So many people want to move into product roles that I wanted to spend a little time talking about the Product Manager role, including what kind of experience it requires, and why it’s likely not a first edskip but a great choice to consider for your second or third.
In this post, I’m focusing on mid-level Product Manager roles, roles that are looking for 3-5 years of experience directly in product management or a similar field. (Similar in this case usually means engineering, business analysis, or education publishing.)
While mid-level Product Management roles are not good fits for folks coming directly from education, you will rarely see associate or entry-level roles. So do keep an eye out for those!
If you’re interested in moving into Product Management, this deep dive will help you see what skills you’ll eventually need to master and lead. If you’re currently working in an adjacent edtech department, this can help you evaluate what parts of your current experience to highlight when you apply to these roles.
If you’re interested in moving into product work in the future, become known now as the person who understands user needs, creates focused interventions that have meaningful results (fix shark bites not minnow nibbles as they say in the entrepreneur world), and matches those to larger business or organizational objectives. Then you’ll be able to leverage your education and edtech experience to be competitive when you apply.
Product Management is a combination of product development – determining the actual features of a product — and product management – ensuring that the product is successfully built and launched by keeping tasks and people organized and moving.
Product is a department that consists of a variety of different team members: UX/UI designers, Product Managers, potentially Product Owners, and senior leadership. It’s a highly collaborative department, working in particular with software engineers, marketing (there’s often a product marketing role at large companies), customer success, and sales. In other words, it’s the company’s hub between external client-facing departments (support and success, marketing, and sales) and internal development departments (business analysis, engineering, etc).
Outline:
- What Types of Tasks Does a Product Manager Do?
- What are Some of the Key Skills Product Managers Need?
- What Type of Experience Do Product Managers Need?
- Do I Need a Product Portfolio to Apply to Product Jobs?
- How to Prepare for a Product Interview
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