Six skills that will help you land your first product management job [diginomica]

With the recent and much needed focus on diversity in the technology industry I’m frequently asked – most often by women – how they get their first product manager (PM) job. The path to product management can seem mysterious as there isn’t an obvious path beginning with ‘get a computer science degree’ or ‘go to code school’ as for other technical jobs. For people in groups under-represented in tech, that mystery can be even harder to solve, since they may not have access to the personal networks that help them take that first critical step. Through my conversations, and my own experience managing and mentoring product managers, I’ve landed on six main areas that are part of being a good a product manager. This list has been helpful as a tool for people to look at what skills they already bring, how they can evolve in their current role to showcase these skills, and where they can grow to be a strong candidate when a product management opportunity comes up. We all start with strengths in some areas and learn some of it on the job. I’ve worked with successful PMs who started with different combinations of these skills – you don’t need mastery of all these capabilities to begin with. That’s one of the fun things about a career as a PM, you’re always getting to learn new things as new types of challenges come up.

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Source: https://diginomica.com/2017/11/30/six-skills-help-land-your-first-product-management-job/