Interested in learning what the essential data product manager skills are? You’ve come to the right place!

In the early 2000s, companies faced the problem of working with data at scale. Data was becoming necessary for their product roadmap, executive-level decisions, and information on their paid marketing campaigns. For internal and external data, there were regulations and restrictions on how this data could be used and by whom. 

However, nobody was responsible for developing data solutions for analytics operations, scalability, and accessibility. As a result, the data product manager role is there to manage and use data purposefully.

Today, data product managers have become so important that, according to Google Trends Data, their search volume has increased significantly over the last ten years. So, if you intend to become a data product manager and looking for the required skills, this article is for you. 

Continue reading as we will discuss all the essential skills required to become a good data product manager.

Communication Skills

Communication is the most in-demand skill for any job in general. It also holds the same esteemed spot for data product managers. That means you may not get a data product management job if you have all the hard skills like technical knowledge but lack soft skills such as communication skills.

It is mainly because every managerial job acts as a bridge between all departments. They represent the employee and their team.

So, as a data manager, you need to have excellent communication skills and know how to navigate between different stakeholders. It would be better if you also communicated verbally and in writing while being adept at content skills.

It is unwise to think that communication is only limited to speaking, as it also includes listening and being in tune with others. It is an ability to understand others’ perspectives and act wisely. If you are a person that possesses such skills, there is a chance you will secure your spot as a data product manager. 

Along with communication skills, an employer also seeks skills like employee relations, detail orientation, and mentoring in a candidate.

Employee Relations

Employee relations within an organization play a vital role in the success of a business.

Successful data product managers identify and resolve employee concerns and provide a more satisfying work environment for employees and employers alike.

A data product manager may have to perform duties from company policies, labor legislation, labor laws, and career development to managing employees’ benefits packages. So, one must act as an advocate for both an employer and its employees. 

Mentoring

Mentoring is a critical skill to have in the domain of communication skills. A data manager must understand how to be trustworthy and credible to his team members and stakeholders.

Mentoring is the skill required consistently to perform the job successfully to be an actual data product manager. It helps in training and development situations and ensures smooth onboarding, re-integration, conflict resolution, and team management.

Digital Skills

Today’s market is rapidly moving toward digitalization with its many digital products. Likewise, the data product management department needs to be proficient in digitally handling social media platforms, utilize data science, leverage data flow, use machine learning algorithms and perform statistical analyses.

Digital skills also include handling online courses, background checks, data analytics, and company databases.

Therefore, digital skills like social media platforms and customer service management have become even more important.

Social Media Platform Management

Social media is a free yet powerful platform to gather potential employees’ resumes, find market salary information, and find qualified candidates – all required excessively in a managerial position.

Platforms like Linkedin and job portals are crucial in finding candidates for any role. For instance, posting an HR intern job can provide you with hundreds of candidate options. Thus, to become a successful data product manager, you must be tech-savvy and know how to utilize these platforms for good.

Customer Service

Identifying customer needs is the prerequisite of any management job. So, if you are in a management role, you better know how to identify user needs, take user feedback, and resolve workplace issues.

Data product managers must deal with conflict situations and learn how to resolve these issues. Thus, everyone looking to be a successful data manager should learn how to cater to customer needs and provide better customer service.

Below are some of the skills that you must know and must work on as a data manager:

• Employee handling skills
• Conflict handling skills
• Anger management skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Emotional intelligence

Human Resource Management

Like the aforementioned, human resource management is equally essential for the data product manager. This skill is required to understand an organization’s recruitment, selection, and data reporting process.

Data product managers must know how to recruit, the screening and selection of a candidate, and how employees’ records are established. It can be learned by observing their human resources manager and experiencing it.

However, educational background is indispensable as you have to run a human resource information system and Microsoft office applications. The data product management job also requires reporting skills, including creating, reading, and understanding HR reports using data from different human resource intern systems.

Administrative Skills

Data product managers must provide administrative support as a part of their responsibility. Their administrative duties include managing data of entries of employees’ absence, job history, leaves and flow of workers, and their financial records.

