Hire the Top 3% of 产品经理

Why Do You Need a 产品经理?

在企业生命周期中，有各种不同的拐点会推动招聘需求 产品管理 (PDM) resources. 无论是创业, managing growth, 推出新产品, or accelerating the growth of a mature business, the product manager role can help accelerate each of these situations. This guide offers some key insights into the important skills and experiences that a manager should consider when 招聘产品经理.

早期的企业可以从商业计划中受益

如果你的公司处于发展的早期阶段, a product manager is going to be one of the first resources needed in order to start formalizing a product. You may need support in defining the business opportunity, creating the business plan, and defining the resources required in order to start creating a solution. This where PDMs are extremely important; they can alleviate the load of the founding team while also providing a clear, 对额外商业机会的公正分析.

在早期阶段, the founding team needs to focus on building their business and often cannot invest the full-time effort needed to drive a product to release. Strong product managers will be able to establish the frameworks, 优化通信, and course correct quickly while creating the organization for long-term success. 在启动环境中, a detailed understanding of the back-end processes can help establish the required frameworks in order to accelerate order processing and revenue recognition. 此外，他们将成为能够指导和管理更多初级资源的人员领导者.

Growing Companies Need to Convert Technologies into Business Value

For a mid-sized company that is looking to grow or launch new products, you should look for product manager skills that demonstrate enough technical knowledge to partner with the engineers and architects and will also be skilled in converting complex technological solutions into business value for customers.

他们应该展示产品和服务的开发和交付知识. They should be comfortable with being the focal point for roadmap decisions, strategy, and vision for the products and services. 探索他们在创业方面的经验或信心，以及他们卷起袖子的意愿.

企业产品经理增加稳定性和透明度

The product manager role defines taking a concept and turning it into reality. 他们对自己产品的成功负责。. 角色涵盖组织中的每个利益相关者，从购买或使用它的客户到整个公司组织.

在大型企业中, a PDM will need to work with many teams to weave their product or service into the services they provide.

在与候选人讨论时, 询问他们在处理支持方面的经验, finance, and operations. Consider asking about the revenue flow for a cloud or subscription-based service. Look for the confirmations, the commissions, and settlement challenges. Explore their go-to-market expertise working with sales and marketing on 销售支持.

Their comfort with explaining how they dealt with the internal teams will help with understanding how well they can drive through a complex bureaucracy that often exists in a larger enterprise.

Important Skills a 产品经理 Should Have

数据驱动的分析

Listen for the data-driven analytics. With the experience and skills of having made these decisions before, a professional product manager will be able to navigate the ongoing prioritization and roadmap issues to focus the product investments in the areas that will produce the best 投资回报.

数据将驱动围绕市场定位、竞争分析和客户需求的关键决策. This will support the ideation, validation and design efforts. Data will support the rapid development of the proof of concepts, pilots and minimum viable product (MVP) phases. And, of course, as the product moves into the market, 专业的PDM将专注于将现有客户群货币化并创造新的客户机会. In reviewing product manager qualifications, explore scenarios where the candidate has used data to drive critical decisions.

短期及长远愿景

技能独特的个人, 产品经理很有直觉, data-driven, powerful communicators that can see the day-to-day and manage the long-term vision for their product. PDMs are measured by their success. 请候选人说明他们的历史成就. Ask them how they measured success and what the highlights of that role were.

An ideal candidate will have the experience in creating short and long-term roadmaps and a vision for where their products and services could go.

通过Toptal雇佣PDM, 你可以放心, at the conclusion of your engagement, you will be in a place to confidently execute on your long-term product roadmap.

产品经理 Are Savvy Business Leaders

Expert product managers need to be experienced professional managers. They are the key decision-makers; their decisions must be credible and understood by all stakeholders. They are the leader for their product, 激励和鼓舞整个组织完成将产品或服务推向市场所需的任务.

