Have you heard the phrase, “All roads lead to Rome?” Well, we got one - “Any career leads to product management.” The career path of a PM is not a linear one & career transition to Product Management isn't either. Anyone with curiosity and the right attitude can walk the road to PM.
Regardless of your current role, there are 2 main ways to get into the PM space:
- Internal transitions within your company
- Move to an Associate Product Management role in another company
Career Transition to Product Management: 4 Roles & Their Transferrable Skills
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Engineering:
- Technical Skills: Approaching Product Management with technical skills & understanding the technical concepts of the company’s product can help you in the long run.
- Lean Thinking: Almost every engineer is aware of the concept of “Lean”, which gives them an edge over non-technical candidates. Product Managers are meant to see the bigger picture by reducing waste, testing, learning fast, making data-driven decisions, etc. & this is applied to different aspects of the business.
- Growth-Hacking: Though it's a marketing word, engineers initially adapted it. Knowing what people click on and what attracts or repels them can be a great instrument while creating a product.
2. Marketing
- User Research: One of the primary goals of a Product Manager is to give the customer what they want. The three user research techniques that are currently most frequently used are usability testing, interviews, and surveys.
- Market Research: For Product Managers, It is an absolute necessity for success. They will have to accumulate & interpret information about market drivers, products & customer needs.
- Communication Skills: As a product manager, your responsibility is to express your expectations to product developers and designers in writing and verbally. Make sure they carry out in a method that fits your requirements by expressing the product’s necessity & explaining consumer pain points that are to be solved.
3. Consulting
- Strong Analytical Skills: It will help you make well-formed decisions by analyzing the data & understanding how well you & your team are doing, how successful you’ve been at solving customer problems, and how well you are navigating things with other teams.
- Prioritization: A key skill for problem-solving. Your success will depend on your ability to perform straight-back calculations and efficiently measure the impact of resources required.
- Stakeholder Management: Stakeholders are the key to building a team. In PM, decision-making is not a one-man task & the smartest way is to collect & sythesize inputs from stakeholders & having the skill to manage stakeholders is important because the outcome of the decisions directly impacts the stakeholders.
4. Design
- Basic Interaction Design Skills: The objectives of their users should be clear to a product manager, who can then build product features on these objectives. In addition, it's crucial to establish the user's path through the many screens and pages of the product, as well as the site's general information architecture.
- Usability Testing: Usability testing is a method for determining how simple or complex people find a company's product to be. PMs test the ease of use, efficiency & user-friendliness of the product to gain data for improvements.
Note: The above-mentioned are not the only careers that can transition to PM. Career Transition to Product Management is not impossible. Consider any of your professions & try to apply the transferrable skills & learn the required skills. Voila! You'll be set on a successful journey to PM.
Top Technical Or Hard-Core Skills You’ll Need To Build For Career Transition To Product Management
- Product Lifecycle Utilization: You must comprehend how to take advantage of the product lifecycle in your role as a product manager. This is because it makes it easier for you to plan each step of any product you're working on, including its launch, growth, maturity, and decline, along with the teams you collaborate with.
- Product Release Management: To ensure a seamless product release, it is your responsibility to ensure that everyone, including other managers, designers, and developers, is aware of the precise end goal of the new product or update and how they intend to get there.
- Product Strategy Development: Your product strategy outlines who your target market is, your customer personas, and how you intend to be successful with your new product. They assist you in developing clear plans to build the product and practical tactics for designers and developers to work with.
- Knowledge of Agile Methodology: Agile is a project management methodology that allows for creating products fast & flexibly. Agile knowledge increases your employability and increases your appeal to companies. Nobody wants their product manager to rush through upgrades that aren't functional or to miss deadlines.
- Prototyping Abilities: It is one of the ways to communicate with the stakeholders before moving into the full development phase to avoid wasting money by identifying the problem early on. As a Product Manager, you should be able to prototype the idea & illustrate & test it.
- A/B Testing: This is done to compare two versions of a product to see which works best. This helps you in knowing about the consumers' needs & implementing them to create a better product.
Read:
From Coding to Product Management: Career Transition Guide
You don’t have to worry if you are a fresher/recent graduate, a clean slate is a good start too! Learn the skills, concepts & tools of Product Management and break into it with an entry-level position. Like we said earlier, anyone with curiosity and the right attitude can walk the road to PM.
So, How To Break Into The Product Management Space?
Well, we are not going to answer that here because who are we to tell you when we’ve got an entire lineup of expert product managers who’ve worked with top companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Goibibo, etc.?
It is one of our most popular programs and has been receiving a great influx of applications! So here we are, with another batch of the Product Management program, designed & crafted by experts to help you maximize your chances of building your dream career in Product Management.
Why AltUni?
- Get invaluable industry exposure by working on 2 Live Industry Projects. Work on industries similar to our past live projects like Kuku FM, Piramal Finance, Fablestreet, Apollo Finvest, etc.
- Work on 4 Portfolio Building Projects in E-commerce, Gig Economy, D2C, and Media & Entertainment industries & showcase them on customized portfolio templates
- Learn in-depth concepts from product roadmap, strategy, design & development to testing, analytics & growth
- Master in-demand tools like Mural, Balsamiq, Draw.io, SQL, Power BI, Figjam, JIRA, Google Analytics, etc. that successful Product Managers use every day.
- Become AI-ready in Product Management - Learn everything from the Foundations of AI to Advanced Strategies + a Capstone Project
& Boost your CV with
SPJIMR Business Leadership certification, valued by top recruiters. Acquire leadership & decision-making skills through a 2-day campus immersion. (Additional Paid Certification)
Check out what our alumni have to say!
- Transformative experience! The curriculum & hands-on projects have equipped me with the skills needed. The instructors provided valuable insights & guidance throughout the course. - Gowtham Korra - Manager @ Digital Finance, ICICI Bank
- The comprehensive curriculum, supportive instructors & live projects boosted my confidence as a PM. Thanks to AltUni, I feel equipped with the skills needed to excel in my career. - Shivang Singh - Business Analyst @ Ciright Inc
- Fantastic Experience! Quite a detailed curriculum, straight to the point, useful workshops, and live projects. Would definitely recommend this program to PM aspirants! - Niketa Gupta - PM @ Jio Haptik
- Cutting-edge info backed up by top-notch content. Ellora delivered it in a very captivating way, leaving no question unanswered. Truly inspirational & hope to attend more programs. - Abhishek M - Sr. Associate (Projects Lead) @ Cognizant
- I was a fresher & had no prior experience but this program has changed the way I look at Product Management & the way I interact with stakeholders. It's a great way to get started! - Sriram Pingali - Associate Product Manager @ Yellow.ai