Administrative skills are an essential component of a data manager’s role. It includes performance evaluation, reviewing resumes, posting jobs, and new hires, gathering employee information, and figuring out employee benefit programs.

All these skills are available on Youtube and many other resources available online. However, the priority is to learn with the data product manager.

Below are some of the areas you need to work on specifically for the role of data product manager.

Onboarding

Hiring is expensive, but a robust onboarding process can help reduce it. If you are a proactive and intelligent data product manager, you can avoid the gaps that cause unnecessary expenses. You can also identify the issues and take suitable measures to reduce tension in such situations.

Onboarding is the process that enables recruits to adjust to the social and performance aspects of their new job in a smooth and quick fashion. Organizations look to recruit data managers who can bring new employees into their data team to increase the chances of settling down into their new jobs in the long run.

Scheduling Interviews

A significant part of the data PM job is scheduling interviews and company events, and planning to destress activities for the organization.

The job of planning can be stressful as it involves figuring out what everyone in the data team’s interests are, deciding on a venue, figuring out cost budget analysis, and executing a seamless event.

Recruiting

Recruiting is the most mentioned skill for the data product management job. It revolves around sifting the qualified candidates, determining if a match exists, selecting the best ones, and adjusting them to the company’s culture.

Recruiting also involves interviewing candidates. Therefore, you must have the skills to ensure fair recruitment and selection. In addition, many organizations also have internal targets for diversity across the workforce; data product managers must take care of it too.

A data product manager must have the cultural awareness of a company for better recruitment policies. He must also stay in touch with higher managers and employees in different countries, and you must be aware of the intercultural differences.

For instance, some cultures have more frequent bonuses and promotions than others. These cultural differences affect how managers try to hire, retain, and promote people.

Strategy and Execution

A strategic mind is important in all jobs and in managerial positions. Strategy creation is among your responsibilities when starting a data product manager job. So, you need to understand the intent and translate it into an implementable execution plan.

The ability to interpret a strategic plan, and create it according to the company’s objectives, helps make more of an impact within an organization. It also strengthens the data product manager role in the company.

Teamwork and Collaboration

Teamwork is essential for the data product management department. Data product managers need to work with other team members and heads within the company.

Data product managers focus on creating the best workplace possible, which is collaborative and cohesive. The job also includes learning what they do not know and which departments they are unfamiliar with. Plus, the role also requires skills of working to collaborate and break the barrier.

Performance Management

This refers to involving employees in improving effectiveness towards achieving company goals. Performance management tasks fall under the umbrella of setting expectations, monitoring performance, ratings, and developing capacities to perform.

Data science teams rely on strong communication and interpersonal skills, and can assist with long-term employee retention.

Data product managers can learn this skill by being adaptable, tolerant, open, and versatile.

What is the Future of Data Product Managers?

It is no surprise that data product managers roles are increasing in the tech industry. According to estimates, the amount of data flow created worldwide will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. With this amount of data, organizations will need someone to manage the reams of data and utilize it.

In addition, the data product management market will reach $31.84 billion by 2025. So, aspiring and existing data product managers who plan to dig into this field have a bright future. All they need is the right training and mentorship with proper guidance.

Conclusion

If you have a background in data science or you are a data scientist with data science techniques, becoming a data product manager will not put you in any difficulty. But, even if you have a degree in data science, you will need the above-defined skills to become a successful data product manager.

Take any data management course online, and you will be good to apply for the role. The only thing required in this job is understanding complex systems of data flow and working with technical colleagues. Plus, this is a job that does not require any coding, so anyone can do this without even having specialized training.

Suppose you cannot take specialized training in product management. In that case, you can explore opportunities to be the product manager of freelance projects and get involved in the production process at any firm as a side project. It will also be an excellent start to becoming a data engineer and getting into product management.

The post Essential Data Product Manager Skills appeared first on Product HQ.

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Are you hoping to land your dream job as a data product manager? Are you ready to expand your career horizons? This article is especially important for you if you’re entering the job market as a data product manager for the first time, this article is especially important for you.

