The race is on for companies to hire Product Managers (PMs) at unprecedented rates. Once associated with tech companies in Silicon Valley, PMs are now sought after in virtually all industries and locations, thanks to more companies offering their services online and embracing remote work. There has never been a better time in history to build digital products.
This increase in demand for product jobs is leading to record-high applications to enroll in Product School, the global leader in Product Management training, with over 20,000 alumni and a million-strong community of PMs. Product School’s certifications are considered the gold standard in the industry, as traditional degrees and MBA programs simply don’t equip PMs with the skills they require on the job.
Clients such as Boston Consulting Group, Capital One, McKinsey, Nestle, Northwestern Mutual, Procter & Gamble, PwC, Walgreens, and Walmart are drawn to Product School’s top-notch instructors who “walk the walk.” They are real-world Product Leaders behind today’s most popular products at Google, Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb, Paypal, and others.
As Humana’s Associate Director of Strategy Advancement explained: “Product School did an excellent job of customizing their program to our unique needs and bringing our team up to speed on the latest and greatest product best practices. Our teams varied widely, from new to the role to veteran status, and job functions from enterprise transformation, to virtual care, business intelligence, and machine learning.”
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According to Glassdoor, the average total compensation of a Product Manager in San Francisco is $143,503 per year. Here are the three key trends behind why both PM hiring and salaries are on the rise:
1. Companies are becoming “product-led.”
More companies are putting the customer experience at the core of the organization and leveraging their product as the primary source of growth. This strategy is called product-led growth (PLG).
This research from the Product-Led Collective makes it clear that companies that implemented PLG were able to increase profitability by reducing their customer acquisition cost versus sales-led or marketing-led companies.
2. Product roadmaps and digital transformation have been accelerated
The world is changing faster than ever. As a result, product leaders must anticipate and adapt to the unknown of a fourth industrial revolution, quickly giving way to the fifth, where business models and informed customers have re-engineered every aspect of the buying process. This has changed the game for products in both B2B and B2C across hardware, software, and services in every industry there are.
Thanks to the new wave of low-code/no-code tools that don’t require substantial technical expertise, PMs are more empowered than ever to create roadmaps, wireframes, and other deliverables without piggybacking on tools that haven’t been designed for them, such as PowerPoint or Photoshop.
3. PMs are hungry for growth opportunities
By extension, if products are now the growth engines, PMs need up-to-date training and resources to steer them.
Recent data from the The Future of Product Management Report shows that the majority of PMs choose learning and mentorship as the main non-monetary factor for staying motivated at work in the long term, outranking even equity. However, less than 40% of U.S. companies offer education stipends or training programs to their employees.
As Product School CEO Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia summed it up: “Product Managers are lifelong learners by nature and always looking for big problems to solve. Put differently; no great Product Manager will stay long in a company that doesn’t invest in their personal growth.”
Why PMs and companies are choosing Product School
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Founded in 2014, Product School’s 7 years in the field afford perspective in how to blend the best of what’s worked for their graduates with always-evolving materials. Fast forward to today, and their expanding client roster of Fortune 500 clients to fast-growing startups speaks to the depth of expertise that keeps companies coming back to certify and upskill their PMs at various career levels.
Enrollment is up, and reviews are glowing as they churn out certified PMs in record numbers. They appreciate a training experience that caters to their life balance, with live, online courses offered in flexible evening and weekend sessions across all timezones. Their real-world instructors “get” them, taking what they learn at leading companies to pass on ultra-current knowledge from one PM to another in constantly-updated course materials and modern tools.