Purpose: This paper tries to distinguish the attributes of various products in different dimensions, hoping to help product newcomers to make their own career planning as soon as possible. At the same time, for junior and intermediate product managers in the confused period, this article will also guide you to sort out their own positioning, so as to find the ideal job more accurately.
I’m sure you’ve all seen different product manager categories, especially on major job boards. Business product manager, data product manager, live product manager, search product manager, e-commerce product manager, backend product manager, etc. I’ve always wondered how these labels of different dimensions come into being, and what are the patterns?
First of all, the emergence of any discipline or profession will go through a process from chaos to order. Compared with other traditional professions, the existence of product manager is pitifully short. In order to better define the product manager category, let’s take the “accounting” profession as an example and draw on the well-established occupational classification methods.
1. Classification by accounting subject and purpose
According to accounting main body and different purposes can be divided into budget accounting and financial accounting.
2. Categories by report object
According to the object of its report, it is divided into financial accounting and management accounting.
3. By industry
By industry: Industrial enterprise accounting, the circulation of commodities accounting, finance, securities, insurance, accounting and the construction enterprise accounting, accounting for the real estate industry, telecommunications, agriculture, business accounting, tourism, catering, health accounting, transportation, culture, education, property management, accounting and administrative business accounting, accounting of listed companies , logistics enterprise accounting, chain operation accounting, publishing and printing accounting, private enterprise accounting, small enterprise accounting (manufacturing) accounting, small enterprise accounting (business) accounting, electric power enterprise accounting, coal enterprise accounting, iron and steel enterprise accounting, petrochemical accounting, automotive industry accounting, tobacco enterprise accounting, Alcohol enterprise accounting, accounting, medicine, food enterprise accounting, accounting for processing and manufacturing, light industry, foreign trade accounting, accounting information consulting services, advertising services, housing intermediary service accounting, market (farmers, hardware, wholesale, building materials, clothing, etc.), a sole proprietorship enterprise accounting, high and new technology enterprise accounting , software and integrated circuit accounting.
4. Sort by job description
According to the work content, it is divided into: general ledger accounting, current accounting, cost accounting, material accounting, etc.
5. Categorize by job scope
Divide by working limits: public accounting, private accounting, governmental accounting.
It can be seen from the above accounting classification that the person we are talking about is a financial accountant and the person is a cost accountant, but in fact the two are not discussed in the same dimension. This is reflected in the product manager industry as well. For example, livestreaming product manager is classified from the perspective of tools, which may be classified as audio product manager and picture product manager at the same latitude. For example, e-commerce product managers are divided from the perspective of industry, corresponding to the same latitude classification may be social product manager, financial product manager.
Here’s an attempt to categorize product managers in multiple dimensions:
1. Classification by product attributes
(1) Tool attributes In fact, most Internet or software products contain the most basic tool attributes. Because its birth as an artifact itself carries the purpose of the maker. Manufacturers want users to use their products as tools to solve certain problems.
Requirements for product managers: Tool-based products tend to have a strong purpose, usually to improve efficiency, save time or reduce costs on the basis of solving problems. Therefore, it is necessary for product managers to have strong logical thinking and direct to the core in the simplest and most effective way to solve problems.
(2) Content attribute The product that transmits information to users has content attribute. Products with this attribute establish the connection between people and information, which basically includes three parts: content production, content screening and content display.
Requirements for product managers: Product managers should start from the following three aspects: encouraging content production in product design, fine content selection in data algorithm, and reasonable traffic distribution in interaction design to deliver accurate content to users.
(3) Social attributes Products that establish connections between people have social attributes. It basically includes user relationship chain and user interaction behavior.
Product manager requirements: In-depth understanding of psychology and a more thorough understanding of user behavior and motivation. Focus on the formation and maintenance of user relationship chain, enrich and strengthen the interaction between users.
(4) Transaction attribute Products with transaction behaviors have transaction attribute. This attribute establishes the connection between people and goods/services.
Requirements for product managers: extremely clear and rigorous logical thinking, good at modularization of functions, able to comb through complex transaction processes. And understand the factors of users’ shopping decisions, can reflect the theory in product design.
In practice, products often have more than one attribute, and it is likely that multiple attributes coexist. For example, wechat only had the attributes of tools and social interaction at the beginning, but with the addition of the function of public accounts, it also included the attributes of content. If you count the cooperation with JINGdong, including the function of e-commerce, wechat can be said to be a full property of the product. For example, Taobao started with tools and transactions, but with the addition of AliWangwang, it also includes social attributes. If calculate micro tao community again, that Taobao is also a full attribute product. Although most products have multiple attributes, when defining a product category, we usually take the core product attributes. Therefore, Taobao is an e-commerce product and wechat is a social product. Similarly, when we define a certain product classification in the future, we can first see which attributes it contains, and which attributes account for the largest proportion, so that the product can be classified under the corresponding classification.
