Is it too late to change careers as a product manager at the age of 30? Let you avoid detours!

Mondo Workplace Updated on 2024-02-20

Let's take my conclusion: it's too late! As long as you have product thinking and master the learning method, you can easily switch to products. If you're looking to change careers, or if you're starting to have the idea of changing careers, no matter how old you are, you'll definitely find something to help you find a more accurate direction for changing careers as a product manager! 1. Think clearly about the purpose of changing careers as a product manager1.People follow the trend and change careers to product managersThere is no right or wrong choice to change careers, but have you ever wondered why you should change careers as a product manager? According to my observations, there are only two reasons: if you simply see a lot of posts on the Internet that boast that you will earn a lot of money after changing careers to a product manager, or if you expect to make others think that you are good at being a product manager when you brag to others after you have successfully changed careers, then I will not recommend you to change careers. Because you have such an idea, it can only mean one thing: you don't have a clear career plan, and you don't particularly love your current job and industry. If you resolutely choose to change careers, it will often lead you to jump from one pit to another. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you refer to these dimensions to measure the product manager who changes careers: (1) What do you care about most? Salary? Room for promotion? Interpersonal relationship? (2) Do you have the competence and professional skills of a product manager to successfully change careers? (3) Can you accept frequent overtime and high work pressure? (4) Are you a non-terrorist person with good communication and coordination skills? 2.I'm tired of my current job and want to get a promotion and a salary increase by changing careers as a product managerMany people are tired of their current work, mainly from the pressure of work and the anxiety of life, and especially hope to be able to get out of the busy sea of misery as soon as possible and change the bottleneck in the workplace. I even feel that the life I want is that I don't have to be so busy at work, I don't have to be a tool person who does chores, and I happened to see the publicity and marketing of doubling the salary and getting promoted and raised after changing careers as a product manager online. You mistakenly think that changing careers is a way to change things quickly. If this happens to you, I also don't recommend you change careers. No matter what kind of position you change to, you can't get a promotion and a salary increase in one step. Most people have a new job at the beginning, and when they work for a long time, they slowly feel that any job will feel boring in the end. 2. Understand the product manager's workflow and contentThe complete workflow of a product manager is divided into three phases and twelve steps. 1.Product planning: Plan what kind of product to make. (1) Discover the pain points of demand: Finding unmet needs and pain points that have not been solved is the first step for all products. (2) Find the target user: find the group of people who have this demand pain point. (3) User research: design a survey questionnaire to investigate and study real users. (4) User portrait: According to the user survey results, summarize the user portrait, including character characteristics, demand scenarios, etc. (5) Competitive product analysis: find the top few competitors' products, analyze their advantages and disadvantages, learn the advantages, improve the disadvantages, and surpass the competing products. 2.Product Design: Design how the product should be done. (6) Business process diagram: What the user does with the product, and the order of doing things, draw a flow chart. (7) Functional structure diagram: what are the functions of the product, what is the functional structure, and draw it into a mind map. (8) Product prototype: What the product page looks like, use product design software to make a good prototype. (9) Requirements document: The implementation requirements of each detail and what kind of effect are required should be clearly written in the requirements document. 3.Product delivery: make products, bring them to market, and continue to iterate. (10) Project management: manage the progress of the entire product to ensure that it is launched on time. (11) Data analysis: Analyze the data generated after the launch, and find problems and optimization points. (12) Demand iteration: improve products and continuously update according to changes in users, markets and opponents.

