Product Management or passion?

When conducting the recruitment process for the position of Product Manager, companies often consider the candidate's achievements and the length of experience in previous workplaces as crucial. However, will this guarantee success to the product and bring the expected profits?

What is product management?

"Product management" is a business function that involves managing the product lifecycle from idea to market withdrawal. The Product Manager (PM) is responsible for setting the direction of product development, ensuring that the product meets customer needs, and achieves desired business objectives. Here are a few key aspects of product management:

• Defining Product Vision: The Product Manager must define a product vision that indicates how the product will bring value to customers and how it will fit into the company's overall strategy.
• Development and Prioritization of Roadmap: The PM creates a plan (often called a "roadmap") for product development, specifying key features and when they are to be implemented.
• Collaboration with Teams: The PM collaborates with many departments within the organization, including engineers, designers, marketing, and sales, to bring the product to the market.
• Market Research: The Product Manager collects feedback from customers, analyzes the competition, and monitors market trends to ensure the product is competitive.
• Managing the Product Lifecycle: The PM oversees the product throughout its lifecycle, from conception, through implementation, to potential market withdrawal.

Good or Bad Product Manager?

A Product Manager in the FMCG industry is a position with a very high level of trust. Hiring the wrong person in the Product Management department can lead to many negative consequences, mainly related to improper creation and brand building. This then translates into revenue, morale, and the reputation of the entire company and the manager himself. A good candidate is someone who acts as an ambassador and general manager of a given brand, consistently implementing their clear vision and taking full responsibility for both successes and failures. Such a person can quickly understand the thinking of consumers and the sales opportunities of the company. A bad candidate sees himself as a reproductive marketing tool that does not need close communication with other departments. An employee who does not identify with the brand he works for, although he will perform his daily tasks, but his work will not bring the expected results, regardless of the marketing budget or production capabilities of the company.

How to get the right person?

When choosing the right candidate for the position of Product Manager in the FMCG industry, it is important not to be guided only by the experience described in the CV, but to get to know the candidate's personality in terms of a specific product. It is most important that the person feels and identifies with the products to which they will be assigned, which in an unnatural environment, such as an interview in the company, can be very difficult to assess. People applying for a given advertisement, who will be invited for an interview, will most often convince the interviewer that the dedicated product is perfectly matched, but is it always consistent with the truth? The desire to join the organization is often stronger than individual expectations regarding the product. Therefore, it is so important to try to get to know the candidate as closely as possible, his interests, passions, and way of spending free time, thanks to which we will read between the lines the categories to which a given person will approach with passion, and not only dry knowledge taken from previous practice.

What does the candidate market look like?

The end of the year is a rather difficult period to recruit candidates using recruitment advertisements, as they are reluctant to change jobs during the annual bonus accrual season. In order to interest a candidate in working for a given product, it is necessary to get to know his motivation for change and, most importantly, predispositions to manage the selected category. When starting the recruitment process in such a market, it is worth consulting a recruitment agency, which will select recruitment tools and advise on the choice of the right candidate, presenting his real interests and predispositions to manage products from a given category.

If you are interested in further information on the labor market or cooperation in the implementation of recruitment projects, please contact:

Aleksandra Kujawa Consultant Sales & Marketing

Tel: +48 22 48 35 000

Fax: +48 22 48 35 001

Email: AKujawa@antal.com

Antal International Sp. z o. o.

Stratos Office Centre Ks. Skorupki Street 5 00-546 Warsaw, POLAND

Web: www.antal.pl

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