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A lot of senior product leaders haven’t had to interview for jobs or learn about product management leadership theory. They’ve been climbing the ladder and the “names” in the industry don’t matter because they didn’t affect the business they were operating.
Ive been a PM for two decades, honestly I had to google the name when you put it here. Once I saw who it was, I was all "oh yeah, that guy", but until I googled him, the name meant nothing.
Same. Yet even when I Googled him, I was like that guy when, upon meeting Starlord, said, "Who?"
It’s not very common, but it does happen. I’ve attended interviews where the Head of Product conducting the process lacked the necessary experience for the role. In short, I’ve been interviewed by people with fewer qualifications and less knowledge than me, and I believe this played a role in not being selected. Today, it’s a reality that many companies have Senior PMs and Heads of Product without the right experience. Their résumés are often more about appearances, and they tend to hire people who know even less than they do.
Product Management has theories and academia that folks love to sell in books. But in my 15 years of experience doing B2B the things that matter day to day, week to week, and year over year, are how well you're able to deliver solutions to the problems you hear from existing customers. I've found the best product managers are those who truly understand how their product work and why those decisions were made. Unless you're PM #1 at a startup, you're executing on a strategy that has been defined by leadership.
Unfortunately the interview process has morphed into this set of esoteric questions that you will never face in real life and the process rewards the actors who say the right words over the doers who actually know now to get something done. The actors stay for 12 months and then audition for their next role. The doers build something that scales the success of the company.
I'll admit it's a bit odd. But not THAT crazy. I've been doing this for double digit years and I've never read any of his books. I've read some articles and honestly, he doesn't preach anything that other, seasoned, real product leaders don't.
That said, seasoned, real product leaders are very difficult to find. Maybe I've just been lucky to work with some. If people haven't, maybe he does seem visionary
As a Junior PM, I lack mentorship and I would LOVE to even work for free for great senior Product managers, so that I can learn faster and excel. How do you find a great leaders, in big tech companies? Do you think writing to them directly on Linkedin would do something?
The secret is most people don’t know what they are doing and American business for the most part has become extremely bureaucratic and rife with politics/nepotism. There are a lot of people in long careers that never earned their spots through merit. They probably don’t know a lot about actually building modern products and probably only have very distinct knowledge related to their products and or industry. This is actually very common in big traditional corporates outside of tech.
I’ve run into this a lot… especially at big companies.
As if Marty Cagan is the end all be all of product management. I’ve read some of his stuff, and I didn’t find anything groundbreaking if you’re already doing product management.
It totally depends on industry and focus. There are amazing product managers who never had formal training. That being said, it’s always good to be curious and continue to learn. Forgive the next statement if off base, but I wouldn’t be throwing names and theories into an interview- I would be focusing on customer obsession and how using the proper methodology leads your decisions. throwing names can sound as if you are trying to prove superiority, and show as purely academic and not a great way to show SKILL which should be a large part of your goal in an interview.
Coach
It seems a bit odd to me too, if they both are at the senior level PMs.
WHO CLAIMS TO BE A PRODUCT MANAGER and not know the big MC. Find that very odd
reading to much into it.. most managers focus ( should focus) on managing teams and overall strategy . They normally do not really care who your PM idol is .. mine is Bob Moesta and Clay Christensen but I dont have a bed room poster of both
Worked there as a Product Manager, had the same experience.