Why you should not do Product Management if you want to get into Product Management.
Knowledge
Books have become more important than ever. Post COVID-19 there was hardly any social interaction among college-peer groups and one thing that takes real a hit in absence of “Bakar with friends ” (chit-chat with friends) is that you fail to develop different perspective around simple things. If you belong to some engineering college in India, you can easily find a group of tech-nerds at chai & samosa corner quarrelling over some Apple v/s Android feature fight. You will notice less tech savvy member of the group bringing in simple but logical points to the discussion and a tech-savvy member explaining why A-13 bionic is better than Snapdragon 865. This debate is a perspective storehouse. As a product manager you need look at problems from different perspective. There is also a pretty famous example about this discussion -
Books will help you in filling up this lost perspective. Looking things from lens of different User-Persona, emphasizing with their needs, suggesting features. All these steps of product design cycle require a wide and open perspective. Ideas are merely a amalgamation of your past experiences used in a new/different context.
Just like how a debate/discussion is pretty natural in day-to-day life of a student, selecting books to reads should not be different. If you are in your undergraduate year then reading a book to develop your interest, reading a book to satisfy curiosity about certain topics, reading a book to learn something new is better than reading “The Product Management Interview” or “Decode and Conquer”. These are good practice books. You can definitely read about product roles in general from these books, but core functionality of these books- Product cases, Design Exercise, Brainstorming exercises can only be solved effectively when you have experienced similar problems in life. A good foundational aptitude and decent knowledge of “how digital products works” is the premise on which these exercises sits on.
Experience
Product management is something that happens to you, It’s very difficult to choose this role. During my preparation I used to listen some product related podcast on daily basis. Most of the time the guest-speaker would start by saying — “ I got into product management by accident”. And It’s not me who is saying this, you can find blogs and articles where PMs have shared this common experience. There is even a podcast named — “Accidental Product Manager”.
In a nutshell you don’t necessarily need an MBA or have to do mastery at everything (tech, design and business) to be a product manager. You can start with something you like, you have specialized in. Be good at something, put that thing into use, manage it for a period of time, believe me or not but this process is what makes you a great candidate for PM. I have seen people from DU, Arts Background, Purely research background getting into product roles. Get good at design and take interest in technology, try to connect them at personal level. If you are a proficient coder, dig into deign, learn about it, be an enthusiast. That’s what the role demands. A person who is good/expert in 3c1(Tech, design, business) and has interest in remaining two. You still need to have that one domain you are good at. For an undergraduate it’s pretty hard to do specialization in anything. Academic courses are so wide in scope. But we all know how much space and time, college(especially tier-1) gives us to pursue our personal goals. Utilize this time to become good at something. Good solid foundation in problem solving and critical thinking are universal demand of any challenging/leadership role in market. Specialization helps you build these essentials over a period of time. I have seen people doing certifications online, learning design, tech and everything at once, frankly it doesn’t work. The moment you enter the interview room and start telling about yourself, a good interviewer will know that this is not a person but books speaking in front of him.
For Undergraduates and students aspiring to be product managers, please go through the below-mentioned points before making any career decision. Thank You.
Lists of things that won’t help you in preparation-
a) Entry-level PM internships and jobs are rare, in fact very rare and highly competitive. Good professional connections and awareness about different internship programs are a must. Not getting a product intern/job in product management straight out of graduation should not change your path. You will still be learning something specific in your job, which is always good. Don’t brute force your career into the product by attending unnecessary leadership workshops or events. Use that time to learn a raw skill — “Competitive Coding, Problem Solving, “Design”, anything that improves your skillset.
b) Doing product internship (just for the sake of getting product on the resume). Well-established product companies looks for people with good foundational skills(be it technical, organizational, leadership etc.) If you are compromising skills for names/brands, you are heading in wrong direction.
c) It doesn’t matter how good your business understanding is if you cant structure you thoughts. Interviews are primarily about structure. Structuring ideas and knowing many ideas are two different things. If you can’t organize your information, you should leave interviews and try out twitter, maybe. (I was rejected in Flipkart APM because I lost my structure midway.)
d) Not having strong technical background. Please do not mistake this role as “Manager” role where you will control everyone with your great communications skills. It would help if you had a solid technical understanding of how things work(How internet works, What is Cloud, etc.).
A bit about myself-
I am currently a final year undergraduate student at IIT(BHU), What makes me talk about product interview or interview in general? You can check out my LinkedIn for this, I am too lazy to write all that here :P