支持产品和公司估值的法律保护

Professional product managers will have three key considerations that they need to review with Legal. 当涉及到这些元素时，探索您的PDM候选人的产品管理经验:

1. Intellectual property rights (IPR) protections: 这些包括商标和版权、专利以及入境/出境许可权利. An experienced candidate will be able to explain the importance of IPR rights.
2. 合同义务: These include inbound software (elements within your product), 报告使用情况的义务, 通过权利流向任何出站合作伙伴(oem), resellers, wholesalers, 渠道合作伙伴), 财务调节事项, support, 以及流动知识产权保护. 这也将包括直接和间接的销售合同. A strong PDM will be evaluating all pricing, sales costs, and risks with respect to their gross margins. Explore how comfortable your candidate is with managing and defending contracting, pricing，以及贴现条款.
3. Security and government compliances: 这些问题包括，如果不加以识别，可能会形成重大违规行为，以及企业高风险. 一些例子包括 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)销售到欧盟(EU). Personally identifiable information (PII) protections must be woven into the architecture of the products and services being delivered. 合同和协议必须概述PII数据的使用. 询问你的候选人在个人身份信息方面的经验.

业务kpi定义产品管理的成功

Professional product managers should be able to describe the business of the product, including such things as:

1. 利润和损失&L): The budget and expected revenues associated with the product, 包括毛利率(GM), 销货成本, and operating costs of goods sold (OCOGS). ocog通常针对云或SaaS服务进行测量, 哪里的销售和营销成本不包括在内.
2. 进入市场策略: 商业计划，包括如何销售产品或服务的方法. It will include marketing initiatives and sales models (direct, online, channel, partners) along with the pricing strategies, 薪酬计划, 以及运营模式.
3. Market and competitive strategies: The positioning of the product or services with respect to the current and future market opportunities, positioning and customer perception. 一家公司在Gartner魔力象限上的位置可能是市场KPI的一个例子. Positioning of the company in the 总目标市场 (TAM)是另一家.
4. 销售支持: The planning, training, and ongoing communications with sales and marketing to drive new sales opportunities. 对于一些pdm来说，每周进行一次大客户策略审查有助于保持主要机会的正轨. 这还将包括为大型企业客户提供建议请求(RFP)和报价请求(RFQ)的销售支持, 政府机构, and channel partners will use to procure products and services.

管理流程和组织虚拟团队

产品经理应该是管理工程方法和过程的专家. In an Agile 开发环境, this means performing the planning and prioritization of work, 在sprint中定义. 探索你的候选人如何看待与他们团队的会议. 在敏捷模型中，期望他们讨论每日和每周的计划会议，例如 daily standups, sprint计划, 线框的评论, 建筑评论, 安全审查, sprint回顾, and 发布计划.

PDMs will work with engineering to define the tools and be able to apply their knowledge to use these tools to affect change in their projects. Some of the popular tools 项目经理和产品经理可能会考虑包括 GitHub, Mantis, Jenkins, Jira, Basecamp, Redmine, Asana, or Trello. 找出他们过去使用过的平台.

优先考虑冲刺

A professional product manager will have an intuitive sense to make the daily prioritization decisions. 询问确定sprint优先级的决策标准. Many PDMs will respond with a stack ranking methodology of some type. 这里有一些考虑优先级的方法.

• Will delaying this feature or function means losing a customer?
• 或者它会使其他投资增加需求?
• …by how much?
• 如果80%的客户想要这个功能，那就够了吗? (Arguably, 80% is enough, and the rest should be treated as an exception.)
• Likewise, if only 20% of customers need it, 这足以优先考虑一个功能，而不是80%的客户愿意为之付费的东西吗?

When speaking with a candidate, explore how they manage the prioritization of work. A strong candidate will always look for the short- and long-term benefits, 为公司利益做出数据驱动的决策. 为了避免争议，他们不会被“喊得最大声的人”所左右，而是会做出强有力的商业决策.

Build vs. Buy

Professional product managers take ownership of the architecture, infrastructure, and operating environments associated with the product or services. With a goal of continuous improvement, they will have the skills to manage 征求建议书 (RFPs) and 要求报价 (RFQs)向供应商寻求外包合作伙伴或定制现成的解决方案. 询问他们如何管理“构建还是购买”的决策.

