 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening wherever you are. My name is Tom Markworth. I'm excited to talk to you today I'm going to be talking about Undergraduate's guide to product management as a career first of all must want to thank the product school Which is the online leader and product management education for having me here today a Little bit about myself before I dive into my talk. I've got over 20 years in product management experience Started my career in consumer hardware at companies like HP and in Logitech Moved on to consumer digital media where I was an early product manager at Roku and also worked at at Shutterfly And most currently I am in software as a service I had several years at at ring central and now am a lead product manager at zoom So My goal today is to give you a little bit of overview of like what it is a product manager does and and how you can find yourself Oh into a product management career as as an undergraduate student So what would you do as a as a product manager anyways? At a very high level A pm will help deliver products that have business and user impact So what exactly does that mean? well in in three words I described product management as Finding a problem that needs solving Looking for a solution to that problem and then measuring the outcome of that solution And it's really kind of an ongoing loop because it's so wonderful about product management Is like your job really is never done you come up with a solution to a problem You measure the outcome But then you figure out about how to make that that product better and better so that it solves that problem better and better so Let's talk about the tools that a Product manager uses and I like to do this in combination with like all the inputs that you've got you spend your whole day as a product manager getting Feedback from customers you do that by surveying customers by talking to customers You look at usage data through product analytics tools You get competitive insights whether you are kind of going out and using competitive products yourself or you have Colleagues that that are able to you know assess those competitive insights You look at market trends and then very importantly looking at technology trends because that can help You know kind of dictate, you know what you can and can't do The tools and techniques of a product manager Surveys, um, I I love to use surveys That's a good way to get a qualitative pulse on on what customers are doing with the product Interviews like nothing takes the place of being able to talk to a customer directly Collaboration so if you think about You know product managers role it's it's to work with all sorts of different people in the company I'll talk about that in a second, but but having good collaboration tools To to work with others in your company are super important Wireframing so wireframing is being able to put like, uh, you know your ideas in in a visual state Most product managers will be able to work directly with designers But sometimes it's great to be able to just show visually like what you what you mean and how you how you might approach solving a problem project task management Software super important to to being able to to track the progress of your project to be able to communicate You know requirements that you have and those go hand in hand with like software development tools like uh Like a Jira where you might write user stories product analytics tools Like uh like a mix panel or amplitude are great for being able to assess what's going on in your in your product and And finally experimentation and testing software. So you're able to launch something out uh to to customers and Be able to test it before you you you roll it out to to a hundred percent of customers for what product managers deliver there's A whole bunch of of deliverables they can be from you know, really small things to really big things Um, some of the big deliverables that a product manager have is the as a backlog You know backlog as a list of like all the projects that you could be doing Uh kind of usually ranked by by some sort of a priority and that really helps you decide. Okay. What's going to be important in the next in the next, uh You know sprint quarter or however you do your development cycle I'm competitive assessment that's being able to take a real thorough look at Everyone in your space and understand like what's going on and what makes your product You know really unique from from others that are already out in the market kickoff documents kickoff documents are uh, you know, think of it as like a presentation or a document that you Share with your team like all your cross-functional stakeholders before you kick off a project gets everyone on the same page As to you know, what it is you're going to be doing with your with your project requirements The requirements are like are written and in in visual Uh, you know indications of what it is the team is actually going to build and Usually you do those those requirements in conjunction with uh with a designer Um feature previews, you know as you're getting close to launching something you want to be able to tell Others in your company, you know potentially, uh your customers as to like what's actually, you know What's actually coming a feature preview gives you an overview Of of what it is you just built and then finally dashboards, you know once I talked earlier about outcomes And once you've launched your product It's great to be able to assess the effectiveness of them So dashboards are a tool that show You know, how many people are are using this feature and and you know, how long are they spending on the feature and any other And I've you know key product Indicators that that you're tracking for your for your new product Um One thing I absolutely love about being a product manager is you get to work with so many Different people in your company. I call them, you know stakeholders Uh in those very let me talk through some of them. So you'll work, you know, if you're particularly if you're working like on a product that a customer kind of touches, you know, whether that's a physical electronics product or a piece of software like uh, like an app or A website you'll spend a lot of time with designers kind of thinking through the the user experience Uh marketing is is your partner for you