Whatever career stage you’re in, writing a great data product manager resume is a skill. Between a variety of formatting options and an array of possible keywords, it’s hard to know where to start.

At first glance, there should be no doubt that you have the skills and training that fit the job. On top of that, data product managers need to show that they are confident, personable, and able to think on their feet.

The good news is that resume building is much easier when you have a road map. Once you have a clear outline and a good sense of what you need to touch on, you’ll craft a resume that serves you for a lifetime – with a few tweaks as you continue in your career. So let’s simplify the process, one step at a time.

How to Write a Data Product Manager Resume: An Overview

A great resume for a data product manager captures the applicant’s unique skills. Not only that, but those very skills should dovetail with the expectations of the job. You need to show how your particular experiences make you better than most applicants.

It’s easy to chalk a resume up to nothing more than the jobs we’ve had in the past. It’s important to undo that idea. Thinking about a resume that way has the potential to be helpful for some and limiting for others.

When writing a resume, many successful data product manager resumes refrain from focusing on the following in a cursory way:

• Managing multiple projects
• Stakeholder relationships
• Team collaboration
• Succeeding in a fast-paced environment
• Market research

Try to avoid buzzwords, keywords, and other common topics. Repetition is not the way to stand out, so try to be more specific. What defines your skillset in particular? What experiences make you the best candidate for the job, over and above other data product manager applicants?

In outlining your skills, try to offer a bit of detail. An example, explanation, or brief elaboration works well. Capture your unique relationship to these skills in a vivid way, so you stand out.

Consider what companies and employers want their data product manager applicants to do. If you want to come across as an unmatched candidate, aim to do the following:

• Emphasize business intelligence
• Mention experience with and knowledge of data analysis or data analytics experience
• Indicate your experience with cross-functional teams
• Illustrate a deep understanding of product marketing and product management
• Mention work you’ve done with agile development methodology and the agile development process, including user stories

Try to be as specific as possible. Think about how to capture who you are, what you know, and how you’ll implement your skills and knowledge in a distinct way. Remember that companies need you too.

They’re looking for a bright spark who understands the why behind what they do. That might seem hard to convey in a resume. Yet all you need is alignment between the position description, your skills, and experiences, and the way you express your relationship to those experiences.

What is the Best Data Product Manager Resume Format?

Hiring managers love resumes that display achievements that fit the job description. To grab the attention of hiring managers, you’ll need to make sure that you nail down the formatting of your resume.

This is because the right format is eye-catching. It indicates that you care about your application and that you are detail-oriented. Oftentimes, what you say matters as much as how you display what you have to say.

In general, resumes should use white space, easy-to-read fonts, and well-crafted layouts. The same goes for any data product manager resume, which should follow these core rules.

Make sure headings are clear and bold, especially when delineating sections. Keep a Word and a PDF version handy. The former is editable, and an employer might request the latter for an application.

Also, consider the chronology of your resume. Reverse chronological order is often best, as this allows you to put your most recent accomplishments at the top of the page. The world of tech is fast-paced and ever-changing. For this reason, recent accomplishments are often the most relevant.

That said, these are the possible options to select from in terms of structuring the chronology of your resume:

• Reverse chronological order (see above)
• Combination
• Functional

Keep in mind that combination is ATS compliant, whereas functional is not. ATS stands for applicant tracking software. Today, an enormous amount of companies make use of ATS to filter out resumes. In other words, no one even glances at it when ATS banishes your resume based on its non-compliance.

So, it’s important to ensure that your resume is up to ATS standards. Companies use the job description to plug a set of words into an ATS system. A smart move is to comb through the job description and try to discern relevant words or phrases that get you through. It’s a small move, but it helps you beat this frustrating system!

Don’t make your resume too long, either. Longer resumes aren’t as impressive as the average data product manager may imagine. Showcase the extensiveness of your background in data product management in a concise way.

Too much fluff throws those reading your resume off.

A data product manager resume that is both comprehensive and concise is the sweet spot. Balance is key. You should keep your resume between one and three pages depending on your skill level. One page is plenty, especially if you’re starting out.

