Hiring Product Managers: How to Get the Best Talent

 So you want to get a new PM? Firstly, congratulations, you’ve made a great decision – Product Managers can be seriously effective people to have in your organization. However,  Hiring Product Managers is no easy task. What you need to do to find and secure the right candidate can vary significantly depending on what specific objectives you want to achieve by hiring a Product Manager.  

You might be sitting there in a startup, possibly as the Founder, realizing it’s time that you stop wearing the Product Manager hat and pass the baton to someone who can dedicate their time to setting and executing the product strategy, managing a well-thought out roadmap and conducting proper research and discovery to ensure you’re making the right moves. 

Or maybe you’re part of a large organization with multiple products and multiple teams and you’re looking at hiring Product Managers to grow your existing battalion of PM troops. Maybe you’ve identified a new market opportunity that you need someone to get their teeth stuck into, or maybe one of your products needs breaking out with different PMs managing different areas of the product.  

Whatever your situation, if you’re thinking of hiring Product Managers, you’ve come to the right place. We can help you understand the best ways to go about the hiring process and ensure you get the right kind of PM depending on what your business needs. Let’s break it all down to help you hire the right Product Manager for your organization.

How do you know when the time is right for hiring Product Managers? 

It’s a big call knowing when to get a new Product Manager. What should you be looking out for? What indicates it’s time to open your doors and welcome a new PM in? Well, that depends on the situation of your company at the time. 

Getting your first-ever Product Manager will have different considerations than when getting a second, third or fourth. The timing for hiring your first PM largely depends on your founding team’s makeup and capabilities. In the early days of a startup, Founders often fill the Product Management role themselves. Many Founders have a “product” mindset, they’re already focused on identifying market needs, talking to early customers, and iterating on an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). This phase is usually manageable without a dedicated PM, as the Founder is deeply involved in both product development and strategy.

However, the need for a PM becomes evident when the demands on the Founder’s time grow too large. As the business scales, the Founder’s focus shifts to other responsibilities, like fundraising, marketing, or hiring, leaving less time for essential Product Management tasks such as customer discovery, iteration, and market positioning. When the Founder can no longer dedicate the necessary time to product direction, it’s time to bring in a dedicated Product Manager.

At this stage, you’re likely going to be looking for a generalist, someone who can do it all, as they’re going to have fingers in a lot of different pies at this early stage of the company.


But say you’ve already got an established product team structure. You have your Product Manager, Engineer, and Designer working well in a Product Trio. How do you know when you need another one? 

Well, the signs are pretty similar, as you’ll usually be bringing one in when your current PM starts to feel overloaded with responsibilities. If they’re struggling to find enough time for proper product discovery, or finding it hard to keep momentum moving on initiatives, it’s a big indication that they need some support.

This support may not necessarily be in the form of hiring more Product Managers. You could consider hiring someone junior to assist or bringing in a specialist to complement the first PM’s skill set.

If you are hiring Product Managers, think more about the specific skills you need. Your first Product Manager is likely a generalist, handling every stage of the complete Product Management lifecycle. If you’re looking to hire a second or third PM, you may want to split the responsibilities and have a Product Manager who’s dedicated to customer discovery while another handles internal processes.

Of course, as your company starts to scale and adds new products, your hands are pretty much tied and you’ll need a PM to handle each product. 

What makes a good candidate when hiring Product Managers?

When hiring Product Managers, you naturally want the best. The cream of the crop. The pic of the bunch. The creme de la creme. But what does that actually look like? Well here are some important skills to look out for.

Personally, I love to see an application where the candidate has identified the problem we’re trying to solve and then speaks about why they’ve got the experience to solve that issue. Not only does it feel personal and show they’ve taken the time to get to know our situation, but it highlights that they have an inquisitive mind and are a problem-solver. 

Too many applications just read like a list of all the things the person is great at. But if those skills aren’t relevant to what we need from a new Product Manager right now, it may as well be a shopping list. 

Plus, many applicants go into detail about how this position could be good for them. They’re looking inwardly in a selfish way, speaking of how the role can help them learn and develop their career. That’s all well and good, but you’re not running a charity. Ideally, you want a Product Manager who can help your business improve, not the other way around.

When hiring Product Managers, look out for those who detail what they can do for you. Something like:

Now that’s interesting. That’s the mark of a great Product Manager. Like Giff Constable said in our webinar on how to become a CPO, It’s all about demonstrating that they’ve seen this movie before, and know the script for how to act it out. They’ve been able to see your needs, so they’re probably pretty good at seeing your customers’ needs and building a better product off the back of that research. 

Giff said a lot more great things in our chat. If you’re looking to climb the ladder and become a Chief Product Officer, or want tips on how to excel in the position, check out our on-demand webinar below: 

Of course, the above is a general view of what makes a good Product Manager. To ensure you get a good candidate for your situation when hiring Product Managers, you need their skills to match what you need. 

You need to hire the right Product Manager for you

You need to find a Product Manager that matches your needs and fits into your culture. A stunning candidate for one business may not be the best fit for yours, and you need to be aware of that when hiring Product Managers. Don’t be tempted to get a PM that looks good on paper if they’re not able to provide a solution to the problem you face. 

