How to Hire a Product Manager
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Hiring product managers at early and seed stage startups is a difficult process. This deck is an attempt to create a reference guide for startup founders who are looking to hire their first PMs. This was delivered at the "Seed to Series A - Making the Leap" event organised by SAIF Partners on 11th May 2016. The transcript of the entire talk is available on http://anshumaniruddra.com
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How to Hire a Product Manager
- 1. How to Hire a Product Manager Anshumani Ruddra / @baboonzero Seed to Series A – Making the Leap / 11th May 2016
- 2. Legend #you – the founder / person who is hiring #candidate – the product manager you intend to hire #interview – the process you will follow to hire a kickass PM
- 3. #you Hiring great people is your highest priority – don’t outsource this job
- 4. #you You are the 1st product manager in your company
- 5. #you Write a job description document based on what you do day-to-day as a PM – figure out what and who your product requires
- 6. #you Hire people who are smarter than you
- 7. #you You are not hiring someone for life – look for a good PM who can make a great impact in the next 12 to 24 months
- 8. #candidate Engineers (mostly) make great PMs
- 9. #candidate But non-engineers become world-class PMs too
- 10. #interview Make every candidate do an intensive weekend assignment
- 11. #interview Build a diverse interview panel
- 12. #interview There are different kinds of interviews – pick appropriate panelists for each
- 13. #candidate Look for people with a scientific temperament – people who are experimental, think first- principles and validate hypothesis
- 14. #candidate Good PMs exhibit first-principles thinking
- 15. #candidate Good PMs are true experimenters
- 16. #candidate Look for the ability to deconstruct a product
- 17. #interview Build something together during the interview(s)
- 18. #interview Have them intern with you for a month or two
- 19. #you # Do reference checks yourself
- 20. Thank you http://anshumaniruddra.com / @baboonzero
Notes de l'éditeur
- Disclaimers: I’ll be using male pronouns – he, him, etc when referring to a candidate. I’m doing this as there aren’t any gender neutral pronouns. I’m covering a lot of points – but this is no way a comprehensive list. This presentation + the transcript of this talk along with extra material will be available online by tomorrow.
- One point per slide
- While you can source candidates from friends, ex-colleagues, get recommendations from teammates, other contacts, LinkedIn and recruiters – hiring is your responsibility. You have to be the PoC and the person running the hiring function.
- It does not matter what your background is in – you are responsible for your product (especially if you are a product company and not a services company).
- What = skills, experience, chops Don’t use standard JD templates. They have ridiculous statements like – “a candidate with 3-12 years of experience in product management”. There are a handful of people with that kind of PM experience in the country – and if you could hire them we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
- In a team meeting, if you happen to be the smartest person in the room – your company is doomed. Put your ego aside. Hire exceptional people. Over time you and your company will become the average of these exceptional people. You should be learning from your first set of employees. Smartness works at many levels – executional, strategic, tactical, etc. People either have great depth of knowledge in one (or a few) field(s). Or people have breadth of knowledge across multiple fields. You need both these kinds of people.
- Don’t hire horses for courses. Don’t think short term. But don’t think you are hiring a lifer. Hire someone who will be able to grow with your org and make a solid impact over a two year horizon.
- If you are a tech startup then your PMs need to understand and appreciate what engineers do. Caveat: look out for ex-engineers with a chip on their shoulder. Back in the day – their code had the beauty of poetry – it made grown men cry and women swoon. Their interface design used to bring all the boys to the yard. Those days are gone. They need to have a healthy appreciation for what others do – and shouldn’t interfere in their work.
- This goes without saying – your PMs are not going to code. So don’t over-emphasize past skills in a field that they are not going to use in their day to day work.
- … before the interview. The assignment should either be based on your product or a product in the same domain. It does not matter how senior the candidate is. You solve a couple of problems with this – you get them interested in your product(s)/ domain. You get more minds to think about the problems that you are facing. You can gauge their communication skills (and these are very important). PMs who can’t write well – don’t make good PMs. As an early stage PM you will require him to be write documents, descriptions, marketing copy, etc. Give example – FarmVille till level 8 and then solve – retention, monetization, etc. GTM and launch plan, etc.
- Founders, advisors, investors, team members from different fields– clearly define the purpose of each interview to each panelist.
- In some interviews you are selling (pitching your company to the candidate), in some they are pitching to you. Some are to gauge competence, some to figure out culture fit and some for negotiating. Pick the right panelist for each. Don’t waste a candidates time.
- Given a problem, most product managers are able to answer the following two questions: How are we going to solve this problem? What is required to solve this problem? Only good product managers are able to answer: Why do we need to solve this problem? Why would our users/ customers care? First-principles thinking requires a mind unencumbered by past lessons, experiences and biases. As Feynman once said – “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than have answers that can’t be questioned.” All product managers develop heuristics over time. These thumb-rules are essential survival tools. But good PMs know when to put these tools aside. Good PMs spend a lot of time in the problem space.
- Every experiment has three crucial steps: Setting up the experiment Measuring the results Using the results to improve the experiment Setting up the experiment involves a clear understanding of the purpose and the desired result of the experiment. This is where most PMs falter. Products/ features are built without a sense of expected results or what constitutes success or failure. Measuring involves clear instrumentation and a firm grip of what needs to be measured and how. The actual act of data collection is equally critical. Finally, comparing the actual results to the expected results and drawing inferences based on this comparison is what leads to learning. This learning goes towards improving the product/ feature as well as future products/ features. A good PM is a master of all the three steps. The assignment + the questions you ask should look for this trait.
- What are their favourite products (mobile, desktop, mobile web, consumer, enterprise)? What works and why? What doesn’t work and why? How will they improve the product?
- Run a brainstorming exercise. Build wireframes together. Solve a problem. Would you enjoy working with this candidate? Do they have the smarts and the competence?
- For candidates still in college or freshers – internships are the way to go. Internships should always be paid. This works for both parties – gives the candidate a flavour of the work. Gives you a sense of how they can create impact. Give people a highly focused short-term project with clear deliver-ables.
- Do this after the interviews are done – so that you don’t get biased by the opinions of others. Speak directly to previous managers, advisors, mentors, professors, colleagues. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Explain the role to them. Do they think the candidate will be a good fit. Is he a great chap but a wrong fit for this JD? Given a chance, will they hire this person back and work with him again?