know, how you take something that you're that is close to finished and And telling the world about it so that you start to get, you know users and and sales Your support team an amazing stakeholder and and and while you may not be doing support yourself The support team is is a great stakeholder in terms of helping educate a product manager as to like different problems that a customer is having like, uh, you know, our When you when you one thing I like to do with my support team is get a get a ranking of like top call Drivers to really understand like what sort of problems customers are having like when they call in and those are those are potential problem areas for someone in product management role to solve Engineering in qa, of course, those are your partners for actually getting the the product built You know engineers do the you know do the coding and Of the product that you're going to build and in qa is the is the team that helps Test that qa stands for for quality assurance Usually those are those are engineers as well Your your finance and legal roles help make sure that you know, whatever it is you're doing is is going to stand up Legally that they're you know, for example, there's no privacy concerns that You know finance can help you understand You know what it would take to break even on your project to help you be able to forecast usage Other pms are amazing stakeholders You know sometimes you'll you'll work with other product managers and other areas of your company to Bring together a product and and sometimes it's just great to get feedback from other you know other smart pms in in your company And finally your your executive team Another key stakeholder Your executive team of course responsible for setting strategic direction for the company and Your product direction, you know has to really fit into the strategic direction of the of the company You know one of the questions I get from a lot of product managers to be is like what do you what do you do every day and Product managers do so many different things Every day and and there is no typical day as a product manager That's one of the reasons I love being a product manager Like some things you might do like, you know, you might be Involved with your designer, you know reviewing reviewing, you know, what's called a UX or user experience design and and those are the You know, those are the you know, I talked earlier about wire frames the wire frames that show like how a A user actually goes through your your product, you know, whether it's like a you know A sign-up flow or trying to make a a transaction It's really important to be able to to design those flows to decide like, you know When users have to make a decision what happens when they decide to do x versus y Talking to customers It's really important as a as a product manager to reach out, you know directly to to customers In some cases, you know, if you're in a consumer business, you're just able to You know reach out to customers directly and talk to them other times you you Do it through, you know, your sales force if you're, you know, working on a big enterprise product um, you might find yourself running a Project team meeting in a given day where you bring together all the stakeholders involved in In designing and and building your product and and to check in on progress of the project You know, sometimes your job after you've set the requirements is really just to unblock your team You know figure out like what's what's going on with everybody and and if somebody's running into a roadblock for Whenever reason You figure out the best way to kind of unblock that Unblock that partner so that they can keep going Product managers usually will spend a lot of time analyzing usage data usage data really tells us like what's going on In the product, you know, how many people are using this? uh, You know retention is is A top type of piece of data that I look at so if somebody starts using my feature or my product on day one On day seven on day 30. How many of those users continue to use the product? There's all sorts of usage data It's it's you know, if you're thinking about being a product manager definitely recommend You know looking at, you know, the top types of of metrics that That product managers look at because that is something that you'll talk about in interviews and something they'll use on a on a daily basis Writing requirements, you know, once you realize, okay, this is my solution to problem acts Well, now you got to put pen to paper and start writing your requirements now different companies communicate requirements in Incredibly different ways it can be long document. It can be a set of user stories It might be something visual like a ux design or it might even be a prototype that that uh engineers build from so, you know, the way requirements are are communicated really different from company to company But it is the job of a product manager to to you know, summarize those requirements So the team's really kind of all marching in the same direction Sometimes, you know, I talked about executives and executives that can be such a key critical stakeholder Managing the expectations of interested executives is Is something you'll do because there might be somebody on your your executive staff who's just Really want something delivered in a certain timeframe So your job is the product manager to be the interface Kind of between your team, you know and the executive team in terms of managing those expectations You know talked about marketing as a as a stakeholder You know, you might as you again as you're getting close to launching a product brief your marketing and support You're telling them like what what is really unique about this product The solution that I've built that is so it's going to be so different from you know, other things out in the market And finally, you know consulting with legal and security on the viability of a of a plan something that you May think is uh, you know sounds, you know, very reasonable, you know, maybe it has, you know, legal will highlight some some concerns from a privacy perspective that you didn't think about and that's why it's so incredibly important to you know to really develop a You know a a whole bunch of uh contacts within your company that are cross-functional stakeholders Um You know, whatever you do during