3. How to make your transition to a product manager quickly The Trilogy of Success:1. Clarify what competencies are required for junior product managers and assistant specialistsOpen Recruitment** (recommended Lagou, BOSS Zhipin), search for product assistants, product specialists, product interns and other positions, and carefully sort out the people they want, what kind of abilities do they need? Recommended for you to use Principle: It is to select the primary recruitment needs of the target positions of three top companies, three medium-sized companies, and three small start-ups, and find common ground: After combing the recruitment of the three top companies for the junior positions, it is not difficult to find that everyone's recruitment needs are similar. In fact, the answers you get after combing through the three medium-sized and three small ones will not be too bad. Except for some more subdivided, vertical fields, which have background requirements and cannot be cast. For entry-level positions, the requirements of the recruiter are generic. For example, product specialists, product assistants, and junior product managers, the company's requirements for job seekers are simple: master the daily tools that product managers need; Familiarity with the workflow of a product manager; Able to output some relatively professional outputs; The others are some soft skills, such as being proactive, serious, smart and studious. So next, is the idea clearer? Just do it, huh? That's right, it's actually practicing. 2. Targeted preparation and learning: Master the minimum necessary knowledge to enter the knowledge of product managers, which can be divided into three categories:2.1. Must master: product manager workflow and content, competitive product analysis These knowledge includes: the workflow and content of product managers, the ability to have basic demand research, and competitive product analysis These are just what you need to master, otherwise a stupid white sweet will not be able to get an offer from a junior product manager; 2.2. Understand: user portraits, mind maps, flow charts, prototype diagrams, requirements documents, user portraits, mind maps, flow charts, prototype diagrams, and key points of requirements documents; These are the contents that the interviewer will ask if you can, but you better answer "yes, or some", although these tools are not a core competency in the learning ability of product managers, but don't let these block your way to change careers; 2.3. Bonus points: complete the process of going through the product projectHave a complete project experience, and completely go through each process of the product manager's work: Demand research - > competitive product analysis - > mind map - > flow chart - > product prototype - > interactive prototype - > requirements document; It can be your own practical exercises, with some of your own understanding and the process of finding ways to encounter problems. It is to practice a complete product case to find a big bull to help you point out the problems in the operation; Ensure that the output has a certain degree of professionalism; For example, demand questionnaires, user portraits, competitive product analysis, mind maps, flow charts, product prototypes, requirements documents, project scheduling and acceptance online preparation, etc. 3. Resume delivery channels and interview skills with high pass rateDo-it-yourself projects, complete hands-on exercises. Guess you might be worried about not going online? It's okay to tell you, as long as your output is professional and can prove your strength, you can write it on your resume. Because it can't be launched, whether to develop it or not is the boss (who gives money) has the final say, and it is the job of R&D engineers. All you need to do is prove that you have what it takes to be a product manager.

Finally, it is recommended to take an NPDP certificate. NPDP certification is Chinese name product manager international qualification certification, new product development professional (npdp), initiated by the American Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), is the only internationally recognized new product development professional certification, set theory, method and practice as one of the all-round knowledge system, for the company's organizational level planning, decision-making, implementation to provide a good method system support. What is the NPDP Product Manager Certification used for? 1. Increase more opportunities for promotionFor product managers, the acquisition of NPDP international qualification certification can help them broaden their career path in a certain way, because with this qualification certificate recognized at home and abroad, if it can show that this person can be trusted whether it is work ability or professional ability, so more and more students will go to the popular NPDP international qualification certification guidance agency to obtain the certificate. Second, it is more conducive to the appreciation of the management, if a manager obtains the NPDP international qualification certification certificate with his own strength, it shows that these people have certain product development capabilities and management capabilities, whether it is from the knowledge reserve or the professional work ability, they can be built in the leadership, so we will go to the reputable NPDP international qualification certification learning and counseling institutions for further study and training. 3. Enhance the reputation image of the company's team, and now there are many things, in order to make their team more professional and have more say in the industry, and take the initiative to let their employees go to the domestic veteran NPDP international qualification certification learning and tutoring institutions, after all, professional and systematic training and learning, because through the NPDP international qualification certification, further understand and learn and obtain qualification certification, which not only enhances the professional ability of employees, but also starts the popularity of the enterprise. On the one hand, it provides more possibilities for a person's career development, helps people in the workplace to gain a higher degree of recognition in the eyes of colleagues, leaders and headhunters, so as to help a person develop more career development opportunities, and on the other hand, this certificate can lay a certain foundation for a person's future leadership. NPDP Product Manager Certification

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