Why Transitioning to a Product Manager Role is Tougher Than You Think

This blog is about why moving into a product manager role is not as easy as most people anticipate it to be. However, let’s start the narrative with historical trivia that teaches us the virtue of patience. Legend has it that Chanakya’s first attack on Pataliputra failed. One of history’s greatest political teachers and strategists couldn’t execute a decent attack. Dejected, he hid in anonymity for some time. During one of his thoughtful wanderings, he overheard a conversation between a mother and her child.

The child burnt his fingers while eating his hot-cooked meal. His mother scolded him for acting like Chanakya — directly attacking the center where temperatures are bound to be high. She recommended starting segregating the sections at the periphery, separating each from the center one after the other.

And as the legend goes, in a few years Chanakya was able to build one of the largest empires in Indian history.  

Most professionals who want to transition into a product manager role face this challenge. A direct attempt almost never works, and the periphery always looks messy, long-drawn, and unpredictable. The highly ambiguous nature of the job and many variations in product manager profiles doesn’t help either.

In this article, we try to figure out what’s the right way of planning this transition.

ALSO READ: How to Become a Product Manager?

What Makes Product Manager Roles So Attractive?

Given the lucrative remuneration, being at the center of moving pieces and a perceived sense of power make product roles look appealing to most people. If truth be spoken plainly, many on the outside also feel that product managers don’t really do much heavy lifting as they don’t really code, write, design, or build something. At least nothing on a strict deadline. Why can’t you or I or anyone else do the same job with much more ease?

And that’s the reason why product manager vacancies often generate a very high volume of applicants. Alas, that’s not the full picture. The truth, as always, is much more nuanced.

What Exactly Does a Product Manager Do?

As a hiring manager or senior product leader, it’s a very difficult job to figure out who will be the right fit for a product role. After all, there’s no specific way to hire product managers, not even a standard set of skills that one can checklist a candidate against. Moreover, not only do product roles vary from company to company, but they even vary drastically within the same company.

So, a good first step is to always start by understanding what the hiring manager for a particular product role really wants. In other words, understand the real Job To Be Done.

As an external candidate, given the generalization/standardization of job descriptions across most companies, it’s really difficult to figure out what’s the true expectation. But every once in a while, there are job postings that detail key requirements and expectations. Combining this knowledge by internalizing more context about the company’s focus areas and some understanding of the department’s priorities helps drive a much better understanding of the real Job to be Done.

What is My Role as a Product Manager?

For instance, if a product manager job description mentions the candidate will be responsible for managing the company’s consumer-facing recommendation engine, and it’s an e-commerce company, with the product manager primarily interfacing with the marketing team’s requirements. It would be a real advantage to not just learn about recommendation engines but also read case studies about their impact on business and interact with other product people who have been in similar roles.

If you are an internal candidate in the same company where the job has been posted, you definitely have a significant upper hand. But still, it pays to keep digging in to find what the hiring manager really values for this specific product role.

What are the Soft Skills Needed for Product Management?

While the previous section covers the hard skills of a product manager, managing people, expectations, and communication flows is the most important part of this role. So use all the weapons in your arsenal to succeed. 

Influence is Your Only Weapon

It’s long been said that product managers are mini-CEOs. But while it’s a role full of responsibilities and expectations, it comes without any real power. Your power to influence others (who mostly have their own agendas, ego battles, and priorities) is the only superpower you have.

And given that, unlike a project manager or relationship manager role, it’s not solely people that you deal with but are also responsible for driving product metrics, thriving in uncertainty becomes part of your personality. Regular skirmishes with the sales team, last-minute edits from marketing, random tantrums from a lead developer, or inaccurate reporting from a data analyst are all part of the daily hustle.

The hiring manager has already been shaped through this crucible, and he/she is looking for nothing less from you. Chaos is the order of the day, and it’s expected that you carry a big smile. After all, the hiring manager is looking for someone who can put out existing fires without igniting new ones, not with power, but with sheer influence.

Know Thyself and Play to Thy Strengths

Understanding what the hiring managers, HRs, and other gatekeepers want is one part of the equation; the other part is understanding your own context, skills, and experience. While nothing is impossible, everything has a probability. It’s much easier to transition from sales & marketing to become a Growth PM, from a design background to a UX PM, or from tech/data to a Tech PM.

Likewise, it’s much easier to transition to a product role within your existing organization compared to making the transition by switching companies. Internal/organizational politics is a reality and there are always hurdles, but then isn’t this a great opportunity to test your influencing skills?

Another big offputer might be a lack of vacancies in the product team or a giant gap between the role’s demands and your current skill-set. In such cases, it usually helps to bide your time and create opportunities for yourself. Realizing that transitory roles like product marketing, growth, and business intelligence can come into existence by highlighting the existing gaps in the current organization structure and proposing your plan for fixing them will open new possibilities.

Scripting Your Story and Doing It Well

As most storytellers can attest, there’s a difference between a story and an outline. Sure, coming up with an outline is a great first step, but a powerful story needs concrete details, personal anecdotes, and some amount of tension. When it comes to building your career shift story, the important elements include- products you have built, anecdotes about your learning experiences, and real examples of people management and communication frameworks.

At its very core, every product manager starts as a hustler. A believer in fake it till you become it. As a product manager, you learn that one well-shipped product is way better than 100 great ideas pending in the backlog. And the same applies to product role aspirants; if you build something tangible, a product that other people can experience, that puts you much ahead of your competitor, who may have by-hearted 10 different frameworks.

Start small and build a pitch deck, a website, a mock-up, a physical product, or anything that makes your interviewer wonder how they could have done it differently. Because when you build something, you invite the hiring manager to play on your turf (even if momentarily). Your work shows how diligently or creatively you think about a problem that everyone sees but none has taken the initiative to solve for. And as a professional, not just as a PM, initiative-taking is one of the most desired qualities expected from a candidate.

Additionally, enroll in product courses, read books, and join communities that will help not just in learning more about the domain but also help you with motivation, frameworks, and real-life challenges.

Seek Guidance From the Right People

Never be afraid to ask for help. People can and will help. Not all, but some good souls always do. However, it’s not for them to figure out who needs their help and how much. It’s about you, and you have to keep asking for it nicely, kindly, and persuasively. Mentorship, even unpaid, is a fulfilling experience. It makes people feel good about themselves. So, do yourself and them a favor and ask for guidance.

There are obviously good and bad ways to go about it. The better your persuasion skills, the higher your odds. A good place to seek the right mentors would be adplist. And just in case you think this writer could be of any help, he shall be happy to have a conversation. 

NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Emeritus.