Overall, an excellent product or project manager resume shows an applicant’s expertise in a swift fashion. Hiring managers shouldn’t have to sift through a long, unwieldy piece to determine if you’re the right person for the job. In an ideal case, you want them to feel it in their bones at first brush.

How to Structure a Data Product Manager Resume

What does that formatting mean for structure? How should you divide your resume up into sections? A resume builder helps you get a sense of what to include and in what order. That said, here are some additional must-haves for a standout data project manager resume:

Data Product Manager Professional Header

In your header, you should include all personal information that makes identifying and contacting you easy.

You should include your full name, title, and phone number. A LinkedIn profile address or URL highlights your online networking presence. This is a great move, especially for a data product manager who should be tech-savvy. If you have an online profile link, this is also the place to put it on your resume.

Include your address and email address as well. For the sake of safety and confidentiality, you might not want to list a full address. In that case, putting a city and state is more than okay. What matters is that you’ve listed all other relevant contact information like an email address and phone number.

Experience Section

This is your moment! Time to make yourself look good on paper by listing your professional experiences. Remember that you should do this in descending order, starting with the most recent date and moving backward in time from there.

Try to discern which experiences you need to highlight, especially if you have worked many jobs. The top of your resume is the kick-off point, and it should offer a quick overview of your experience so it comes across as competitive and relevant to the job you’re applying for.

Cut out aspects of your professional experience that are irrelevant to the job you’re applying for. This is why it’s a good idea to keep your resume editable. The more it pertains to a job description, the better. In terms of the experience section, less is more.

As you determine which jobs or experiences to include in your resume, consider the following:

• Are you able to locate why your past job is important to the job you’re applying for?
• Did you spend a lot of time working in this role? If so, why? Is that reason important?
• Are there experiences that are relevant to the job you’re applying for? Try to rank them by importance.

Note that the last bullet trumps the middle one every time. Even if you’ve spent a small amount of time in a data product manager role, that’s the one you should try to bring the most focus to. Employers usually want to avoid having to teach their employees a role. The more you illustrate in your resume that you won’t need to learn the ropes, the better.

If you don’t have direct experience with the position already, then don’t feel disheartened. You control the narrative of how to present your experience in the best light. You have a lot of creative control here, so lean into it.

A word to the wise: don’t compromise on specificity. Give a clear overview of what your aims are for the future and how your experiences get you there. This is also an opportune moment to give a prospective employer insight into who you are.

Flesh out the nuances of those experiences to match the expectations of the job. While you want to keep things brief, try to express key takeaways these experiences gave you. The best resumes show how you’ve gained the hard and soft skills to allow you to excel in a job.

Outline what each experience provided you with in terms of expertise. This applies to jobs, internships, and volunteer work as well. Depending on the requirements of the job, you might want to mention some of the following:

• A proven track record of any kind in your previous employment
• Experience developing a product roadmap
• Product strategy development experience
• The extent to which you have a technical background
• Your background in data science or data procession
• A deep understanding of competitive analysis
• Strong knowledge of business analysis
• Experience working with development teams
• Software development experience

These sorts of skills and experiences are especially relevant, speaking to what an employer wants their data product manager to have experience in. For example, take data science and product management. These are an ideal combination for a project management position. The importance of data science in one’s background is key to the resume. Proven track records, as another example, help illustrate that you’re in it for the long haul and act as a reliable figure within a company. So if you’ve got it, flaunt it! That goes for any of the bullet points included above.

Junior Data Product Manager Resume Experience Examples

If you’re starting your professional career or are redirecting your trajectory, you might feel a little intimidated. Do you have credibility? Have you done enough to put data product management on your resume?

No matter how small your experience is, there’s always a creative, inventive way to sell it. In fact, that’s a skill on its own! Your capabilities and reflections on your experience may be as valuable as the experience itself.

It may be intimidating to throw your resume into the mix of a competitive environment. Confidence is competence.

