Esbon Kyalo, a talent Acquisition Specialist at Fuzu, tells us why it can be a bit harder to fill this role sometimes.
It is often said that a company’s founder is considered the head of the product because it is their vision materialized and they have the best knowledge of the product they are selling. However, as the business grows, other responsibilities will demand more of their attention, which is where a product manager conveniently comes in. When hiring a product manager, you need to bear in mind that this person will be the point of contact throughout the product development process meaning, they are responsible for whether the product is a failure or a success.
The Venn diagram for a successful product manager is an intersection of business savvy, tech, and user experience. So anyone hiring a product manager should be looking for a candidate with a wide variety of skills across these disciplines necessary to oversee a product from the design stage through development to the launch. Managing this timeline (which also extends to any required product maintenance or feature updates) means the person will heavily dabble in product development, engineering, customer service, design, and even sales and marketing. Talk about multi-faceted!
Every employer will obviously have something different in mind when they’re thinking of the type of candidate they want for their product manager role. This will influence the hiring process for this role aside from other factors like the individual’s skill set, understanding of the industry, and the company’s role budget.
We got into all that with Fuzu’s very own Esbon Kyalo, a Talent Acquisition Specialist with 8 years of experience in the recruitment industry. Since he has experience partnering with clients and hiring managers to attract and identify talent while managing the hiring process, Esbon shares what you should expect when hiring a product manager.
Esbon Kyalo, Talent Acquisition Specialist
How long would it take to fill a product manager role?
On average, it takes about three months from when we kick off the hiring process with an employer to when a candidate first starts at the company.
Take us through what that hiring process looks like
If you were hiring for any position and we had the kick-off call today, most likely we’re going to start finding the candidates the next week. We’ll put up the role on the Fuzu platform and start receiving applications within the first three days. Essentially, we should have gotten a good number of applications for the role within a week of running it on our platform. Sometimes we have to actively search for candidates even before the role is up on the platform, meaning we’ll post the job and also do a concurrent search on LinkedIn, Fuzu, and other sources for positions that need to be filled urgently.
If the role has been running on the platform for about a week, we’ll interview the candidates and send out any tests they have to do during the second week. Then, we’ll prepare a shortlist report and share it with the client along with the candidates’ profiles.
In the third week, if everything goes smoothly the client books interviews which on average involve three stages:
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The first interview is usually a technical one with the hiring manager and any other relevant stakeholders.
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The second interview is maybe conducted by HR and the team this person is going to be working with.
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The third interview might be with another decision maker in the company like the general manager and the HR or the HR rep only to present the offer.
During the second month, an offer is negotiated and given out during let’s say the first week then accepted and signed in the second one. The contract is also signed during this period when the candidate also gives notice at their current place of employment, which should be one month according to the industry norms. If this notice period is accepted, the start date could be set to the second week of the third month.
That’s where the three-month timeline estimate comes from and it’s dependent on whether everything runs smoothly, the clients are responsive, candidates and interviewers are available and there’s no delay or hold-up at any stage. In my role, I have to be involved throughout the hiring process just to make sure the results turn out positively because, at the end of the day, that’s what the client is paying for.
Would you say it is harder to fill a product manager role or does the process and timeline vary based on each client and other factors?
For a product manager role, the difficulty in filling the position depends on the specifications of the job. At the end of the day, it depends on what the client chooses or what they want to see in that person which will determine how easy it is to fill the role.
It was particularly difficult for example, filling that position for one of our clients because they were looking for a product manager with a background in data, but the budget they were working with was pretty low. In such cases, it can be a struggle to find that talent, and the client will limit themselves when they are working with a very low budget.
You can have two approaches when hiring for this role:
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When a client is looking for a very technical product manager, you’ll likely have to get somebody who’s been involved in the tech industry, and probably that’s a developer because then they’ll be able to understand the role and the technical bits when working with developers or a development team.
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The other side of it is getting a less technical PM, who’s more user-focused. So even though they may get the technical bits, it’s about the user experience for them. These product managers can be relatively easy to find.
What should someone in this job expect to handle on a daily basis?
Essentially, it’s a tech role that entails working on the product and being the bridge between the users and the development or tech teams. This includes but is not limited to:
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Working on product roadmaps
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Taking a product from an idea to its launch
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Working with the tech teams to ensure the product is meeting its set milestones or goals throughout the development journey.
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Ensuring the product is actually focusing on the problem it's meant to solve or the goal that it had when the development teams started working on it.
A product manager ensures that the development team does not lose track of what the product needs to be. At the same time, they make sure what they’re doing is timely, and accurate, and that the product itself is something that is needed in the market. There’s going to be a lot of coordination to make sure the dev teams are on track and the product is focused on the problem it’s meant to solve.
What are non-negotiable skills or characteristics an employer should look for when hiring a product manager?
First is knowledge when it comes to the tech aspect because if the product manager is not speaking the same language as the development teams, there will always be a challenge. They must be on the same page. Even if this person is not an expert, they must understand the basics when it comes to the product development life cycle so that if they’re in a progress meeting, and there is a challenge, they will know how to solve it and move the project along.
The candidate also has to be a very good coordinator and communicator because they’re working with multiple stakeholders - the business, the user, and the tech team. These two skills will ensure successful collaboration toward the success of that product.
Are there skills that can be learned on the job or is this the kind of role where you need to have all your ducks in a row to qualify?
It will depend on the candidate in question. This again comes back to how the employer is conducting their recruitment process. When they’re interviewing, they may normally look through a checklist to determine what skills the candidate has or lacks. Alternatively, the candidate might not be perfect or tick all the boxes but they show potential and a growth mindset whereby they’re willing to learn. They could also be very good at the areas in which they’re skilled. In that case, the employer would not mind training and growing their skills in the areas where they lack.
What red flags should one look out for when hiring for a product manager position?
Lack of credibility and integrity - If a person is interviewing and not giving you accurate, credible answers, it should tell you that even when they get the job, they might struggle because they oversold what they could bring to the table. That also gives you a picture of the kind of person the interviewee is.
Even in terms of their soft skills, the culture fit, how they conduct themselves in the interview and talk about their past jobs and employers, how do they go about it?
What about green flags?
Well, it would essentially be the opposite of what I’ve mentioned. They’re credible and have a high sense of integrity. They’re not making things up unnecessarily to sound impressive or come across as being the best for the job.
Also, product managers need to be good planners. How does this person handle different projects and stakeholders? Even when explaining their answers there’s concrete evidence of success in past projects they’ve done or are doing in their current role.
This person should be able to show how they were able to deliver on certain projects by executing a step-by-step plan.
Last words for anyone looking to land a product manager role?
The area of product management has really grown, also tech roles in general, so there’s a lot of information on why that has happened online. Even looking at the available jobs in the market you can see the trajectory of the market, certifications required for the role, and skill areas to focus on for success in the position.
Product management is about putting yourself in the centre of the tech teams, the business, and the user experience equation. I think the market is the best source of information where you can also get an accurate representation of what is required. From there, you can be able to tell the direction you want to go and the types of products you want to work on.
Read also: 5 proven strategies for hiring top tech talent in 2023 - Survive the tech talent shortage
