How to Hire a Product Manager?

December 21, 2022

Product management is one of the most crucial functions in modern organizations. Regardless of whether you run a product-based or service-based enterprise, you cannot build and run a business without a product development team, which is further led by a product manager.

How else do you expect to build a platform that your prospects can use to buy your offerings?

So product management followed by development is the reason organizations exist, operate, and scale up. It’s evident why you need to hire deeply experienced and talented product managers. This becomes even more vital in today’s landscape when technology is evolving rapidly alongside the growing competition.

But how do you source quality product management candidates? What does it take to ensure hiring the top candidates while filling your product manager roles? How can you get started with hiring a product manager?

We discuss the answers to each of these and more in this blog. Stick around to know the ins and outs of hiring a product manager.

What is The Role of a Product Manager?

A product manager is someone who can carry the responsibility of developing a new or an existing product. At a ground level, a product manager is expected to make the most optimal usage of available resources, and design and implement a product development strategy to fulfill the market needs by building valuable products.

Product managers break down complex industrial problems to solve them holistically. From functional requirements to user experience, business, and tech suitability – planning and implementing each aspect of the product is owned by them.

As product managers cover the product lifecycle and are accountable for the outcomes, you need to deeply understand the nuances of this role to be able to hire the right talent. A product manager should have crystal clear answers to:

What are the primary problems the product solves?
Why is there a need for such a product in the market?
Who are they solving the problem for?
How are they going to execute the strategy?

Product management is a completely adaptive role and candidates will need to show resilience as different businesses have varying needs. Additionally, a product manager does not always work on the same project or product. The ownership of the products varies,

So if you’re looking to hire quality product managers, you must take all of the variables into consideration.

How to Hire a Product Manager: Step-By-Step

By now, you know about the generic role of a product manager and the core factors to be kept in mind for a comprehensive analysis. To get started with sourcing and recruiting candidates for product management roles, you need to create a step-by-step action plan.

Before we dive into the recruitment funnel, you need to ensure that you have the role defined in advance. Having the roles and responsibilities explicitly defined helps your hiring process in numerous ways.

When you have an immediate understanding of business needs and the technicalities of the role, it significantly boosts your recruiting efficiency and helps reduce the friction in collaborative decisions.

Step 1: Analyze the Role Requirements and Outline Your Recruiting Process

Study the previously defined job roles and requirements thoroughly. At a broader level, product managers are required to lead all product initiatives successfully. When you dive deep, you will find the most important responsibilities of a product manager:

Find a product-market fit for the problems being assigned to them
Create a product hypothesis and validate it
Drive product strategies with data-based decisions and insights.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams and lead the product towards execution
Define and track relevant business objectives

Prior to sourcing and recruiting candidates, recruiters and hiring managers should know what they expect from the candidate and the recruiting process. Create a document with your entire recruitment journey outlined – it can be really valuable for your entire team.

As the hiring continues, the document should be continuously updated with new strategies, channels of recruiting, and other valuable insights with time.

Step 2: Set Up Your Expectations

Not all product managers would be great with customer experience (CX), and similarly not all the selected candidates would be qualified enough for leading the platform development or the tech part. Additionally, degrees in product management don’t matter as much as experience and deep knowledge about a particular vertical.

Further, the requirements of a product manager in startups are considerably different from that of a product manager in enterprises. For larger organizations, specialized candidates are required. For example - If a multi-national IT firm is hiring a product manager, the expectations in terms of the experience of a specific stream would be extensive – between 5-15 years.

Step 3: Decide on the Qualification Criteria

Next up is the qualification criteria for candidates. As you’re looking for a product manager who can also own the entire product effectively, you should check if the philosophy and style of working match expectations.

It’s vital to set up the right qualification criteria for hiring product managers. Some skills required for all product managers include:

Valuable product instincts
Strong verbal and written communication skills
Leadership and team-building skills

The most important qualification requirements for a product manager are:

Strong technical background
Master’s degree in the relevant field
Experience in building, shipping, and transforming products

Not to forget – there will always be unique business-specific requirements which you would need to take care of.

Step 4: Create a Product Manager Job Description

The primary roles of a product manager are analyzing customer needs, helping businesses to build the right product, and then supporting them to sell it. Additionally, providing the right leadership and setting up product vision also come under the product manager’s responsibilities.

In a majority of organizations, product management involves multiple roles as per the industry and the growth stage.

Various Product Roles: A business has numerous problems to solve which are not limited to one stream only. For example - an e-commerce platform cannot be run effectively with only tech product managers.

Different roles include product manager, product marketing manager, and product owner.

