on thier own opinions of the market and then create features/advanatge/benefits based on thier view of what is right for the market. Right or wrong this is not the way customers in customr dirven markets buy products and services. They want what they want and someone will give it to them.
So product marketeers need to convert thier behavior. They need to collect data on thier customers, indentify trends in the responses, and determine which trends would service the company best. This is very different, and as such a process change is need to support this line of product marketing.
Long response to say that the process is often neglected in these sorts of conversations, but one that is usually the source of the problem.
Phil Casini
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Thank you for providing a topic for a future post! I agree that what you describe is real. First Sales want unique solutions because each customer is unique, but as you know any company would exhaust its resources if product managers could not fine the common grounds in each uniqueness. Second any product manager who is not in touch with their customer should start worrying about keeping their job.
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Some think product managers are super-heroes; some think product managers are the janitor. Finding all the skills on a job description wish-list is troublesome. We’ve found that product managers excel at strategy, marketing, or technical–it’s hard to find someone who does all three well. Most firms would do better to hire three people with those skills rather than look for one person with them all.
We call it the product management triad. I wrote about this approach for finding skills and creating organization in The Pragmatic Marketer. Go to http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/7/5/product-management-triad
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This triad has been implemented at many companies with great success.
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Hello Steve
Your concept of the “product management triad” is very interesting. I will read more on it!
Thanks
Dr. Glassman
http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/7/5/product-management-triad
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Nice post guys. Hope all is going well & I look forward to your future posts.
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Thanks Mike, it’s good to hear from you! Any interest in contributing a guest post?
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Great post. I had a recent post on my site about “Design Thinking” instead of traditional selling. I think it applies to this concept. A product manager may be a dated term. Why have that boundry? It is all about selling MORE stuff right? If that is the case I believe the role of “Product Manager” is to facilitate the design, pilot, adjustment, re-design, launch, sales and management of a product within some kind of portfolio. The limiting factor of “industry experience” can be eliminated. Look at IDEO. How do the assemble teams? Not based on industry experience. To excel in this role I tend to agree with the triad approach with the caveat of I don’t think you need to hire 3 people. Just look for a strategy, marketing/sales and change leader. You may find them in not so obvious places. Forget the job descriptions, past experience and title and start looking for these competencies.
Great post guys… Keep up the good work!
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Thank you Coley. I will look at IDEO.
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I just got to read your article in Pragmatic Marketing. Good points on a topic that is a challenge in building a team at any firm.
Over the years I have found that focusing on two attributes can get you quickly to a short list and avoid screening out what may otherwise be gems by applying too specific requirements.
First is to seek out examples of how the person has been able to leverage SMEs as trusted advisors. This teaming orientation is key to success in a position that requires both depth and breath of subject matter beyond most people’s experience.
The second is an unceasing curiosity into how things work and why things happen. In the best cases this trait applies in every aspect of life. These folks can’t help themselves but to probe anything that catches their eye until they gain a clear insight into what is going on.
Comments welcome.
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These are great observations Paul.
In regard to your first comment, I’m constantly surprised at how much weight is placed on industry experience. I’m in full agreement that a skilled product manager without much market knowledge can be productive when teamed up with an SME.
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Personally I don’t mind heavy weight given to experience, given my own 30 plus years. But I do meet an awful lot of people carrying 15 year that really amount to 1 year experience repeated 15 times. Unfortunately, the difference only shows itself when something goes wrong.
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