Hiring a Product Manager from Outside

Antibodies are special proteins used by the immune system in the human body to identify and combat foreign elements such as viruses and infections.

Scientists have found a subtype of rotifers, small freshwater invertebrates, which can capture and assimilate DNA from other organisms in the environment. “Researchers think this unusual capability of the organisms to copy and paste bits of foreign DNA may have helped this class of rotifers to exist for millions of years without resorting to sexual reproduction”. You can read about the NPR story here. 

No organization or groups of people probably reject the notion of hiring an outsider like antibodies do in human bodies. Likewise, few organizations have mastered the art of assimilating an outsider into their company and culture like a certain kind of rotifer do.

Most organizations fall somewhere in between.

Hiring a Product Manager from outside and setting her up for success is a task that requires significant commitment both from the hiring manager as well as the Product Manager herself. There is a wide range of stakeholders that the PM needs to establish credibility with within a short period of time. The approach of “throw her into water; she will figure out how to swim back to shore” is most likely not going to work even for a PM with otherwise "rockstar" credentials.

Few years back I took up a position to lead the enterprise architecture team for the drug development division at Pfizer pharmaceuticals. The highly effective people management approach of Walt Hauck, CIO of Pfizer at that time (now CIO of Dun and BradStreet) and Tony Gazikas, CTO of Pfizer was legendary - I had had many interactions with them during my Oracle days. Even with that prior knowledge I was pleasantly surprised with the way Walt's team at Pfizer welcomed and enabled new employees into their organization.

Tony, even with his busy schedule, would always make time for the 1:1 time I had with him every three weeks. He would constantly remind me about establishing “who Bhaskar is” within the first 90 days. Walt gave me pointers on areas to focus on and relationships to start establishing. The belief that you have to take the time to make people better as a core part of building a great organization wasn’t just talk. It was taught deep into the organization.

This was more than made to feel welcome. That was part of it. But, it was making sure a new hire knew he or she was an important part of the organization, not just a resource doing a task, and knew how to engage in the culture of the organization. The deliberate and consistent approach Walt's team took helped a new hire to settle down and get fired up to do great things.

In addition to establishing his own credibility, a new Product Manager needs to quickly come up to speed on the new environment he is in. For example, for some stakeholders, he might have to fight not-so-great perception of the PM organization or that of the product. The hiring manager should take time to make the right introductions and give the right first assignments etc.

As a hiring manager I can think of at least four major areas of focus to get the new hire properly assimilated into the organization: 

• People: For example, making the right introductions, proper stakeholder analysis
• Product: Giving her an opportunity to get familiarity with the areas of the product she will be responsible for 
• Process: For example, how your organization does product management differently than what she has been used to before 
•  Perception: For better or worse perceptions exist - about a product, about a role etc. It's better to be up-front with the new hire to make her aware of the prevailing perceptions - both good and not-so-good
  

Have a thorough interview process to ensure that you hire the right person. Even if just one key stakeholder has serious doubts about the abilities of the candidate, you are probably better off not hiring.

Once hired make sure she feels really welcome. It's an investment you will need to make as a hiring manager whether you hire an internal candidate or an external candidate into your group.  It's good to be aware that for an external candidate the investment tends to be much higher.