Product management activities: For a business to prosper, the activities that should ideally be taking place for managing and growing products – can be distributed into three parts:

Inbound management activities: ensuring the product delivery.
Strategic Product activities: finding the right product for your business.
Outbound management activities: helping businesses in proactively selling the product.

Product Manager Job Description Template

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Role

A Product Manager is accountable for the planning and execution of products throughout the product life cycle. This includes defining the product vision and collaborating closely with engineering, sales, marketing, and support to ensure revenue and customer satisfaction goals are met. The product manager also makes sure that the product advances the broader strategy and objectives of the business.

Qualifications

Degree in Business Administration, Management, Computer Science, Engineering, Marketing, Economics, or a related field

Responsibilities

Work with other parties to evaluate joint venture and licensing options
Utilize prototypes and early-stage products in beta and pilot programs
Become a leader within the organization
Learn about the elements of the product line and its potential effects on the market as a whole
Plan and define the product strategy across cross-functional teams
Send out MRDs and PRDs with a prioritized feature list and an explanation for each
Study consumer needs, current market trends, current competitor offerings and potential partnerships
Coordinate launch activities with consumer buying trends
Develop sales tools and collateral

Requirements

Proven capacity to create product and marketing strategies and to make suggestions to executive management in an efficient manner
Solid technical background with knowledge of practical expertise in web technologies and software development
Proven product management or associate product manager experience
Practical experience in product design, testing, or development
Experienced in overseeing every phase of a successful product throughout its lifecycle

Soft Skills

Excellent teamwork skills
Good verbal and written communication skills
Skilled at working effectively with cross functional teams
Excellent time-management skills
Strong organizational and project management skills
Strong problem solving skills and a willingness to roll up one’s sleeves to get the job

Bonus

Prior experience in software and web development
Knowledge of SEM and online advertising

Step 5: Create an Attractive Job Post

Job posts are nothing but the advertisements for your job openings. As it’s the primary way through which you will be attracting candidates, your job post should be tailored to draw the attention of top talent.

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Highlight why the role of product manager stands out in your organization among all the competitors.

Start with an introduction. Briefly describe the pay range, perks, benefits, expectations, and responsibilities of the role.

Highlight the company vision and mission stating why candidates generally want to work there
Convey the application process clearly – include the type of assessments and interview rounds.

Step 6: Finalize the Job Portals for Hiring a Product Manager

This step is one of the most important parts of hiring a product manager. The platforms and job boards you post your jobs on define the quality of talent you will attract applications from.

Here are the top job portals for product managers:

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LinkedIn: The most popular platform for sourcing and recruiting candidates, hiring PMs from LinkedIn can be done through job posts and outbound recruitment or passive sourcing.

Glassdoor: One of the most influential employee reviewing platforms for companies all around the world, Glassdoor can be significantly useful for hiring quality product managers.

Product School: Another amazing job posting destination specialized in hiring graduates.

Product Hired: Apart from the popular job board with good product management applications, the platform also allows you to share job posts with the community and social channels.

Mind the Product: A community-based job board, Mind the Product is an exclusive community where you can find out the product management talent you seek.

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Things to Keep in Mind While Recruiting Product Managers

In addition to the core recruitment process your organization follows while hiring product managers, you must consider a few recruiting tips. The following pointers consist of the top 5 expert tips for the recruitment process:

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The candidates you shortlist must be passionate problem-solvers who love playing around with complex problems.
Analyze the candidate’s ability to adapt to multiple role requirements
Gauge their building and shipping experience
Check the candidate’s technical background
Make decisions based on product instincts and creativity

Accelerate Your Hiring for Product Manager with Nurturebox

Are you tired of the conventional job posting approach which now attracts more unqualified candidates than ever? Do you often struggle to close quality candidates through job posts even after spending on ads?

If your answer to any of the questions is a yes, passive candidate sourcing can be an optimal solution for hiring top product management candidates.

Nurturebox is a one-stop talent sourcing and engagement platform which is powered by automation. Here’s how you can source product managers from LinkedIn using Nurturebox:

Install the Nurturebox Chrome plugin and sign up.
On your LinkedIn profile, start sourcing product managers with boolean searches stating the required experience from targeted locations and including other criteria
Add the qualified candidates to your sourcing campaign pipeline with just a click
Automate the candidate engagement through email, Whatsapp and LinkedIn direct messages for reaching out and nurturing candidates at scale.

Amidst today’s noisy digital world, brands find it challenging to create meaningful connections with their customer base and target audience. Getting the target consumer’s attention and persuading them to buy from you gets even trickier. Hence, content marketing has become more crucial than ever for brands to attract, educate, and retain customers.