In the career development of product manager, it is essential to master the tool attributes of products, because most products contain tool attributes, so many people would say that the core ability of product manager is logical thinking ability. If a product manager’s logical thinking ability is not good, his development in all other aspects will be limited. So, if you find that your product design is often buggy and your product capability is slow to improve, then you need to consider whether you lack logical thinking, are you suitable to be a product manager?
Product/Operation/Test/Programmer essential dry goods
www.jianshu.com/p/875b98aba…
2. By device
(1) Mobile terminal usually includes iOS terminal, Android terminal and H5 web terminal. It is necessary to understand the iOS human-computer interaction guide and Google’s Material Design specification in detail.
(2) PC usually includes Web page terminal and PC client, and the interaction mode is different from that of mobile terminal.
3. Type by front and back ends
(1) The front end generally refers to the interface that all users see and use. This concept is mainly to distinguish it from the background.
(2) Background usually refers to the products associated with the front-end products for the use of staff, requiring product managers to have extremely clear logical thinking.
4. Users are categorized by type
(1) To B Products Such products are mainly targeted at enterprise users and mostly belong To tool-based products. For example, the design of large-scale ERP and OA system may involve dozens of posts, dozens of modules and hundreds of processes, which requires product managers to have strong abstract and modular thinking.
This kind of products are mainly aimed at mass users. Compared with To B products, it pays more attention To the aesthetics of UI and the smoothness of interactive experience. Product managers need to be more aware of user psychology and pay attention to any small details.
5. Classify by tool dimension
(1) Live video broadcast
(2) Video
(3) Real-time audio
(4) Recording
(5) Pictures
(6) Text
There are just three ways that humans transmit information: sound, text, and images, and these six categories cover most of the current forms of content (VR is still in its infancy and doesn’t count). Whether it’s video, audio, pictures, or text, it’s all about presenting content better, and each approach has its pros and cons. Product managers need to understand the features of various tools to better integrate product design with the business.
6. Sort by job description
(1) Interactive Product Manager A product manager whose job content is mainly interaction design, whose function is approximately equal to that of interaction designer.
(2) Demand product manager A product manager whose main work is demand analysis. Interaction designers often exist in large Internet companies, so the most important work of product managers is demand analysis.
(3) Strategic Product manager Different companies may have different definitions, some may be responsible for a part of the business level of the product strategy, may also be responsible for the overall product planning. At the same time, the strategy product manager may also have the responsibility of designing algorithms that need to be translated from concrete requirements into abstract algorithms. Compared with other product manager jobs, such functions have higher knowledge barriers, requiring knowledge of programming and understanding of program implementation principles.
(4) Commercial Product Managers Such product managers plan and design profit functions for the purpose of earning more profits, while balancing user experience to ensure a virtuous cycle of product ecology. As a commercial product manager, it is necessary to master various product realization methods (common realization methods and how to flexibly match different methods for realization will be introduced in detail in future articles).
7. Sort by grade
(1) Product specialist/product assistant usually refers to a new product within 0-2 years of entry, unable to work independently and with little working rights, usually only responsible for some small functional modules.
(2) Product manager refers to product manager in a narrow sense, which is above the level of product Specialist/assistant and below the level of senior product manager. Usually at this stage the product manager has the ability to take charge of a larger product module or product line.
(3) Senior Product Manager A level often defined by large Internet companies, usually referring to a level with long working years and higher skills than ordinary product managers. But in fact, this positioning and its fuzzy, there is no authoritative organization for title certification.
(4) Product specialist is also a level defined by large Internet companies, which is one level above senior product manager and has higher skills than senior product manager. At the same time, this positioning is extremely vague.
(5) The product director usually refers to the general responsible person of the product, who can control the product related matters globally.
Product/Operation/Test/Programmer essential dry goods
www.jianshu.com/p/875b98aba…
8. By industry
(1) E-commerce
[Standing attribute] Tool + trade; [Job market size] huge; [Peak of development] very high (Alibaba, JINGdong, Amazon); [Barriers to career change] high; [Related knowledge] Logistics, warehousing, supply chain, commodity system, payment system, order system, etc.
E-commerce industry is a relatively good choice for product managers, with many jobs and great development potential. At the same time, if the e-commerce industry wants to transfer to other industries or other industries to the e-commerce industry is relatively difficult.
(2) Socializing
[Standing attribute] Tools + social; [Job market size] medium; [Peak of development] Extremely high (Tencent, Momo, YY); [Barriers to career change] high; 【 Relevant knowledge 】 User relationship chain and interaction between users.
Almost all the top social products in China are in Tencent, so the peak of social product manager is very high, but the path of social product manager is not as smooth as that of e-commerce. Small social products and medium-sized social products are too few, it is still difficult to go to the level of Tencent.