the day, you know, whether it's like really working kind of low level on on product design or You know high level strategy Everything you do during the day as a product manager to support the following, you know One is, you know, really being able to create And share your product strategy and the roadmap that helps you realize that strategy You want to understand your user or customer needs, you know, you can't really Solve a problem unless you understand like what the problem is Uh prioritizing what gets built. Um, so, you know, if you've got three different things that you can build Uh prioritizing between one two and three are are really important and brings kind of clarity to to the team in terms of What they need to execute first Delivering the feature. Um, of course, that's important. That is now working with the engineers you're answering their questions along the way and if a requirement's not clear or You know kind of helping clarify what what the you know, what it is you want to get built um or uh, you know Other things that are important are are assessing impact So I talked about like all the different things that a product manager can do during the day, um, you know, so whether you're doing Real low-level work in terms of just defining the intricate intricacies of your product or you're working on high-level strategy Whatever you do during the day should support several different things, you know One is creating and sharing a product strategy and roadmap your roadmap is really the The the the documents that helps communicate to your team, you know, whether it's your development team or interested Parties like your marketing and sales Team like what it is you're planning on doing over a given time periods You need to understand your user and customer needs and and that's so spending time doing that every day Is critical to making sure you're solving the right problems Your job as a product product manager is prioritization. So you need to prioritize what gets built if you have Three different options It's your job to try to assess, you know, what is going to be kind of like the lowest Or the highest return Projects and by highest return. I mean, it's it's the lowest amount of effort for the greatest amount of return The return can be You know, something financial it can be, you know, increasing usage of the product There's a lot of different ways that you you measure return But it's your job as a product manager to to prioritize and and I know a lot of other instructors at At product school have talked about the, you know, the importance of prioritization Delivering the feature, you know, as you start your team starts developing your products You need to be there along the way and to help, you know, clarify questions. You know, maybe An engineer comes to you and has a, you know, a different recommendation from something that you put into A requirement is your job to kind of think through that synthesize that information and either of course correct or, you know, help People kind of help clarify You know, what it is you intended to do I'm assessing impact, you know, that's after you've launched something like what what what kind of impacted my product have did I Increase usage, you know, did I increase retention? You know, what what was the results of what it is I did And then finally, you know, unblocking champion your team Like I said before product manager work with so many different people I think it's incredibly Important for a product manager to be always on the outlook for their team and thinking about what they can Do to help, you know, unblock their their team from, you know, challenges that they're having along the development cycle So how do you be successful in a product management role? Let's talk about Why product management might be a good career for you, you know, product management is a good career for you If you love working in cross-functional teams, you love You know, really working with people from all sorts of different parts of the company in, you know, and from with customers, of course Uh product manager might be a good career for you if you can really bounce between, you know, doing getting into the low level details of a product and in in going all the way up to like high level strategy, you know, product managers constantly Are are are changing their their their focus and and you need to be able to do that as a product manager Product manager is a great career if you love Finding and solving problems, you know, as I mentioned at the beginning of the Of the presentation Product managers really find problems They then find solutions to those those problems and then measure outcomes If you love listening to others Uh That might make that product management a good career for you product managers really have to to listen You have to listen to your engineers as to what's technically feasible You have to listen to customers in terms of what they want You have to listen to your finance team in terms of, you know, how many resources you actually can throw at a problem Um, you really have to spend time listening and then finally If you want to have a a big impact but not a big team product management, uh can be a great career for you Early in your product management career, you will probably find yourself managing no one and even as you move up your career Um, there are often a lot less product managers than people in other functions like like, uh, engineers at your company And you may, uh, you know only have a small team, but your impact is is is incredibly Um, you know profound on on the company success So skills you'll need to develop, you know, if you're, uh, a sophomore Junior in college or, you know, maybe you're a graduate student You know hear the skills that you want to think about and that will probably be assessed When you interview for a product management role One communication, you know really being able to have strong kind of written Verbal communication is important. Uh, and it's it's it's not just like how well you write it's it's You know how, you know concise you are how, um, you know How persuasive you are in putting together an argument as to, you know, why something, you know should be done Collaboration Again, because you work with so many different people the ability to to collaborate as a team member is incredibly important Critical thinking, you