Content creation is a top priority for 80% of marketers, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be. Consistent, high-quality, and engaging content impacts your audience’s decisions through education and persuasion.

Depending on your business goals and requirements, the role of Content Marketers you hire will vary. The primary responsibilities revolve around forming consistent brand messaging and deciding upon a unique and identifiable voice, style, and pitch across various distribution channels.

From raising brand awareness to attracting a relevant audience to your website, boosting social media presence and engagement, generating leads, and building brand loyalty – content marketing drives all the growth efforts for your brand. When done effectively, it can help you:

Build positive brand awareness
Make your audience stick around for longer
Get better traction on social media
Gain more trust of your audience than ever
Generate qualified leads
Improve conversion rates
Boost business visibility with SEO
Position your brand as an authority
Cultivate loyal brand fans

While content marketing is a broad role with numerous areas of expertise involved, it’s vital to thoroughly understand your company’s current marketing goals and the related requirements. In this blog, we will dive deep into the step-by-step approach to hiring a Content Marketer.

What is The Role of a Content Marketer?

A Content Marketer must be deeply passionate about telling your brand’s story to the world. The objective is to educate and nurture the target audience to establish brand authority using thought-leadership and drive more people to buy from you.

As a candidate is expected to be a mediator between the brand and the target audience, they are primarily responsible for planning, creating, and sharing valuable content to grow their company’s awareness and engagement to bring more business.

To be more specific, the role of a Content Marketer requires a perfect blend of creativity and attention to detail in an individual. It’s a balancing role, as they need to ensure creating content that resonates and strengthens business relationships, using strategies that position your business as authentic and problem-solving.

Take a look at the core responsibilities of a Content Marketer that most businesses expect them to take over:

Research and Competitor Analysis: The first and foremost step to creating a content marketing strategy is effective initial research. It not only helps a Content Marketer understand the nuances of the industry through competitor analysis but also study and understand the target audience thoroughly. ‍
Building Content Marketing Plans: Once the competitor research and target audience analysis is done, a Content Marketer needs to work on the different plans for all the business objectives, targeted channels, segments of the audience, and the bigger marketing strategy. A content marketing plan typically consists of:
Specific goals along with a pre-decided timeline
Various channels to be targeted for content distribution
Types of content to be created
Budget for the entire staff, outsourced services, and paid promotion (Collabs and Ads)
Creating Editorial Calendar: Creating, managing, and maintaining a content calendar is one of the most crucial responsibilities of a Content Marketer. It is a centralized visual document that enables effective collaboration among the marketing team and helps Content Marketers ensure on-time production and delivery.‍
Content Creation: Once the strategy and calendar have been approved by relevant stakeholders, Content Marketers need to do the on-ground work. This task usually depends on the scale of your company and content marketing strategy. Suppose an organization already has a set of writers, then the Content Marketer doesn’t need to create content by themselves.‍
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Producing quality content that educates your target audience and resonates with them, isn’t enough. You need to optimize your content creation to make it search engine-friendly. While most companies need a dedicated SEO specialist for keyword research and planning, Content Marketers need to closely collaborate with them and should be well-versed in the basics of SEO.

While the practices discussed above are primary responsibilities of a Content Marketer, they also need to be proactive with

Content editing and ensuring adherence to a certain style guide
Continous publishing and distributing content
Measuring and analyzing performance

How to Hire a Content Marketer: Step-By-Step?

Content marketing has become the key to driving growth for businesses. Unlike a few years ago, it’s not possible now to get away with a one-person team for content marketing. You need deeply trained individuals for specialist roles.

Let’s now dive into the step-by-step approach of hiring a Content Marketer. But before you even source your first candidate, you should have a clear expectation of the skillset and experience to look out for top content marketing candidates.

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Step 1: Create a Candidate Persona

Let’s sort out the priorities first, and decide the type of content marketing candidates you want to recruit. From exceptional research skills to storytelling, communication skills, relationship building, audience engagement, and more capabilities must be comprehensively considered. Identify and break down the skill requirements for Content Marketers:

What are the educational qualification criteria for the role?
How many years and what type of work experience do you want in candidates?
What are the specific skill sets you’re looking for?
Which industry experience would you primarily prefer?
Are there any tools your candidates should be hands-on with?
What are some personality traits that will fit your company?
Where do they look for a new job?
What are their career and life goals?

Forming a candidate persona by answering all these questions would ensure you are not shooting in the dark while sourcing candidates. Further, it helps you determine the traits of the ideal candidate, and plan your sourcing and recruitment strategy further.

