Transitioning from Individual Contributor to Manager

As a Product Management recruitment firm, we often have conversations with individuals who are currently working as a Senior Product Manager and are hoping that they will be able to jump into management in their next role. They are only open to hearing about roles with a Director or VP title.

And we get it! We really want to be a part of helping candidates advance their careers and achieve their dreams. Unfortunately, we often have to deliver bad news.

In most cases, making the leap into leadership is incredibly difficult to do through a Recruiter. It’s also pretty tricky to pull off when moving from one organization to another. We advise candidates who are aspiring leadership positions to do everything they can to advance within their current organization, instead of looking elsewhere.

Why is it so difficult?

Well most employers, rightly or wrongly, will assume that if you’re ready for a promotion, your current employer would move you up. Your current organization is in the best position to know you and your work — so if they aren’t promoting you, there must be a reason for it.

It’s also difficult for a Recruiter to justify submitting your candidacy for a leadership position if you don’t already have leadership experience. Clients pay us to find them the very top talent in the marketplace — which means finding candidates who are already doing the job they need to be done.

To compound the issue, given the state of the Canadian tech scene right now, where competition is becoming global, there simply aren’t enough leadership roles for the many great candidates who are in the market and ready to move up. There are several reasons why these leaders are moving on: their product has matured, it’s in maintenance mode, was recently acquired, etc. so they are actively seeking new opportunities. That’s the community with whom you are competing. Leaders who are currently doing the job are much lower-risk hires than an unknown entity.

So what can you do? How can you move up to that next level? Here is what we tell candidates in these situations:

Situation A:

Does your employer know what your aspiration is? Do they know you desire to be a Director or Head of Product?

The very first step is making sure they are aware of your ambitions, so book a meeting with your boss. If they’re thinking about succession planning or expanding the leadership team, they need to know you’re interested.

The most important outcome for this meeting is to get their feedback. Don’t go into it with a list of demands, or expecting to be handed a promotion on the spot. Instead, you want to approach the meeting as a fact-finding mission:

• Would they consider you for the role if it were available? Why or why not?
• What are the growth areas that you should focus on this month, this quarter, and this year, to become a stronger candidate?
• What could you be doing in your current role that would help to prepare you for leadership?
• What will you need to accomplish for them to see you as ready for that next level of responsibility?

Once you have your boss’s feedback, the hard work begins. Show them that you take their feedback seriously and are committed to improving. Be the best employee that you can be in your role and work on the growth areas your boss has identified.

It’s going to be hard and you’re going to be stretched. However, it won’t be nearly as difficult as it is to move into a new organization where you need to learn the product and processes, while you’re also trying to be a first-time people manager.

In your current role, you likely have allies — people who are rooting for you, who know and trust you and who have already seen the value you bring to the organization. Proving yourself in a new role, with a new product, and a new team is a much steeper uphill battle.

Situation B:

Is your organization too small for a layer of management between the C-Suite and the individual contributing Product Manager? Are leadership positions so rarely available that you’re confident you don’t have a shot?

We say this again, talk to your boss. Good leaders are aware that their teams have ambitions and actively work to help their employees realize their goals.

If the role you want isn’t available (or won’t be in the foreseeable future), you can still benefit from an honest conversation about your strengths and weaknesses, and seek out opportunities to get some leadership experience. Can you take point on a big project? Offer more insight to the leadership team? Make more strategic contributions in your current role?

If it becomes clear that there’s nothing more you can be doing — if you’re crushing it on every level but the opportunity just isn’t there — then it’s time to conduct a targeted search. Polish up your resume and take a good long look at your network. Do you know any Founders/CEOs/leaders at companies in a similar industry/vertical? Think about places where you could add immediate value — organizations in your partner network, companies solving similar problems, places where former colleagues have landed. Reach out to those organizations directly. Take a look at the LinkedIn profiles of people who are doing the jobs you want to be doing in 5 years and see what path they took to get there.

This will likely be a long road to walk, but worth it if it gets you your dream job. Expect to invest some time in networking events and coffee meetings. Take your time doing research, and figure out the business model of the organization you’re interested in.

If you want to grow your network, join our product community on LinkedIn and connect with other product professionals and product leaders in the industry.

Originally published at https://www.mbassett.com.