In this rough economy, product managers are in particular jeopardy. Because they link to company revenue is less direct than sales or services staff, a PM has to look out for themselves and make sure that they are providing value, and perhaps more importantly, make sure that that value is understood by your senior managers. I know this firsthand because » Read more: Product Management Self-Preservation
Posts Tagged ‘career development’
Product Management Self-Preservation
March 4th, 2010
Market versus Product?
August 10th, 2009By Len Lipkin
As an external candidate for a product manager position, I was once asked on an interview, “what is more important for a product manager to know, the market or the product?”
In my experience, product managers are often hired internally, promoted (or demoted, depending on your perspective) from among the ranks of business analysts, services, sales, and support. Internal candidates don’t have to worry about this question in an interview because they most likely already know the product and the market pretty well and their interviewer isn’t concerned about that.
Of course, the answer is “both” but you don’t want to come across as wishy washy in an interview, so you should definitely show an opinion one way or another. If you want the job, the correct answer to the question depends on the focus of the product management group in question. If the group is more outbound-oriented, delivering demos, training salespeople, working the booth at conferences, then “product” is the correct answer.
Of course, that is not really best practices for product management. Knowing the product and outbound marketing is part of the job, certainly, but more of a distration from the real work of product management, which should be charting the strategic direction of one or more product lines. In this case, answer the question with “market.”
To me there is only one correct answer. If you answer “market” and you think that’s why you didn’t get the job, you shouldn’t feel too bad because, if you are like me, it probably wouldn’t be a place where you would want to work. I would take it a step further and say that for anyone interviewing for a product management job, asking this question of your potential employer can give you a good sense of how that company views the role of product management, and whether it aligns with your own career goals.
Incidentally, I answered this question on my interview by saying that it was important to know the product, but that understanding teh market was the key to long term success. I was offered the job.