Step 2: Document the Role Requirements and Decide on Your Recruiting Process

Next step is determining your role requirements suiting primarily to organizational needs and business goals. A content marketing professional is expected to own the entire content strategy, creation, and distribution. But what about your business’s unique requirements?

You might need someone comfortable with frequently creating long-form content pieces like blogs, ebooks, or whitepapers, or creating engaging video content based on your industry trends.

Talk to various relevant stakeholders for seeking the complete detailed company requirements for the role.

Before you enter the recruitment funnel, outline your talent acquisition process. Identify various strategies, channels, and other informational insights you would need – and maintain a collaborative document.

As you update the tactics and tweak your recruitment process for meeting hiring requirements optimally – keep your document up to date.

Step 3: Prepare a Content Marketing Job Description

Once you have finalized the role requirements with respect to your current content marketing goals and team, you can start sourcing candidates. Preparing the job description is the first task you’ll need to do.

Here are the necessary components you must have in your job description:

Job Title: The position you’re looking to fill. For example - Content Marketing Specialist or Content Marketing Manager.

Roles & Responsibilities: An outline of the candidate’s day-to-day activities. From ideation to implementation and the impact on the organization, everything should be covered.

Skill Requirements: Skills and abilities a candidate must have to perform the job successfully.

Perks and Benefits: The compensation details, perks of the job, and any other benefits.

About the Company: Why should a candidate consider working with your company?

Content Marketer Job Description Template

Role

The job of a Content Marketer is to perform competitor research, create user persona, and write plagiarism-free content for blog articles, social media, and the company website. They need to stay updated on the latest SEO techniques.

Responsibilities

Develop, write and deliver persuasive copy for the website, email marketing campaigns, sales collateral, videos, and blogs
Build and manage an editorial calendar; coordinate with other content crafters to ensure standards
Measure impact and perform analysis to improve KPIs
Include and optimize all content for SEO
Contribute to the localization of processes and content to ensure consistency across regions
Review and implement process changes to drive operational excellence

Requirements

Proven content marketing, copywriting, or SEO experience
Working knowledge of content management systems like WordPress
A well-maintained portfolio of published articles, blogs, copy, etc
Proven experience of working under pressure to deliver high quality output in a short span of time
Proficiency in all Microsoft Office applications, Google Suite
Fluency in English or any other required language

Soft Skills

Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Excellent writing and editing skills
The ability to work in a fast-paced environment
The ability to handle multiple projects concurrently
Strong attention to detail and the ability to multi-task projects and deliverables

Step 4: Source Candidates

Once you have the tailored job description in hand, it’s now time to do the groundwork and source candidates. Create an attractive job post to promote your job across job boards and social channels.

Begin with what to expect from the role at your company?
Why should candidates apply for the position?
Highlight the growth opportunities
State the company vision and mission
Briefly describe the recruitment process

Prepare an impactful job post and also execute paid job ad campaigns if required. The next step would be promoting your jobs on various job boards and hiring platforms. You can leverage the following platforms for hiring Content Marketers:

LinkedIn
Indeed
Instahyre
ZipRecruiter
Monster
GlassDoor
CareerBuilder

Not to forget - almost 3/4th of the workforce includes passive candidates, so you cannot miss out on passive talent sourcing as well. Reach out to qualified candidates on communities, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook to offer them suitable opportunities.

Step 5: Evaluate Candidates and Interview Shortlisted Ones

Once you have filtered candidates based on their experience and skills listed on their profile, it’s time to evaluate them deeply. Ask them to create a content strategy for your website, along with a value-adding content piece like a small blog. The topic of the article must fall within the scope of the strategy.

Interview the candidates whose profiles got shortlisted. Keep in mind the parameters covering skills, relevant experience, and personality traits of candidates.

Step 5: Make the Hire

Reach out to selected Content Marketers and communicate about the compensation.

Further, extend your offer letter to all the candidates who have been selected. In the case of passive sourcing, extend to only those who were aligned with you on the compensation and are willing to move forward.

Ensure having a deadline for the joining date and mention the necessary documents required by your recruiting team.

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Get the required documents and set up the offer agreements with candidates
Organize an orientation session for the onboarded candidates
Introduce them to the entire team and the marketing teams they will be working with
Guide the new candidates about your company management tools and communication channels
Provide candidates with forms for benefits and perks like Health Insurance.

Supercharge Your Hiring for Content Marketer with Nurturebox

Inbound candidate sourcing doesn’t work effectively anymore. Do you also find challenges in closing quality candidates through job posts even after spending on ads?

Don’t worry, passive candidate sourcing can be an optimal solution for hiring top content marketing candidates.