How To Win Over Hiring Managers When You Can't Check All the Boxes

Find a Balance Between Subject Matter Expertise and Role-Related Skills

WHERE TO: You securing your next role in Product.

WHERE FROM: Battling with self-doubt and missing out on opportunities because of gaps in your experience.

WHERE NEXT: Focusing on your key strengths and demonstrating how you can quickly adapt to new challenges, so you can impress hiring managers and advance your career.

Are you trying to get ahead in your career?

Once you have a target of where you want to go, take a moment to assess where you are currently, and where you come from.

What are the skills that you already possess and that you can capitalize on to take you to the next level? How can you set yourself apart from the competition?

When evaluating a candidate for a role, hiring managers will assess and score individuals on two large areas: subject matter expertise, and general skill set. Leaders know that they will have to compromise on something within their checklists. No matter what, they know an investment will be required to ramp a new employee up on whatever is missing. There is an ideal “shape” of a PM for each role, but it’s more nebulous than you expect.

If you want to know your shape, and assess your strengths and areas to improve, the graph below will help you do just that. It shows 12 competencies every Product Manager should have, within 4 key areas: Product Execution, Customer Insight, Product Strategy, and Influencing People.

For each of the 12 competencies, identify your level, from “Needs Focus” to “Outperform”, and you’ll end up with your shape, as exemplified in the second image. This gives you a useful overview of your skills, shining a light on where you should improve and identifying what you should bring up in job interviews.

 

Image 1: Empty chart that you can fill out to assess your 12 Product Manager competencies

 

Image 2: Examples of filled-out chart for every level. Source: Ravi Mehta

Every role and candidate have different shape overlap. Therefore, even if you don’t have a perfectly matching background and experience, you may still be a competitive candidate. If a desirable position lists something you are lacking, you should still apply for the role.

It is hard for companies to find somebody who is strong in all the fundamental skills for product management and deep industry knowledge of their market on top of that. Beyond that, if that unicorn person existed, they would get bored quickly and look for a role more challenging soon.

To see how to impress a hiring manager, I spoke with one directly. Mat Cropper says “the key is to show you are a candidate with a great blend of subject matter expertise and role-related skills. This doesn’t mean that you are super strong at both, but you should excel at a few vectors and demonstrate you can quickly ramp up on any growth areas.”

Let’s look at two opposite examples:

SCENARIO 1: Strong subject matter expertise, lack of role-related skills

This is commonly the case if you already work at an organization and want to make a lateral move or get promoted to management. For example, you are in customer service, design, sales, or engineering and want to become a Product Manager or you are an IC PM who wants to move upward.

Because of the time you already invested in the company, you will have built knowledge of its vision and purpose. You also have built relationships throughout the organization and hopefully know how to navigate it to get things done. A hiring manager should recognize that this will help you be successful and that if you can obtain the missing skills, everyone will benefit.

Often, you will have a good shot of landing the role and it is a great way to get onto a new team. What you need to do is emphasize your value as an internal candidate and show that you can quickly ramp up on general practices of the new role. You are promising that within a short time period, you will bring your skills to a level close to your subject matter expertise.

How do you do this? The best way to show there is truth to your claim is to leverage the social capital you have earned from working throughout the organization to bolster support for your candidacy. Ideally, there are a handful of individuals who can tell the hiring manager how they’ve seen the quality of your work and appreciate the quickness in which you learn new areas.

Additionally, you can promote how previous roles have transferable skills to the new one. Look back on your prior experiences and see what activities you did which are applicable to the position you desire. Say you are moving from sales to product management. You can promote your ability to win over different stakeholders, excellent communication skills, and deep product functionality knowledge.

Showing the inherent value you bring based on time already invested at the company and your ability to learn will go a long way in positioning you as a strong candidate.

SCENARIO 2: Strong role-related skills, lack of subject matter expertise

In this scenario, you have extensive general knowledge but lack the subject matter expertise. For example, you are an experienced Product Manager with deep knowledge of a particular industry and are ready to tackle a new area. For example, switching from healthcare to fintech or consumer apps to physical products. The industry differences are large, but you can overcome that.

In this case, approach the interview process in a way that shows your strong general knowledge of the product manager role. Tell stories which showcase how your foundational skills led to success in past experiences. Proactively address what you would do to shorten the gap between your current and desired subject matter expertise, were you offered the position. If possible, show how you gained knowledge in previous industries, and which methods you would apply to speed up your learning curve.

In most cases, the transferable skills will shine and a hiring manager will bet on your potential to learn the industry quickly and bring new perspectives from your other experiences.

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Whichever way you want to go, the key is to be proud of what you already bring to the table. Use that to propel you forward, and never stop learning the complementary skills that will make you a well-rounded professional. Join both industry and professional groups which will continuously advance your knowledge on all sides.

If you are looking for support in your next career move, check out my Job Seeker program. I review your resume and help you prepare for the interviews just so you can stand out from the crowd and get the opportunity you deserve.