The product industry is rapidly growing. Where product functions would once come into businesses later down the line, many companies are now prioritising product, with product professionals often within the first 5-10 hires.

Picking up on this product movement is Head of Product, Magali Pelissier who has set up her own podcast on the subject, Product Perspectives. Magali’s podcast aims to give people in product a voice and features interviews with engineers, writers, UX designers and salespeople; anyone who plays a part in contributing to a product’s success.

In a recent episode of the podcast, our Managing Consultant and product specialist, Teagan O’Donovan, featured on the podcast to talk about everything from market trends to what makes a good product manager and how you can maximise your relationship with a recruiter.

So, whether you’re a Hiring Manager, Product Manager, or interested in the product world, read on for a few key takeaways.

What skills do I need to be a Product Manager?

Clearly, there are lots of skills and experience needed to make a successful Product Manager. In the podcast, Teagan highlights the key things that she looks out for when on the hunt for the perfect candidate.

The first thing key to being a successful Product Manager is the ability to have a deep understanding of a company’s customers – they should be able to analyse data to produce key customer insights. While understanding the customer is key, a Product Manager should also have a real understanding of their organisation and its employees, with the ability to communicate with cross functional teams.

In terms of hard skills, Teagan looks for candidates with a strong grasp of data analysis, product strategy and product road mapping. When it comes to experience, Teagan says that “because these companies are so highly technical, they’re looking for someone that’s been in a technical environment, that can have those conversations. Potentially even someone that’s been in a technical role for part of their career and then transitioned to product and can have those more technical conversations with the development team.”

Teagan also highlights the fact that companies look for candidates with SaaS experience, as well as individuals with experience working in the startup space.

Recruitment misconceptions  

We’ve all heard of the stigma that recruiters will do anything for money. From placing people in roles that don’t suit them to wrongly selling an opportunity, there are a lot of misconceptions that sadly give all recruitment consultants a bad name. In the podcast, Teagan acknowledges that the stigma must have come from somewhere, but highlights that all recruiters work differently, particularly at ISL.

“One of our values at ISL is Do the Right Thing, which we all follow. I want to help everyone, and I want it to work out just as much as they do”.

Recruitment is all about building trust. Teagan highlights that at ISL, building valued, long-lasting relationships is key, and that we strive to partner with our clients, adding value you wouldn’t get from traditional, transactional recruitment.

The impact of AI on recruitment

AI is changing our world. It’s having a big influence on everything, recruitment included. In the podcast, Teagan and Magali chat about both the positives and negatives of AI on the world of recruitment. On the positive side, Teagan says AI is enhancing the recruitment process by having the ability to write gender neutral job advertisements or blind screen CVs. Both of these things are big positives as they remove the risk of any unconscious bias and mean that businesses can recruit fairly and diversely.

On the other hand, Teagan points out that the human-centric, relationship building element of recruitment is put at risk by AI. If businesses chose to automate their recruitment processes, the personal touch that makes using a recruitment consultant so effective, will be lost. “The human element, the understanding, the conversation – that’s always going to be important, but I think using AI to improve your sales techniques or even speed things up, is good.”

There are so many pros and cons to the rise of AI, but for now as recruiters, we’re embracing it rather than dismissing it.

To listen to Teagan’s thoughts on everything covered above in more detail, click here. Or, for help hiring within your product team or advice on your next product role, contact Teagan.