Product - /ˈprɒdʌkt/
1. an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale
2. a thing or person that is the result of an action or process

And there-in lies the second of the problems when recruiting product management roles.

It's not just the 'management' that is highly contextual, ranging from mini-CEO's to technical product launches, to in-market commercial management.

It's the 'product' piece itself that can mean many things, from widgets to SaaS, but also to internal products that aren't sold but can lead to revenue.

While job descriptions and adverts can be so generic that you don't know which 'product' and which 'manager' they refer to.

And when recruiting, you see excellent product managers that when interviewed weren't the manager you thought and managed products that don't look, sound or smell like what you thought a product was.

Worse still you only establish that when they are in post. It's no one's fault they didn't work out first time, but lessons are learnt.

Which is why part of my role is peeling back the layers of the onion, understanding your specific product AND management context, and interpreting that with meaning so that we aim for the right kind of good in a candidate.

Before we even talk about how to access the market, and which channels we can best take advantage of.

And for the candidate giving them the full insight to understanding what the opportunity actually is, so that the right candidates are keen for the right reasons.

If you're relying on generic job specs and adverts, or recruiters who rely on your generic documentation and generic approaches, but you aren't getting the results you need - we should talk.