You could be stung by getting a generalist when you really need someone who can specialize in a function that you need for your business. Look at your needs. Is your product suffering from high customer churn? You’ll benefit from a PM who has experience in this over one who doesn’t.  

You should be thinking about what problem you’re trying to solve for your business and what change you hope this role is going to make for the business. You also have to think about how your business operates and if the PM suits it. Are there particular rituals that they need to be part of? Things like daily stand-ups or scrums, retros or backlog refinement meetings. Outline these things and figure out exactly the type of Product Manager you want for this role.

Also think about the non-negotiable skills you need, as this will shape the ideal PM for you. Of course, you need the general skills for the role, but there might be something specific for you that you can’t look past. For ProdPad, that’s an understanding and appreciation of agile, outcome-based roadmaps. It’s kind of our thing. If a candidate comes in declaring their unwavering love for Gantt charts and timeline roadmaps, that’s an obvious tell that it’s not going to work. 

How do you attract the best talent when hiring Product Managers?

You won’t attract the best minds in product with any old job ad. To get the best when hiring Product Managers, you need to be perceived as the best and look like an exciting and rewarding option for applicants. Your job descriptions need to be compelling, showcasing the exciting opportunities that the role offers. 

When hiring Product Managers, you’re selling the organization just as much as the applicant is trying to sell themselves. Talk about the attractive things about your role, be that the money you can offer, the education you can provide, or the prestige of the business. Whatever gets people through the door. It’s like a lure when fishing. Sure, low-grade worms may be enough to catch a prime bluefin tuna, but you’ll have a better chance of making a catch if you use premium squid bait. 

When writing our job specs here at ProdPad, we make an effort to cover why the job is important and where it fits in the bigger picture. We disclose what applicants will learn in the role, and we spell out the benefits. This helps us inspire the best applicants. You don’t want to be seen as another job to add to the pile, you want applicants to be excited by the opportunity.

Just be detailed in what you offer. Different people are going to have different prerogatives for what they’re looking for in a role. The best applicants for you are going to have wants and needs that line up with what you’re offering. 

What interview questions should you ask when hiring Product Managers? 

Interviews are your chance to learn more about your applicants and extract more nuggets of information that can indicate if they’ll be a good hire or not. To do this, you need to ask the right questions. You want to hit them with meaningful questions that get them thinking, saying things that go further than rehearsed lines they think you want to hear. Try and have an actual conversation. The following questions are a good place to start.

• What do you think about roadmapping?
• Tell me about a time when something didn’t go to plan and you had to pivot. 
• How do you define success?
• How do you gather feedback and how do you use it to inform decisions?
• The CEO has a product idea, but you have data that shows it’s not the right thing to do. How do you approach that?
• Talk us through your resume.

Let’s delve into each of these questions in turn…

What do you think about roadmapping?

What I like about this question is that it’s pretty broad and can be interpreted in many ways, leading to plenty of interesting discussions. Candidates can talk about what they think should go on a roadmap, their thoughts on different roadmap formats, or why they take the approach they do with their roadmap. 

Roadmapping is a core part of the Product Management role, so a candidate will usually have a lot to talk about here and can help you learn how they’re going to approach their work and if their views align with your company.

Tell me about a time when something didn’t go to plan and you had to pivot. 

This is a great question to ask when hiring Product Managers, as it gives you insight into their decision-making process and how they evaluate the performance of a product. What metrics do they care about and what did they do to change the outcome? 

A good candidate would answer this question by explaining how they assessed market signs and other data, as well as how they managed risk when making the strategic shift. 

How do you define success?

Asking this when hiring Product Managers is a powerful way to assess a candidate’s mindset, priorities, and alignment with your company’s goals. It can reveal not just their personal values, but also how they evaluate the success of a product or feature and the broader impact on the business.

It shows you how they think about the product vision, and gives you an insight into if they’re taking into consideration things like customer value and other customer-centric points.

You’ll need to listen out for the particular metrics your Product Manager candidates cite and how they calculate return-on-investment. You should prepare for these interviews by reviewing all the available Product Management KPIs and having an idea of the ones that would be most important in this role. Download our complete list of KPIs and find the most meaningful ones for your product. 

To learn more about the possible ways a Product Manager can measure the ROI of their work, download our guide. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll know what to listen out for when it comes to how they measure success. 

How do you gather feedback and how do you use it to inform decisions?

This question is fundamental to ask when hiring Product Managers as it explores their direct processes as well as their prioritization skills. What do they do to figure out what feedback should be acted upon? 

It can also demonstrate their bias. Do they focus on data or do they focus on qualitative information through interviews and surveys? It also shines a light on how they use feedback as an iterative process.

The CEO has a product idea, but you have data that shows it’s not the right thing to do. How do you approach that?

This question is all about stakeholder management. How does the candidate manage other people and communicate their ideas? You’re looking for someone that has the guts to say no when it’s right, but who has the skills and empathy to know the right ways of saying no. 

