If there’s one thing that’s fundamental in securing a great role in Product, it’s being able to see things from the perspective of the hiring manager. That can be difficult, though, if you don’t know anyone who is in a similar position to the person hiring for the positions you are interested in.

So, to help you out, we spoke to someone with a ton of experience in that area – Tony Mulcock. Tony is Practice Director for Product and Design at Salt for UK and Europe – Salt is a global digital recruitment business specialising in product, design, creative, marketing, sales, and engineering.

Salt have been going for 16 years now, have 15 offices globally, and more than 300 employees now. So if anyone knows what companies are looking for in their product folks, it’s Tony. He was kind enough to answer some key questions about what people are looking for in Product Managers right now.

Thinking about product management, what skills are most in demand right now?

The biggest demand we are seeing at the moment is Product Managers with growth experience. Many of the roles we’re recruiting for are seeking someone that’s really owned revenue generation of that product or business. It's someone with a strong element of commerciality - really knows how to own and conceptualize the ideation, drive revenue with an eye towards profitability, and a strong go-to-market approach.

It’s easy to find ‘growth’ Product Managers on paper, but it’s difficult to find ones that have the right skill set and a real magnitude to what they have accomplished. Are they able to speak about having owned a sizeable budget and driven real revenue growth? Do they know what the return on investment was, and how developing and shipping their product created incremental value?

It's difficult to find these product people because some have only done it on a small scale. They've been part of a growth team, and they've done pieces of it, but they haven't owned the entirety of the growth. So we're finding these roles more challenging because of the mismatch between supply and demand, but also because of the lack of experience at scale.

Has the trend of working remotely extended to product leadership roles, or do they need to live local to the company headquarters?

I've been in recruitment for 22 years and I never, ever thought teams would be able to work remotely as effectively as they are now. Product, design, and engineering teams feed off each other, so being in the same location really helps with that but the balance seems to be working really well at the moment.

A lot of the senior product people I speak to that have been in my network for years, are actually saying their teams are more productive than ever, even working remote. So I think businesses have realized how to evolve.

There definitely continues to be roles that require product leaders to be coming to the office, but actually, a good proportion of the roles we’re hiring for in the UK are hybrid - part office, part remote, and there are actually some fully remote leadership roles now, too. I would say 10% of the roles that we place are fully remote.

What geographic areas are growing in need of product leadership roles?

We do a lot of our work in London, as it’s our headquarters. The growth in London has been incredible. I used to joke a few years ago that I knew everyone in product. Now it's just so big, there are more I don't know, than do but luckily having 8 consultants in my product team they help me fill the gaps with their extensive networks. London is fairly accessible to commute to, so I don’t see that growth slowing down.

Apart from London, in the UK, Bristol has grown incredibly because it acts as a gateway to the Southwest. There are also some areas that have significant growth thanks to big companies making investments there, like BBC in Manchester or Sky up in Leeds. There is just so much opportunity outside of London these days too.

Across Europe, Germany is a big market, mirroring the London hub. Also, the Netherlands, with a market of 4750 startups, is proving to be quite a mature territory for Product. Salt has offices in both of these locations to support this growth.

In the US, there's a big surge in New York and Austin is also really popular thanks to ProductTank and Mind the Product growing their audience there.

Lastly, there’s also Dubai. The UAE is really up and coming. They’re making a lot of investment into technology, which brings jobs across the software development life cycle.

When helping to hire for a senior product role, what do you look for? And what are the red flags?

We like to see people that have a steady trajectory in terms of their progression. People that have had, from a management point of view, experience growing teams; good successful product suites builds and launches; and strong stakeholder management with the C-Suite level, with a decent sizeable budgetary responsibility.

We also like to see people that have not necessarily focused on one particular industry vertical but have gained some solid experience and can demonstrate success and continuous progression in different domains.

As an example, we tend to see quite a lot of people in gaming and online gambling that stay in that industry. But actually, these people are really good for high traffic, high transactional websites within eCommerce and retail. So, I actually think that a stronger and better Product Manager is someone who's actually worked in different industry sectors, can see the nuance and similarity between those industries, and can bring those experiences into a new company.

Are there companies that will not accept people from another industry, that only accept candidates with domain expertise?

Historically yes, but this is really changing. Every company out there is looking for the same things, the same skill sets and the talent pool we’re working with at the senior level is quite small in comparison to the demand. So this has naturally had to change.

Pre-pandemic and during the early days of the pandemic, companies in industries like finance and banking were really fixed on ‘’they have to have industry experience.” Now they are much more open-minded.

We work with a lot of FinTech companies. Typically companies in regulatory environments, like asset management and hedge funds, who are quite specific about candidates understanding the regulatory and legal elements, as well as just understanding the financial world. The insurance space was quite rigid like this too.

We've seen this really relax now, it's more about if a candidate can demonstrate how they can bring relevant experience and successes into a new role and can show and prove that they have transferable skills.

Gaming is another great example, as it's quite niche. Companies in that sector would rarely take on anyone from the outside, now they are doing exactly the same.

What are the most frequent mistakes you see candidates make in their interview process?

I've always had a rule: ‘if you don't know it, don't say it’. When we have candidates that are asked questions in an interview, rather than just saying ‘I'm not actually sure about that’ or ‘that's not something I have experience of’, they try and manufacture an answer or they just go off-topic. Even though they might pass through interviews with less experienced people in the interview process, they will ultimately be unsuccessful in later stage interviews with a CTO or CPO. That lack of experience will become very apparent.

So, the most frequent mistake is lack of clarity around answering a question. If it becomes very fluffy, it's obvious they don't know the answer to the question. Just be honest about your experience, don’t try to fake it.

What is the one reason why you wouldn’t put a candidate in front of a hiring manager?

I suppose the main underlying reason is when they can't clearly and concisely articulate themselves. If someone can’t explain to me the specifics of how they approach different elements of product leadership, exactly how they do what they do, what drives their ambition, where they want to get to, then it's a non-starter for any of my teams.

What are your top tips for having a great interview when applying for a more senior role in product management?

The most effective candidates are very concise. They talk positively and succinctly about their experience and how they've got to where they've got to. They're very explicit about what product means to them and about their journey.

At the same time, they are not too detail-heavy. They can be quite concise about how they've grown, how they've scaled teams, launched multiple, successful products, managed large budgets. Stakeholder management at a senior level is particularly important to communicate. Who did they report into? How has that relationship worked? What have they learnt the most? What are their strengths? What can they bring to the business?

It sounds crazy, but we do have some senior candidates that go into interviews, and they really don’t know enough about the product. They have an interest in a company, but that doesn’t translate into them digging deeper into understanding the product, and actually trying it out where possible.

It's also really important to have in-depth knowledge of the business's financial information in advance. Understanding their funding from CrunchBase or from contacts in your network. Knowing which round of funding they are at and how many they have had to date, what's their scalability, and what's the mission of the business will set you in very good stead.

Why do I bother saying these things? I personally think they're obvious, but actually, some people just don't think like that. My biggest advice is to make sure not to just focus on one element of the interview. You really have to be prepared in every area.

In summary...

The market for product roles is hot right now and if you have the right experience, or can articulate how your experience makes you a good fit for a role, you’re in with a good chance of being successful.

Just remember – be concise, articulate yourself clearly and do your homework before the interview. It also helps if you have a good recruiter and a coach on your side.

Many thanks to Tony for his time and for sharing these insights with us. If you want to find out more about Salt and how they might help you with your next product role, you can find them at: https://www.welovesalt.com/.

And if you want to get ahead with your interview skills, apply for a free coaching consultation to see how one of our experienced product coaches can help you.

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