Follow the Customer, Follow the Money

产品经理应该举行入职和管理评审，包括评审产品的会议 客户的旅程, fund processing, commissions and settlement, provisioning, and tracking processes. These sessions will typically involve 订单管理, finance, customer success, and possibly the deal desk if one exists. Explore some of the onboarding challenges that the PDM has experienced.

技术产品经理 Are Specialists

当设计产品或服务时，涉及的技术很复杂，需要特定的技术知识, consider hiring a technical product manager. Having a technical PDM facilitates communications with the technical team members and helps them feel much more understood when it comes to evaluating the challenges they are tackling.

A technical PDM can help to prioritize tasks by knowing how much business value the tasks bring and what technical problems the team might encounter. For example, if your technical PDM has a good understanding of machine learning, 在没有这些知识的情况下，比PDM更容易判断一个新的预测分析计划的范围. If it is critical that your PDM has expertise in certain areas, they should be able to explain their knowledge.

研究技能是路线图规划的关键

作为招聘经理, 您应该期望产品管理负责人能够领导涉及组织许多成员的数据收集会议. 结果应该有助于确定适当的时间进行调整并确定投资的优先级.

询问你的候选人是否有产品管理经验，处理过这些类型的场景.

An expert product manager will quickly be able to identify risks and opportunities while engaging the entire company in the right decisions before they become escalations. They will help find the fit in the industry, appropriately price the offering, and work with marketing to define differentiable value to drive a unique and valued position with clients. 讨论解决类似案例研究的方法, look for the confidence in the approach and experience in completing the research to get data-driven insights.

产品经理 Need Strong Management Skills

关于如何确定管理技能的一些想法可能包括他们如何处理日常关键挑战的问题:

• 他们如何处理异议?
• How do they motivate others to take action?
• 他们如何激发创造力?
• How have they celebrated success?
• How have they dealt with failure?

The responses to these questions should demonstrate strong leadership skills. A good candidate should be familiar with the tools to build credibility, respect, and inspiration in others to succeed.

专业的产品管理领导者不必是每一项技术的专家，他们必须是管理方面的专家, inspiring, and motivating. 他们学得很快. 这是他们的本性, 因此，当一些公司在PDM中寻找对某种技术的深入了解时, 这是所有开发者的责任, engineers, and designers that need to be the experts.

倾听他们制造兴奋的技巧. Did they sound energized by the challenges of managing conflict, coordinating disparate teams to a common goal?

寻找文化契合度

Executives may differ on the key qualifications that make a perfect product manager, and that often comes from the company culture and approach to their business.

技术学习型公司

Companies that are working on highly complex technology designs may want to ensure that their product managers are highly skilled in their specific technologies. 如果你倾向于有很强的技术能力, 您可能希望寻找具有工程背景并专注于开发完美技术的个人.

商业学习型公司

Other companies may feel that 产品管理 is a highly interactive, communicative, 直觉作用, 他们将倾向于寻找来自商业或营销背景的领导和营销特征. 他们的重点将是创造完美的业务.

产品管理领导者将技术与业务相结合

这两种模式都与强有力的领导者一起工作，他们可以做出数据驱动的明智决策，并为团队提供愿景和方向. 理想的候选人, of course, is the rare gem that has a deep enough technology base with the strength, 沟通技巧, inspiration, 以及为客户将复杂技术转化为强大商业模式的领导技能.

一个强大的组织结构可以加速公司战略

提供多种产品或服务的公司可能已经在团队中至少有一个产品经理. This section discusses how the product organization could be structured. In a rapidly growing environment, 考虑从您的最终组织开始，并计划额外的资源. Ask your candidates about their experience in moving around an organization or taking on additional products.

Project Managers Complement the Product Team

If there are multiple products and services, then consider also engaging a project manager. 项目经理 能否帮助你同时管理许多小任务，专注于产品的及时交付.

Team Structures Support Product Families

For companies with multiple products, the opportunity would be to find a blend of technical and marketing-focused product managers where they can complement each other’s skills. 考虑技术性pdm，他们将专注于设计和开发的技术方面.