Some ways you might make the best case for yourself as a data product manager, include detailing:

• The sorts of situations and problems you’ve dealt with
• How you’ve responded to those problems
• How you’ve dealt with key stakeholders and clients
• What aspects of your character and abilities proved to be the most valuable in that position

Self-reflexivity and reflection show a willingness to grow and emotional intelligence. Above anything, though, they also show competence. There are plenty of ways to slip in an acknowledgment of your abilities and expertise, no matter how long you’ve stayed in a relevant position.

Employers trust those who vouch for themselves in a gentle but also confident way. Sometimes, showing that you’ve made a real contribution in a short space of time makes you all the more employable.

The mark of a product manager is a willingness to grow, develop, and adjust. Flexibility and motivation help to fill in resume gaps and sets the resume apart.

Senior Data Product Manager Resume Experience Examples

Alternatively, you might have had many years of experience with data product management. Whether you’ve remained in the same place for long, or moved around, there are ways to highlight that.

Here are some things to think about:

• Avoid listing all your accomplishments, especially if you have moved around a lot
• Pull out and highlight the most relevant experiences.
• Ensure that you maintain consistency of job titles across mediums. This includes LinkedIn, your website, and your resume.
• Take extra care with ATS compliance.

Depending on what sort of job you’re applying for, you’ll pick and choose what to highlight. Make sure it’s easy to make changes to your resume by keeping a full, comprehensive one on hand. That way, you may remove the more irrelevant experiences and keep the rest. Make small tweaks that keep your resume relevant to each job.

Skills Section

There are benefits and drawbacks to a skills section on your resume. On the one hand, it draws attention to its pertinent information.

On the other hand, it helps you illustrate the relevance of your skills. The impact of your skills is as important as the skills themselves.

What sort of skills are important? Here are a few for you to place in your data product manager resume:

• Soft skills
• Communication skills
• Strong analytical skills
• The ability to handle data-related questions with ease
• The capacity to handle technical support
• Analytics functions skills
• Skills in handling external customers and responding well to customer feedback
• Internal stakeholders and key stakeholder engagement skills
• Relevant data analysis, data mining, and data quality skills
• A competence in detecting and working with industry trends and key metrics
• Market strategy skills
• Skills that help with ensuring strategic alignment

To decide which skills to incorporate, think about what the employer needs. The next step is to speak to those requirements.

Education

Product management education should definitely make its way onto a resume. A Bachelor’s degree or relevant undergraduate classes are typical. Regardless, incorporate what is most relevant; instead of listing all your education, incorporate what is most relevant.

Conciseness and relevance are key ingredients!

Demonstrate what it is about that education that prepares you for this job. Rather than listing the title of a degree, also list particular classes, honors, or even a thesis focus.

Where and How to Apply with a Data Product Manager Resume

Data product management is something organizations have come to rely on in a busy, information-heavy world. That said, it is tough to procure a job in a competitive industry like this one. The ability to transfer your skills to different areas or to work with other professionals in similar positions is ideal. For example, you may work as an online data product manager or a market data product manager, for example.

Regardless of what path you choose, here are some final tips for your application:

1. Draft a cover letter that is fresh and new for every job you apply to.
   Using a template helps, but also little things like mentioning the company’s name and speaking to a position description. Job applications take time. Still, it’s that time and dedication that gets you ahead of the pack.
2. Make sure you keep your product management resume up to date.
   Update your resume depending on the job you’re applying to and your most recent experience. Like a cover letter, your resume gives a sense of the contribution you’ll make.
3. Link to your professional online presence.
   Networking is an important part of the hiring process. The approval of others in the industry demonstrates your reliability. So much networking nowadays takes place online.
   If an employer likes your resume, they may do a deeper dive. In so doing, it’s great if they find collaborating information online.

Credit: Resume Worded

Crafting a resume with care, thoughtfulness, and intention is a major stepping stone on the path to being a successful product manager. With all these tools under your belt, though, know that you’ve got this.

It’s time to land that data product manager job!

The post How to Write a Data Product Manager Resume [+ Examples] appeared first on Product HQ.

The post How to Write a Data Product Manager Resume [+ Examples] appeared first on ProdSens.live.