Tips Specialized For Hiring Product Managers

Recruiting your first Product Manager to lead the product isn't easy.

Some things to keep in mind:

• PM responsibilities vary from org to org

Be ready to encounter candidates that don't cleanly fall in line with how your company imagines the role.

Shortlist generously.

• Hire someone smarter than you

Ask situational questions regarding prioritization & product decisions. See what questions they ask, what angles they uncover.

Also, have they explored your product & pointed out something you didn't know? Great sign.

See more: Why You Should Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You

• Even if they don't have a technical degree, understand if they know the rationale/tradeoffs of the tech stack of the products they have owned before
• Experience is not equal to years of owning the product manager title. It's how much you have actually shipped. Ask for something that's live
• Assess their bar of product greatness

What product do they look up to & why? Have they noticed something non-obvious about it?

• If you were to role play as the customer, what kind of questions do they ask to extract your functional (& emotional) pain points?
• Size up their cross-functional effectiveness. Delve into their interaction with sales, marketing, support, etc.
• When they talk data, do they contextualize it?