(3) Finance
[Standing attribute] Tool + trade; [Job market size] large; High (Ant Financial, major banks, Creditease); Barriers to career change: extremely high; [Industry Knowledge] Knowledge of finance.
A deep financial sea, from social is a passer-by. Financial products have the highest barriers of any industry. It takes a lot of financial knowledge, and the deeper you go, the harder it is to get out of it. At the same time, financial products need very rigorous thinking, a little mistake, may lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of capital. Of course, the financial sector is also very high at its peak and generally pays better than other industries.
4) Education
Tools + content; [Job market size] large; High (New Oriental, Tencent Classroom, netease Classroom); 【 Barriers to change 】 in; [Industry Knowledge] Different fields of education require different knowledge.
At present, there are many branches in the education field, and there is no giant monopoly like social and e-commerce. In fact, the impact of electronic technology on education has just begun, and the potential for the development of education in the future is huge.
(5) Enterprise services
[Standing attribute] tools; [Job market size] huge; High (Microsoft, Neusoft, SAP); [Barriers to career change] high; [Industry knowledge] Different fields require different knowledge.
(6) Health care
[Standing attribute] tools; [Job market size] medium; (Ali Health, Dingxiang Doctor, Good doctor); Barriers to career change: medium; [Industry Knowledge] Medical related knowledge.
In fact, the internetization of the medical and health field is lagging behind, probably because the medical field is still dominated by state-owned hospitals with a low marketization degree, which makes it difficult to leverage traditional habits. But at the same time, healthcare has the same huge potential as education. I believe that with the development of The Times, the medical and health field will be born giant products.
(7) Cultural entertainment
[Standing attribute] Tools + content + social; [Job market size] large; [Peak of development] Gao (Tencent, YY, Ali Entertainment); [Barriers to career change] low; [Industry knowledge] is almost minimal.
Cultural entertainment is a huge field, and even its boundaries are vague and hard to define. Sports, film and television, music and other fields are randomly take out a hundred million user products. This kind of product manager does not have very clear limitation, the industry barrier is not very deep. It is suggested that you can choose a sub-area to delve into and still achieve high achievement.
(8) Travel
[Standing attribute] Tool + trade; [Job market size] medium; (Qunar, Ctrip, Elong); 【 Barriers to change 】 in; [Industry knowledge] Knowledge of tourism related industry chain and the influence of seasonal alternation on tourism travel.
The overall market size of tourism travel is very huge, and most of the behaviors in tourism products are also transaction behaviors. Therefore, the threshold of job-hopping between e-commerce industry and tourism industry is relatively low.
(9) Data services
[Standing attribute] tools; [Job market size] large; [Peak] Gao (Ali Cloud, Tencent Cloud, IResearch); [Barriers to career change] high; [Industry knowledge] Need to know database, know data collection, processing, analysis and other related knowledge.
The future of this industry is very good, with the development of the Internet more and more companies are paying more attention to data analysis. To be an expert in the data field, technical knowledge is a must.
(10) Media information
Tools + content; [Job market size] medium; [Development peak] Gao (Toutiao, Zhihu, Tencent News); [Barriers to career change] low; [Industry Knowledge] Relevant knowledge in the media field.
This industry belongs to the typical content industry, the industry barrier is relatively low, the need for related professional knowledge is relatively less.
Other industries continue to collate in……
The above classification of product managers is carried out from eight dimensions, whose purpose is to help product people who are confused about career development sort out their own attributes. At the same time in writing resume can also be accurate keyword coverage. For example, XXX has been the mobile terminal product manager for 3 years. He is good at displaying content products through live broadcast and video, and has carried out product commercialization, so he has a good understanding of the cultural and entertainment industry. When HR resumes are searched, they often use keyword combinations. If you can accurately cover multiple keywords, you will get more exposure.
The more focused a product manager’s career is, the more popular it is with HR. The most common one is that the overlapping businesses of the three BAT companies poach and job-hop from one another. Usually when hiring, HR will pay more attention to the attributes of the products made by the candidates, whether it is social or transaction, the difference is very big. Secondly, it looks at whether the industry of the selected person matches the industry of the current company. If these two match, then getting an interview shouldn’t be a problem. Finally, HR may have some additional requirements, such as a large company background or a master’s degree or PhD. But we often have no control over that. At the same time, the more you match the job in each of the seven dimensions, the more likely you are to be liked by the interviewer. So it’s good for your career to dig deep in the same industry as possible.
But at the same time, every coin has two sides. Is it necessarily better to work for 10 years in something than to work for 2 years? Not necessarily. Years are not an accurate indicator of working ability, nor is industry an absolute constraint on job-hopping. Moreover, the higher a person’s ability, the more independent of the industry. The most important thing is to improve the core skills of the product.
(the author: “dragon, http://www.jianshu.com/u/d63842fef32b)
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