Get into Product Management!

Want to get into product management? Here’s all you need to know…

What is Product Management?

A product manager ensures a product is the best that it can be. This means that it functions as it should, fulfils what it should and provides the user with a good experience.

PMs provide a bridge between the business,the technology and the user. This means they must communicate with every team to maximise effeciency. They must constantly test and check products, take on board feedback and make adjustments where necessary.

Working in PM requires a strategic and analytical mindset. Being able to understand what makes a product user-friendly is important, as well as having excellent communication skills to liaise between different teams.

Working in Project Management is exciting as you get to see projects through from start to finish, and see your work make a direct impact on the business.

Ideation and creation

This is the first stages of product management. This includes the brainstorming of ideas and coming up with the product.

Testing, strategy and results

This is the next step before the product is released and in its early stages of release. Does it do as it should do? Could it be improved? How could UX be better?

This includes analysing results and even conducting marketing research to gain feedback.

Improvement and development

This is the next stage. Once you have your feedback, you must figure out the best ways to implement necessary changes to improve the product.

Where could you work? 

It is a very broad role and you could be working with any type of product, from IT software, to food. Therefore, PMs can be found in many different industries.

Many PMs specialise, and so find an area which best suits them. This gives them insight and experience into what the industry needs and how to get ahead of competitors.

Useful skills for Product Management 

• Showing organisational ability – organising or running events. This could be your university society.
• Passion for the industry you want to enter. You don’t have to know the industry inside out, nor will you be expected to, but showing enthusiasm for the industry is important. This could be demonstrated by an article you’ve written.
• Digital skills – Photoshop, Illustrator,Microsoft Office
• Analytical or research skills – this again could be demonstrated by your dissertation.
• Communication skills – conveyed by a job which involved speaking, even if it means picking up the telephone, or speaking to punters from behind a bar – this is all good experience.
• Meeting deadlines – many products and services have a date in which they must be released by. This means being very efficient and ensuring all work is carried out by a certain time.

See our Product Management roles here.

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