Question to product ops people (I'm looking at you May Wong Graham Reed ) Something I rarely see spoken about as a responsibility of product ops is hiring PMs. I feel like your product ops people understand what makes a good PM, especially in the specific context of your company, as well if not better than anyone. If the role of product ops is to make your product org a slick well oiled machine then adding the right people feels like it should fit squarely within that wheelhouse and is one of the highest leverage activities that can be done. I'm not suggesting that they should own the whole process end to end but it feels to me as though it's a place where they could add a lot of value.
Hiring is definitively the responsibility of the hiring manager and talent acquisition. We can put a bit more structure around what the hiring manager does, like standardized questions and interview format if that's not constrained by the talent team. The hiring manager is responsible for the ongoing relationship with the employee, but also what additional set of skills their team needs to succeed. It's critical that we let hiring managers do their work. We can help them with structure and maybe interviews. I would hesitate to say all product ops people should be deep in the interview process. Product management specialists focused on operations might be able to do what you're suggesting. Operational specialists who work on the product management team, not so much. I'd sooner put engineering, design, sales and success on a hiring panel than myself. My priority is to work with PMs. PMs' priorities are to work with the rest of the organization.
Interesting! One area I’ve been scoping out more is using our Ops team to help establish a consistent functional on-boarding experience. I feel as though Product Ops is well suited to set this in motion and facilitate along the way.
Thanks Mark. I would say yes, they should be involved in the process. Anything from co-curating the questions to ask, to actually being in the room. The leads, and the focus, should be on product management for sure. But understanding their approaches, their adaptability, their appetite for change and improvement, their opinions and experiences on using data for decision making, their approaches for communicating to the wider business... all important things (over and above the usual: Have you created a roadmap before)
Pre-defined Interview loops for specific roles and responsibilities are a great way to level the playing field with candidates, ensure questions are comprehensive enough to gauge the candidates potential value, and work as templates for the interviewers. As a Product Ops Director, I generated and managed these loop templates and often participated in the loop itself focused on the problem solving, operations, and/or data focused areas of the loop.
Senior Product Manager | Startup | Scaleup | EdTech | B2B | B2C
3wThanks for giving your thoughts. What drove my question was thinking about just how much work it is to find the right person for the role. Writing a good job description rather than just copying someone else's or using chat GPT, seeking out good people rather than relying on applications coming in, filtering the massive pool of candidates down to a handful you want to interview, preparing good interview questions, interviewing, reviewing tasks etc. It's a lot and I worry that PMs and product leaders aren't able to give it as much time as it deserves and talent acquisition might not actually be the best people to narrow the pool at the start 🤔