市场营销型pdm将专注于创造 商业模式, business plans, differentiable value, managing MVPs 并且，可能和a一起工作 project manager, 会建立基础设施来完成订单吗, 管理和跟踪使用情况, 通过销售和市场推动客户关系, and gather useful data for future roadmaps. The product manager role is often organized according to the volume of work and the product family and organized by the technical and leadership requirements.

产品管理领导

For larger teams with multiple products, it’s going to be important to bring in 产品管理 leaders. There is inevitable contention with engineering resources and roadmap planning, PDM领导将帮助协商和建立组织的投资优先级. Further, they will be able to keep a cohesive product strategy in place crossing multiple products.

Be Open to the Flexibility of Outsourcing

考虑要做的工作. Will it require a full-time local product manager or can a part-time remote PDM who is an expert in their fields help manage single products effectively, 即使他们在世界的另一边?

虽然每个产品都有一个PDM是必要的, a PDM can usually manage two or three products depending on the complexity and stage in the lifecycle. 对于较小的项目, a part-time PDM allocating a set number of hours a week is also a possibility in an outsourced model.

现代沟通工具有助于定期与PDM进行有效沟通. This provides a lot of flexibility when 寻找世界级人才 and are dealing with budgetary constraints.

Sample Use Cases for 产品经理

Here are few different use case scenarios with examples on what kind of product manager qualifications you should look for when solving a similar challenge:

管理运营成本

You have a challenge with one of your products. 它是来自另一个供应商的内置OEM解决方案，可以补充您的其他产品之一. 这个产品从来没有真正成功过，你只有十几个客户. You are nine months away from a contract renewal with the original manufacturer, and it’s going to cost $250 thousand to renew for another year. Your revenues from re-selling the software are only $127 thousand annually.

If you are in the situation similar to this you need to find a strong product manager who can manage the end of life process for this software, or who will find an opportunity to invest in the marketing and sales efforts to get back into the black. 他们需要与“其他产品”团队协调，为这12个客户找到替代解决方案或推动新的销售. 在这个场景中, they will need to deal with sales (and commissions/settlement), 与12个客户直接沟通, 与新的软件供应商合作, 或者与现有的软件供应商重新协商. End-of-life 可能会引起争议. Ask if your candidate has ever dealt with an end-of-life situation and see what experience they can bring with that knowledge to your particular problem.

优先投资

A virtual assistant help-desk company, needs help writing their business plan to map out the next five years of major growth initiatives. They have limited bandwidth and are struggling with how to prioritize between a set of potential initiatives—adding voice-enabled Amazon extensions to their collaboration platform, 扩展到新的地区, 或者积极地与主要供应商重新谈判合同.

在这种情况下，你会 look for a professional product manager 谁能去探索 投资回报 (ROI) for each of the discrete activities. You may want to ask them for their approach for identifying the ROI—here are some key areas you should listen for:

• New revenue or churn avoidance impact with the Amazon extensions
• Total addressable market (TAM) for the new geographies and market share analysis
• 竞争力概况
• Go-to-market strategy, pricing, and margins
• Channels, partnering or direct-sales models
• Localization (语言)的影响
• 安全的影响

关于供应商协议, ask about their approach to reducing costs of goods and operations with a constant view to continuous improvement. Some of the focus areas that they may mention could include:

• Software license or royalty costs – Tools that are no longer in use; open source options for either their DevOps 环境或商业产品或服务
• Identifying new (replacement) technologies can improve performance or scalability with lower costs
• Digging into the budget for exceptional costs

If they respond with these elements, 或者类似的, you will know if they have the experience in creating a bottom-line financial and strategic direction and prioritizing the activities in a business plan.

Designing the Right User Experience

A startup is looking for a product manager who could take over a product team of front-end developers working on the look and feel for their platform. 每次迭代都需要由公司的涉众提出并批准.

在这种情况下, 最好找一个有敏捷开发经验的技术产品经理 Scrum-based projects with a strong understanding of user experience (UX) design. A good test would be to provide the PDM with a vague expectation of what you want the project to do and get them to talk you through the process of what they would do.

A conversation about how they may develop requirements would provide insight.