know, you'll have to You know assess, you know, why you should be taking A certain direction and to really be able to think through a problem as to, you know, why is this solution? The best, you know, kind of answer to this problem or do I even have the problem, you know, right to to begin with creativity, um, you know product managers will have to You know come up with creative solutions to, you know, to problems you're trying to do something that nobody else has You know perhaps done before leadership times you have to step in and And lead and that, you know leadership doesn't necessarily mean, you know managing somebody who's underneath you Leadership means, you know, really inspiring a team, you know helping them understand Why does this team even exist to begin with and in moving that team along towards a shared outcome Time management because you have so many different things to do during the day You'll want to be able to, you know, manage your time effectively Uh, a lot of times as a product manager that that means deciding, you know, what do you not do during the day? Is I have a lot of days where I'm just like so overloaded that I've really got to prioritize my work and decide Like what what's important to be done ability to apply technology You know sometimes product managers come from very technical backgrounds. They've been engineers themselves But like myself, I I didn't study engineering But I I have to work with engineers on a daily basis And so, you know Studying about technology talking to your Engineers about technology is important so that you can understand like what's possible when it comes up When it comes around to, you know, finding a solution And then finding finally, uh industry domain knowledge is is important You're not going to have that as as an undergraduate, but as you get into your first role, you know, really Understanding everything about your, you know, your industry your market Makes you a valuable team member because you'll be able to more effectively find problems to solutions Uh When I interview candidates, uh, I look for like all those skills that I mentioned before but there's Also, you know, very importantly traits that that I look for in a product manager So one key trait is is empathy. Um, you have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of others To really find the best solutions that work for for your customers Passion, you know looking for someone who's just like really excited about solving the, you know, the You know interesting problems and in and launching those out into the markets, you know A lot of hiring managers and product manager will just look for people who are very passionate about products and in building in general Curiosity is important so You look for people that you know have that curiosity to to go and Look for, you know, all sorts of of data and, you know, uh, you know customer Customer-facing knowledge Integrity, you know, you of course you want to be trusted as a as a product leader and And you need to be seeing someone that other team members can be counted on And finally intelligence and then and then confidence You know sometimes You may come up with a solution that you aren't Not 100 sure you are But you're, you know, you're 98 sure and you need to show that confidence with the team That that, you know, you're making the right direction and and pushing that team, you know on Let's talk now about how you find your first product manager position Um Let's talk about Fit first, you know, when you get your first product manager position You want to look for something that is like the right fit for, you know, who you are And in product management, there's actually a bunch of different roles that can exist particularly as you get into a larger company like my own You might be working on something that's like a core product and that's, you know, a core product is What, you know, generally like the the product that your company is known for But there's all sorts of other different product manager roles that are really interesting and growth product management you're focused on You know small optimizations of your products because you're you're trying to improve The number of users who activate into your product the the number of users that are retained in in as a growth product manager You think about those those smaller things that, you know That if you're able to make those changes can lead to, you know, really strong Um, you know outcomes for the company kind of uh down the road platform product managers are Often more technical and they're putting together All the that the the apis that that are, you know, really like the back end behind your product and thinking about like how your product Can be, you know, put together in a platform where, you know, other developers outside of your company can can build on top of your product Um, there's technical vertical product managers a vertical product manager someone who Thinks about how do I take? the product that I've developed and You know really modify it or advocate for features that work for say a particular industry You know verticals might be like the healthcare industry that has you know, very specific privacy Requirements it might be financial services. It might be um education where Uh, a lot of the users of the product are, uh, you know, younger Students you know have their own needs. So there's a lot of really interesting vertical product management work as well Partnership integrations those are product managers who think about like well, how does my product work with? You know work with another product, you know, how can I? Uh, for example, you know embed my product in a collaboration Plot uh platform or a crm platform Or maybe i'm trying to get other companies to you know integrate directly into my products um And that's like what a partnership kind of product manager does is like working with lots of other companies to either Take your product and have it work in their products or take their product and have it work in your products And finally there's specialized product managers These are are typically, you know, kind of more experienced folks who who have kind of deep knowledge and something like security how to how to launch a product internationally or Privacy concerns. So so many different different fits But it's important to find one that's really