On Nov 9th, I gave a 20min talk at the NY Product Conference about a major change in how I think about hiring PMs. I now spend as much energy looking inside my company as outside. I’ve included the video below. The talk covers:
- a story about how I discovered a great PM in an unusual way
- spider graphs of PM skills and traits (also shared below)
- tactical ideas for looking within your company
- ideas around building an APM program
Spider Graphs
Two notes:
1. I’m still working out my thoughts on an APM program, and think it will be very dependent on your CEO, company culture, and company financials. Consider that part of the talk very “work in progress”.
2. After the talk, one person said that they were sad that my initial story was about a white guy (me) hiring a white guy. I wanted to speak to that for a second. I actually believe that looking for talent internally is a great way to diversify who is product management because it lets people break into the field. That’s the hardest part. To be transparent, of my 4 internal transfers into product so far at Meetup, there are 2 men, 2 women; 2 white, 2 non-white.