• 他们是否把顾客放在第一位?
• Do they have their UX designers go into the field and get an in-depth understanding of the 客户的旅程?
• Do they start with what they have and go directly to a “clean up” process without validating it with anyone?

A good product manager truly understands the value of the UX. 探索你的候选人将如何验证他们关于用户体验的假设. 而底层技术, algorithms and complex workflows might form the core value of a solution, if the user interface (UI) is cumbersome, 那么它就不会成功. 直接与用户对话的可靠投资将获得用户留存率和口碑竞争价值.

Explore their Agile experience and the sprint process by giving them a list of requirements and asking them to talk through validation and prioritization. Another test would be to assume that the team is nearing the end of a sprint with outstanding stories and ask them to explain their process for what they do next, 他们如何处理利益相关者, and how they plan the next sprint.

Formalizing a Product Team and Process

A legal services firm has created some debugging tools for their remote users. With some initial success, the demand for more functionality is growing. They want to manage their growth from a team of two developers into a larger full-time team; however, for that, 他们需要开始使用产品管理工具，并建立一套框架，这些框架将用于项目的剩余部分.

在这种情况下, look for a product manager who has had startup experience and is comfortable with rolling up their sleeves. 这种环境需要不断改进. As such, an Agile approach will create a highly communicative environment needed to move things forward quickly in a project that has a large amount of change and uncertainty.

Defining Value

在一家地区电信公司, there are three developers that have created a logging solution is a great help for the company in solving connectivity problems; however, 他们不确定下一步该把这个项目带到哪里去. The executive team is not sure if this is a worthwhile investment. So far, the features have been dictated by the technical feature list compiled by the team, but now the team members and their managers have realized they need to either formalize their product or drop it.

Look for the skills that a candidate might have that will match the current theme and goal of the project. 这需要业务管理和战略的结合，以及技术悟性, in order to make a go or no-go decision for the continuation of the investment. 需要一个商业计划来探索解决方案是否有真正的价值, 或者公司是否有扩大价值的潜力.

产品经理将需要创建一个资源计划和 budget along with the ROI models to justify the continued investment. In these situations, there are scenarios that can be drawn, e.g.“如果我们投资X，那么在这些假设下我们会得到Y.“具有强大分析能力的产品经理可能会创建三个场景基础, middle, 最好的投资情况 ROI the result. From that base, 他们可以与执行团队合作，为符合公司战略的决策提供信息.

Finding a 产品经理 that has the Right Skills and Experience

在考虑如何聘请产品经理时, look for a product manager that would be a good match for a project, identifying the core problems to solve. This may dictate the larger set of skills and requirements for a product manager.

• 发掘他们的技术技能，以确保他们在工程团队中的可信度.
• Evaluate their 沟通技巧 to quickly get a concept across with clarity.
• 试着了解他们为实现目标而直接或间接管理人员的经验.
• 他们是否表现出了实现目标的毅力, and do you believe that they are creative enough to find solutions where the obvious answers might not be possible?

Some products might need a product manager with a lot of business experience, some will require a specific type of technical acuity and an ability to work well in the enterprise setting.

• Can they relate the investment on the product side, with the P&L公司的要求?
• 他们是否将“成功”与商业术语(新收入、新客户、降低成本)联系起来??

Finding Your 产品经理 with Toptal

Toptal拥有一套完整的各级产品经理，专门负责成功地将产品和服务推向市场. Toptal PDM experts span industries and go-to-market strategies with deep experience from the business side, 通过复杂的前沿和新兴技术创造价值. Toptal模型使客户能够快速与能够解决复杂问题的创新者接触. Whether it’s for a 产品管理 consulting role to drive a business plan, create new pricing and selling models, redesign or recover from a business challenge, or jump in and drive 产品管理 success, Toptal’s PDM professionals are ready to assist.

Toptal雇佣了前3%的申请者加入我们的人才团队. 我们的商务专家了解您的需求，并会推荐一些独特的合格候选人，以满足您的需求. 一次简短的谈话可以帮助你选择最好的候选人，他们可以在24小时内和你一起工作. Our confidence in the quality of our talent is backed by a trial period with a money-back guarantee.