Getting into Product Management as a Fresh Grad
I remember being in my senior year of undergrad, wondering what line of work I will be working as a full-time job. Then I heard about the product management role. A new age job title that is emerging along with the boom of internet growth in Indonesia. I ask myself, what’s this role actually do? Does it have steep learning curve? Is it fresh-grad-friendly-to-apply job? Is it the right field for me? and all those questions commonly asked by final year student.
I imagine this situation might also happen to a lot of students and fresh grads in Indonesia. I want to share some insights regarding getting into product management as a fresh grad based on my experience. A little bit about me, I’m an electrical engineering graduate working my first full time job in product management at Tokopedia.
What is product management?
So firstly, let’s answer the most commonly questioned about the job by students, what is product management? Truth is, product management is one the hardest jobs to define, even I can’t explain my job to my family! Here’s the most famous chart describing product management:
But this chart only defines a small portion of the job, product management role requires you to define product vision, strategize, prioritize, build product roadmap, problem solve, be communicative with stakeholders, be data driven, execution with detail, understand customers, and the list goes on. I know this only explains briefly and I might haven’t answered your curiosity, so for deeper understanding about product management:
You can read
here: PM described by Josh Elman, VP product at Robinhood
here: PM described Brent Tworetzky, SVP product at Invision
Why now is perfect for fresh grad to work in product management
Now that you know a bit about product management, let’s address the second question: Should I get into this role? I will explain this in 2 reasons:
Tech industry on the rise
It’s no secret now, you can see people’s habit changing because of internet, affecting every segment of our life. Commuting using ride-hailing app, shopping through e-commerce, renting a room online, enjoying music and movies through streaming services, even you can borrow money online now. Everything is achievable through internet, where physical boundary is no longer an issue. Companies like Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Netflix, Spotify, and of course Tokopedia are now part of our life. Basically the whole industry is moving towards digital. To put it into perspective, let’s see this chart:
See the shifting? Even more, this is all just started to happen in SEA and Indonesia is the biggest market of all:
Important to note is, if you start earlier (straight out of college), then you will be reaching further for career progression in shorter time. I think this is very good in this hyper-growth internet economy era (just like industrial revolution in 1900s)
Steep learning curve
With many challenges faced in product management, it will be a steep learning curve experience. Product management is like jack of all trades, we are dealing with stakeholders from business, design, tech, finance, legal, ops, and others. Just from these exposures, we can learn a lot of things already. Combine that with learning feedback from users, brainstorming ideas, tackling scalability issue, measuring important metrics, and many more. The point is we will be learning new things on every project, because every task has different solution and it’s own challenge. Also, important to mention that all that learning will be gained fast, because of agile environment working in tech industry where everything move really fast.
Further reading on insights:
here: Google-Temasek report on South East Asia’s internet economy: $240B by 2025!
Skills needed (that relevant as a student)
If you still reading this, that means you are interested in the role, and now comes the part for the third question: What are the skills needed? (That relevant as a student) This question is like chicken and egg problem
Looking at the role and what it does, I used to think “How can I have the skills to work on product management if I never work on the role before?” Basically I’m asking how can I, an engineering student, have these skills in business, tech, design, and many more. But no worry, those skills actually can be gained as a student through internship, organization, and competition. I like to divide it into two skills category in general:
Hard Skill
There are 3 important skills in product management: Business, Tech, and Design. Now, unless you’re an entrepreneur with a degree of computer science and a hobby of graphic design, you’re most likely only possess one of the skill. And that’s alright. You can start from just one and later develop the other two along the way. I myself is an electrical engineering student which means: blind to business, bad at drawing, and at least okay at coding. But I learned design using Adobe Illustrator for presentation assignment and I learned business strategy through business case competition. My point is you can learn everything outside despite limitation of your major. You can also learn business through organization, if for example your organization is making an event.
Soft Skill
Soft skill is a big part at product management role, because we will be communicating with a lot of people. This is easily gained by actively participate in college organization, communities, or anything. I think there are four important soft skills that are easily relatable with student’s experience: Negotiation, Communication, Know how to say no, and Curious. But the one skill that I want to highlight is curious. I think curiosity is the beginning behind great ideas. Just imagine, what if Isaac Newton wasn’t curious about apple falling out of tree? We might not know the concept of gravity!
How to prepare for the role as a student?
Lastly, how can you prepare as a student then? Specifically on things that students can do easily.
Here are a couple of tips that based on my personal experience:
Read, read, read
Read. That’s it. Here are my recommendations:
Books:
1. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
2. Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
3. Hooked by Nir Eyal
4. Sprint by Jake Knapp
5. Zero to One by Peter Thiel
6. Decode and Conquer by Lewis C. Lin
7. Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle McDowell
Online articles:
1. My “Product Management” Reading List by Sebastien Phlix
2. Open Product Management
3. How I Prepared for a Product Manager Interview by Andreea Nastase
4. Preparing for PM interviews by Fernando Delgado
Do side project
Side projects are gold, it could be in many forms such as mobile app, website design, anything really. Consider also writing articles in blog, medium, or anywhere. Could be hobbies, product critiques or redesigns. It will add personality to your application and your will be learning stuffs along the way.
Meet online communities
Online communities is everywhere, easy to find, free, and consists of nice people. Product School is one of the communities where people share insights, thought, and ideas about product management. UXID is an open community in Indonesia about user experience. The great thing about communities is we will meet various people, consider it as part of networking.
Take online courses
Last but not least is consider take online courses. There are tons of courses in Udemy or Coursera about product management. “But they are so expensive, and we students have no money”. Okay okay, I also have no money. Well in that case watch tons of Youtube video. Product School and Mind the Product are great starting point. Behind Great Product by Tokopedia is also a great series.
If you’re still reading up to this point, that means you are ready to start your journey getting into product management. Doesn’t matter what your background is, product management is not about college degree. Let’s close this with a quote from Deep Nishar:
A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.
So that’s it guys, thanks for reading this :)