interesting to you But it should be a position fit. There's also company fits And you know one of the things is uh, you know, someone who wants to be a product manager You gotta think about like well what type of company do I want to work for? um some some key uh, you know kind of Different ways you can evaluate like a company is looking at its its company phase Uh, you you know, are you looking at a company that's in startup mode? Is it in growth mode or is it a mature product? Uh, you know startups are you know, usually much smaller companies Mature uh companies, of course, are much bigger and there's there's pluses and minuses to working in You know in in both, you know in a startup you'll have the opportunity to wear all sorts of hats and do all sorts of different things Um at a mature company, you'll probably have a much narrower role But you'll have all sorts of resources throughout the company whether it's, you know, a research team or a really developed Uh design team to to you know to help you do things and you'll Likely have a much bigger audience, you know, you'll be Launching products at scale. So it's it's You know, really important to think about, you know, do I want to be wearing lots of hats working? You know really quickly kind of in a startup phase or do I want like the resources and Reach that uh that a mature bigger company has Uh product type a lot of different product types, but you know, are you really interested in something that's more Uh software oriented or something that's more, you know hardware oriented Uh, you know hardware is fascinating because you're producing a physical product that has to be Distributed around the world. It has to be packaged and messaged and priced Um software is really interesting because uh, you know, what's a wonderful about software is It can change so frequently you can launch something you can test it and depending on the results of those tests you can You know within a matter of weeks or even days You know change your your your product And and you're able to measure in in software as well, which you know makes software really interesting Who's your who's your target customer, you know, are you Really interested in launching products um in the consumer space what you know, what we call kind of B to C Or enterprise, uh, you know enterprise is business to business and you're building A product that other businesses use And and so which one is is interesting to you Uh product appeal there's kind of mass market market products and then there's kind of Neat products, you know and each product is something that really goes after a particular vertical Uh, it might be like a product that that vertical uses really regularly on a on a daily basis like take like Property management software and that you if you're building property management software You're building something that like a product property manager uses on a daily basis But mass market like a like a streaming service For example, you're you're trying to build a product that applies to Or is of interest to millions and in millions of users, but you know, they may use your product one day But then not the not the next There's all sorts of different revenue models subscription Fees are a big way that that Companies can make money Advertising and then transaction, you know, whether it's you know, e-commerce transaction or You know, if you have a marketplace product like a delivery service Transactions are another, you know, kind of revenue model um culture This is like one of you know of this list This is probably one of the most important things to look at in terms of finding custom Company fits is your company a very engineering driven culture You know or is it a very kind of sales and marketing driven in culture? I've worked in I've worked in both and there's you know, there's pluses and minuses to you know to to both and You have to find like what's the right fit for you? and then Finally, you know ever, uh, you know Since the last couple of of years You know the you know thinking about like your your work styles incredibly important too. Um, you know, what's so You know, what's been so, um Such a big change, you know over these these past couple of years with the pandemic is there's um a much greater acceptance of doing product management remotely I I do my my job probably 95 percent remotely um and and And uh, I guess pre-pandemic so many product managers were expected to be in the office, you know They're with their their teams Um You get to decide um a lot of times now. Do I want to find a role where I am in In person, uh, do I want to be you know remote because I I really want to be you know in my hometown Or do I want something that's hybrid where I'm working for home sometimes? But then I have that opportunity to go in and collaborate with my colleagues Uh, you know in person as well in the office Let's now talk about the Pasta getting into product management as an undergrad Um, first I want to talk about direct pass and I'm going to talk about indirect past um Before I get in there like I want to share a story so You know, probably twice a summer I go to yosemite national park and I live in the the bay area california and to to get to yosemite you have to Drive up into the sierra mountains and at some point before the entrance of You know, semi park there is a a a a steep grade that you have to go up and um, it's called A priest grade and there is a an old priest grade path that you can take and there is a new priest grade path that you can take the old path is Straight up a hill it's super steep kind of dangerous. Um, but it is like the the direct Uh, the most direct in the quickest way to to get to the top There is a much more indirect way called the new priest grade road that is is very windy It's got great scenery very safe and it still gets you to the top both paths kind of You know end up at the same place one takes a little bit longer And in a scenic the other gets you there more directly You know similarly with like your product management career There are kind of different paths that you can take So a direct path into product management is um, you know going straight into product management right after your undergraduate degree One great way to do that is in a with a bigger company looking for companies that have an associate product manager program These are very