If you’re wondering what the best ways to say no as a Product Manager are, we’ve spoken with Melissa Appel to get the best tips. You can watch our webinar here:

Ask about their resume

This isn’t so much a question but a tip to the interviewer – ask more about the resume, and get the applicant to explain some things. Due to the nature of resumes, a lot of the information on there is cherry-picked. They want to put their best foot forward, so of course everything is going to be overwhelmingly positive. 

Try and get the context around what they’ve done. Ask if their performance exceeded expectations and try to understand what their goals were in their roles – how were they measured? Instead of just seeing the nice cherries they’ve picked off, you see more of the entire tree. 

Common mistakes when hiring Product Managers

Hiring Product Managers, or any other role for that matter, can be a bit of a burden. It’s a time sink, takes up resources, and is expensive. That’s why when you go through the hiring process, you want to do it right. 

Mess things up, and you could be left with a Product Manager that isn’t right for you and is struggling as a result. That’s not on them, it’s on you for not doing things properly. To avoid the awkward situation of making a hire that doesn’t work out, be aware of these common mistakes. 

Look past titles

It can be hard to tell how good of a Product Manager someone will be by looking at their job titles alone. A person who’s held senior positions or product-orientated roles may seem really exciting at first, but these roles don’t actually tell you how involved they’ve been and what skills they had to call into action. 

Roles and titles are all over the place in Product Management and can sometimes pull the wool over your eyes. For example, you could come across a Product Lead that implies they have leadership experience, but learn that they only had a tiny team. Not ideal if you’re looking for someone to manage a large product team. 

Often, you can find great people who never had lofty or product-related titles, but because of the structure of their past organization were involved in doing great product stuff. You want to focus on the stories of your applicants. Sometimes the titles don’t give the full picture. Sure, Alice in Wonderland kind of gives you the whole synopsis, but have you ever read Clockwork Orange? I don’t remember oranges or clocks being a major part of it. 

Don’t worry about qualifications 

Try not to get all hot and bothered about an applicant that has qualifications and certifications from X. Y, and Z. Yes, these can suggest that these PMs have a good knowledge base and have put in the work to learn more, but these qualifications are not a replacement for real-world experience. 

Sure, these can equip PMs with the theory and vocabulary of Product Management, but there’s no indication that they’ve put what they’ve learned into practice. It’s much better to have a PM who’s been in the trenches and learned from doing, failing, and then iterating. 

We don’t want to poo-poo qualifications too much. If presented alongside tangible experience and evidence of success, then great, that’s a candidate who’s got the knowledge and expertise down. Think of it like this – if you’re a football coach looking for a star player, you wouldn’t favor the armchair fan who can recite every play and tactic and has watched every Superbowl. No, you’d ideally pick someone who’s actually played in them.

Let’s not even go into the fact that some qualifications aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. If you want to know which Product Management courses do deliver useful learning, here’s our list of the Product Management courses that you should look out for on a resume: 

Prioritize strategic thinking over technical skills

Oh no, this candidate doesn’t know how to use Figma, time to throw their resume in the bin. Hold your horses there – technical skills shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all when looking for a new Product Manager. 

Of course, you’re going to want adequate skills to ensure they can work their way around your roadmapping tool and whatnot, but it can be damaging to set your focus on getting a boffin who’s a whizz at coding and engineering, etc. The Product Management role is far more strategic than this. Instead, you should champion skills in decision-making, communication, market and customer research, and setting the product vision. It’s all of this that actually helps you make a great product, not how many different coding languages they know. 

Don’t overlook soft skills

Product Managers serve as the bridge between various teams ensuring that everyone is aligned on the product vision. Communication is a big part of the day in the life of a Product Manager. If a PM lacks strong soft skills like communication skills or organization, misunderstandings can occur, leading to delays, misaligned priorities, or a lack of clear direction. 

Likewise, when hiring Product Managers, be hyper aware of how empathetic candidates appear. A PM with poor empathy may struggle to fully understand the customer’s needs, which can result in decisions that don’t resonate with users. 

Leadership is another essential soft skill. Even though many PMs don’t have direct authority over the teams they work with, they must inspire, motivate, and lead cross-functional teams to deliver on the product vision. A Product Manager who can’t foster collaboration or navigate tough conversations may face roadblocks that slow down product development. 

A PM needs to be comfortable in the spotlight, a leading actor, not an extra in the background. 

An important hire

Hiring Product Managers isn’t just about adding new faces to the team – it’s about solving specific problems and moving your business forward. Make sure the candidate has the right mix of skills and experience, and don’t just be dazzled by flashy titles or qualifications. 

A great PM aligns with your business’s needs, rolls with the punches, and knows how to juggle multiple priorities without dropping the ball. Get it right, and they’ll be the driving force that pushes your product and company to the next level. Get it wrong, and, well… you’ll be back on the job board sooner than you’d like.

When hiring a good Product Manager, they’re going to need a good Product Management tool. ProdPad is the only tool built specifically to help make a good Product Manager great. With best practices baked in and functionality to help manage customer feedback, prioritize your roadmap, and plan your backlog, ProdPad equips Product Managers with everything they need to turn strategy into action. 

Give ProdPad a go to see how it can work for you, commitment-free.