What is the career development path of product managers?

The first stage: quasi-product manager

At present, this category is the largest number of product managers. They have high enthusiasm for products, great interest in the Internet, smart phones and so on, and some basic product skills, such as proficiency in drawing prototypes, certain document skills, familiarity with interaction and so on. But the fundamental reason why they can't take the job of product manager is that they don't have the ability to control a product, and they can't control all aspects of the product life cycle. They need to grow up step by step with the product manager and finally reach the competence of a product manager. This kind of product manager's position in the company is generally called "product specialist" or "product assistant".

The second stage: qualified product manager

This is the backbone echelon of product managers. Most of the product managers we usually talk about refer to this kind of product managers. They are down-to-earth and calm, and are busy with products, projects, operations, data analysis and product optimization according to the goals of the upper level. This kind of product managers have some common signs: they can report to the boss, have strong logical thinking, communicate with technology, and integrate their feelings and designs.

In social recruitment, such positions account for the vast majority of recruitment. Due to the different positioning of product managers, there will be some deviations in their functions. In general recruitment, we will focus on screening the ability points of each position in the interview.

The third stage: excellent product manager

They are a group alienated from "qualified product managers". They are a few product managers, but they have the opportunity to go further. They usually have very mixed backgrounds. I have dabbled in many industries and business models and have a strong understanding ability, so I can quickly grasp the key points in the whole work and keep pushing forward. At the same time, they also have some important characteristics:

1, from the perspective of most product managers, is good at looking at problems from multiple angles, such as operation, users, market, business model, company strategy, industry development, etc.

2. I am more accustomed to combing the company's business from the matrix, finding the key points under the complicated appearance, finding my own position and maximizing my value to the company;

3. In terms of work habits, these people are more accustomed to finding their own goals. Their work direction is often based on the consideration of the company's business, combined with the analysis of the department and their own situation, considering the actual resources, so as to make the best choice for the company, the department and themselves.

4. Have a certain top-down management ability, need to find the position of yourself and your boss, and need to point to the pain point of your boss to achieve your goals; Ability to manage, ensure that the most suitable people do the most suitable things, and have certain management team skills. This kind of person is usually the "senior product manager" or department head in the team.

The fourth stage: excellent product manager

Among the people I associate with (maybe I need to expand my circle more), there are very few people who can be called "excellent product managers" They have a strong sense of business, can find the most critical core points in the huge workload, and can make decisions quickly with their rich experience and even intuition, and can find the right people to implement them.

At the same time, they are often excellent speakers, who can accurately grasp the pain points of the audience in communication and push the development of things to their expected way. Besides, their greatest value lies in their accurate prediction of the future situation. By collecting and understanding all kinds of information, they can accurately predict the future development of related things, and make timely layout according to the prediction, thus ensuring the development of their company's business and products. In addition, these people have a wide circle of contacts, and a large part of them have personal brands, belonging to the elites of the whole society, generally belonging to the top management of the company and leading the development of the company.

Stage 5: Excellent Product Manager

They may have all of the above, or they may have nothing. As human beings, they pay attention to what they care about and experience what they feel, which may be driven by intuition or accident, and the development of the human world is driven by them. The direction they pointed to hit the deepest part of our hearts and resonated with them. There are not many people in the whole world who can reach this level, but they are the aura of product leaders and let us worship them. Often called "CEO"