How to Break into Product Management

Product management has become one of the most coveted roles in just about every sector of business, from tech to manufacturing, retail to real estate, and everything in-between. Product managers are the new rock gods at companies like Facebook, Google, Reddit, and Amazon. And they’re paid even better.

According to indeed.com the average base salary for a product manager nationwide is nearly $108,000; at companies like Facebook, that number jumps above $200,000.

But more than that, being a product manager at any company is a really satisfying job. Product managers are an integral part of almost every organization, regardless of the type of product, physical or digital. The role is cross-functional with many different departments from sales, support, marketing, operations, and product managers having a direct line to the executive team. And best of all, product managers have a real and visible impact on the business. In other words, you’ll actually see your ideas come to life and experience the thrill of customer delight.

So it’s pretty clear that a role in product management is exciting, but it’s also tougher to land than other jobs. That’s large because of the range of skills needed to succeed, most of which can only be taught on the job, through experience. And the best way to begin getting experience as a product manager is to start with an internship.

This article will break down the roles and responsibilities of a product management intern. You’ll learn about the skills recruiters are looking for. And you’ll understand the step-by-step process of getting your first product manager internship. So get ready.

First, let’s understand what Product Manager Interns do.

Let’s just say that a product intern does everything a full-fledged product manager does minus broad decision-making abilities. Now that’s pretty exciting. And it’s true. Unlike many industries like finance or manufacturing where interns have often glorified coffee getters or paper pushers, as a product management intern you’ll be exposed to every aspect of the role and make a real contribution to the company.

Every day is different in the life of a product intern. The responsibilities mostly depend on what phase of development the product is in. One day you might be working on market research; the next day, you find yourself collaborating with the UX team or engineers; and yet another day you’re interacting with marketing. You’ll get exposure to just about every department in your company.

You stand at the confluence of multiple teams and act as the hub that connects them all. Since you are not likely to be satisfied with this rhetorical answer, here is a list of the roles and responsibilities of a product management intern from common job descriptions.

• Work on cross-functional teams on developing physical or digital products
• Conduct market research and evaluate customer responses
• Work as a team to design a product roadmap
• Develop a product strategy in tandem with the marketing department
• Brainstorm on supporting or contingency strategies
• Assist product managers with core product development responsibilities
• Set and maintain the vision for the product
• Align the product strategy with other departments
• Function as a communication hub between internal and external stakeholders to meet deadlines and achieve company-wide goals.
• Manage new product development projects and keep the pipeline stable.
• Suggest long-term ideas for future product development.

Some of these responsibilities seem somewhat broad and a bit fluffy, so I will go into more detail as I dive deep into the skill requirements of a product manager internship.

What are the Skill Requirements for a Product Manager Internship?

A product manager intern is essentially a jack of all trades but a master of none, acquiring bits and pieces from UX design, data science, web development, and other customer-centric business functions such as sales, leadership, communications skills, or growth marketing.

And as an intern, your role would mostly consist of hands-on tasks and cross-functional skills. From time to time, you have to take over responsibilities from other teams, such as helping the user interface (UI) or user experience (UX) teams decide on road mapping or ensure quality management.

What should you expect to do on a PM internship?

Your day-to-day responsibilities as a product manager intern will vary significantly. Although you won’t have much in the way of authority and decision-making power, you will have a voice and your opinions will still count.

The majority of PM internships begin with a comprehensive run-through of the product and its lifecycle, how it works, and what the product vision and roadmap look like. Then, you’ll get to experience…

1. Product backlogs
   You can think of the product backlog as a development to-do list, organized in priority order.
   It’s a dynamic document, changing in response to external and internal factors (including that much-needed customer insight). As such, PMs rely heavily on the content of this backlog to strategically plan what needs doing and when.
   During your internship, you’ll likely get to interact with a real-life product backlog — helping the PM or other team members keep it up to date, aligning actions with the strategic roadmap, and reprioritizing when needed.
2. Product roadmaps
   Your PM internship will also see you contributing to product roadmaps — high-level visual summaries that help communicate the direction of a product and its strategic plan.
   In almost all cases, the roadmap will have already been developed before you begin your internship.
   That said, as with the product backlog, the roadmap is constantly evolving.
   As an intern on the product management team, you’ll be involved in making recommendations for improvements to the roadmap, as well as organizing the next steps.
3. Product Strategies
   If you really want to impress during your internship, you should look to have useful conversations with other departments). You’ll also want to take time to analyze user data and feedback from customers.
   Why does this matter?
   Because, when done right, this insight puts you in a strong position to offer informed and considered contributions to product and business strategies — yes, you, the intern!
   As a valued member of the team, you’ll then be invited to play your part by suggesting new initiatives, or by recommending how to improve existing strategies.
   Ultimately these responsibilities lie with the Product Manager. So as an intern, this gives you a great opportunity to prove your worth and show the team how resourceful you are, and how much value your contributions add.