structured rotational programs At top tech companies where they um, take you, you know in with a Class of other colleagues and and expose you to different product management Challenges in the in the company's philosophies over the first year and make sure that you get placed in a role that's right for you You know kind of on the other end if you're looking at smaller companies networking becomes Incredibly important and a lot of smaller companies won't Start hiring product managers until they have an actual need And so if you're looking at a smaller company You might be looking at interviewing kind of very late You know in the year Versus like a structured Program a apm program. They might be doing interviews much earlier Like you know even in the the fall for jobs that don't start until the the next summer Um in internships are an incredibly great way to to get a role So, you know if you can find a good internship after your sophomore junior year You work really hard Show that you know you you fit into the the company You might be able to leverage that internship into you know a full-time role after you know after college But those are kind of three of the you know the different pass direct pass into product as an undergrad Now let's talk about the indirect pass I think an indirect path is absolutely you know, okay and There's kind of three grouping of jobs that can be really Helpful if you're thinking about a product management career, you know one is just to understand. How do you build products? so starting out as a as a designer and engineer, you know someone in program management who's who's really kind of you know bringing together a lot of the cross-functional team and and and Developing the the plan for the the the team to you know execute on or you know in analytics to you know really get to understand You know the kind of the outcome part of building products Another one is taking products to to market You know if you were in a marketing sales role business development role You get that chance to really understand like what customers what partners are are thinking about products um And and and you know a product manager has got to be able to mount balance kind of both You know the build aspect as well as the the take product products to market aspect And getting experience in either of those can be uh, you know a great way to get into product management Finally How supporting product users, you know, if you have a chance to work in operations Uh, a customer support role you'll get to hear on a daily basis like what product managers Or what customers are are thinking about a product what frustrations that they have and that could be a great foundation to You know kind of transitioning into a product management role because you already have that experience of You know what you know what customers think about a product So totally fine to start on an indirect path Is as well into into product management In fact, when I started in product management really was You know indirect path was the the predominant way of of getting in because you look for people who would have You know experience and in you know either building products or taking products Uh to market, you know to to be a product manager Finally, let's talk about preparing for your first interview if you are talking to a company. Let's call it company x One of the things you definitely want to do is use that company's products You know go through the sign up flow start using it Uh and then develop like opinions on what could be you know improve, you know, what you like Understand like the problem that that company's product is solving If you are at a school that has a great alumni network It's worth reaching out uh to you know to to fellow alumni that work at that company um, you know, you may not hear from 9 out of 10 alumni that you reach out to but that one alum who's willing to spend time with you and Answer some questions can give you some incredibly useful insight on on you know the interview process and and how to be successful Read tips from uh recent successful uh candidates A lot of candidates will will post online in various forums like their You know, it's about their interview experience and like what you know, what worked for them It's important to know what type of interview questions are used at the company that you're interviewing with Some companies like to use uh product sense questions where they really Get into your ability to understand what's going on in a product Other companies will use design questions Where they'll ask you to To you know design a product that that works for a specific type of user A lot of companies will use behavioral questions where they'll ask you To you know talk about a time for example that you had to use your analytic skills on on something So understanding the interview questions that are used at a particular company is is is important because every company kind of assesses candidates differently Then learn frameworks for the question types used lots of great resources out on the out of the internet and You know through companies like like product school that can give you Information on the the different types of frameworks that are used in In different types of questions, you know a framework is just like a set way that Allows you to kind of walk through a problem and show your thinking in a very structured manner Treat each interview as a as a conversation You know, this is really important like no matter what type of role you're interviewing for but You know, it's your job to to really assess Is this a good fit for me? You know, just like they're assessing if you're a good fit for their company You want to be able to go in with a good set of questions to ask Of your interview Finally, make sure that you're displaying passion, empathy, empathy and integrity Those are three of the top traits that I mentioned earlier in this presentation That you want to have as a product manager because as a as a someone who's an undergraduate You don't have a lot of experience to bring to the table So, you know, your your your traits are going to be incredibly important to you know to be able to to show off Well, that's it. Um, hopefully this this talk was uh, uh, you know, interesting and helpful to you really enjoyed Um, you know really enjoyed the the conversation and uh, thank you very much