The truth is, each company is different and there is no perfect product manager intern definition.

However, here’s a glimpse of what recruiters are looking for when they are hiring PM Interns

1. Data competency
   You don’t have to be a data scientist to get your first product manager internship. But you do have to generally understand the purpose of data in an organization. The recruitment panel is ideally looking for someone who can gather, extract, analyze, and present data to prove a hypothesis without tapping data whizzes repeatedly for answers.
   You must be able to conduct independent market research or consumer surveys, squeeze data out of seemingly endless lists of numbers, and create insightful visuals for your team to identify new product opportunities. Certain industries, like SaaS or digital products, tend to have a lot of stored raw data. Hence, recruiters want a data-driven intern who can understand them, take action, and lead the company’s digital transformation.
2. Basic technical knowledge
   Do product manager interns need to have coding skills in their arsenals as well? Not necessarily. Sure, knowing how to code, particularly if you’re looking to get a product management internship at a tech company, is going to be helpful. A company may have several interns on the product team. Some will be more focused on interacting with the engineers while others might be more customer-focused. So know the role you’re applying for and tweak your resume so it fits.
   If you must know to code or are just interested, start with building a foundation in HTML, CSS, or Javascript because almost every software relies on these languages. Companies will almost never expect you to write lines from scratch. Instead, the knowledge is there to make you capable enough to step in and put forward ideas and creative thinking. It’s more about bridging the gap between you and the team.
3. UI/UX and Design Skills
   Should I know how to build prototypes/wireframes for a software product? Again, it’s nice to have. A product intern does not need to master product design. However, fundamentals come in handy when you have to create a simple prototype to initiate discussion or test a hypothesis. Firstly, visualizing your product even in its rudimentary form helps you pitch your product better to stakeholders, and recruiters know how much time you can save in the process. A lot of prototyping happens with simple pencil and paper, if you’re a creative thinker you probably already can do prototyping and wire-framing.
   Secondly, it helps you voice your ideas to the design or development team efficiently. Strictly speaking, you will not be expected to pitch in prescriptive ideas. Nevertheless, a prototype is always welcome on the table. More likely, your internship will require you to run a survey or collect feedback, rather than designing a product prototype from scratch. If you want to play around with prototyping give Invision or proto.io a try. They are easy-to-use tools for non-coders to create wireframes on the go.
4. Customer/User-Centric Skills
   Understanding and interacting with customers is probably the most universal activity that product manager interns will do, regardless of the business sector. This is a very broad skill set and you’re probably already better than you think. As a product intern, you will be asked to understand the needs, desires, pain points, and motivations of your core product users. Having experience in customer-centric teams such as sales, marketing, or simply business development can add substantial value to your application. Moreover, an adequate understanding of design thinking or UX design is often a must-to-have skill for a digital product manager. If you really want to dig in, you might consider taking a beginner course on product management before you begin applying for internships.
5. Soft Skills
   Soft skills are often underrated, but they won’t be by the product team. Soft skills essentially refer to your non-technical skills — how you interact with co-workers, solve problems, prioritize and manage your work and stay motivated. As a product intern, you are likely to engage in heavy cross-functional collaboration, pitch your findings to the stakeholders, conduct successful user interviews, or simply participate in team meetings. So you’re going to need to work well with others, have empathy and be a good listener.
   Other soft skills you’re going to want to hone are: leadership, time management, presentation skills, negotiation skills, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence. Why recruiters seek these skill is a no-brainer. The challenging part is to convince them that you possess these skills. Try telling stories of how you worked under immense time constraints and pressure in your last internship and yet came out unscathed. Or how you organized debate clubs, business competitions, coding projects, or discussion forums in your college years.