What does a product manager do?
A product manager is responsible for ensuring product development, providing the best marketing strategies, and effectively handling the sales and marketing team. Product managers' duties include monitoring the market trends and conditions, identifying business opportunities and plan initiatives, and collaborating the product launch process with the appropriate departments. A product manager is also responsible for generating ideas on improving product features, determining timetables and reasonable pricing, and analyzing product sales. A product manager must have excellent strategic and decision-making skills to contribute to its growth and profitability.
Product manager responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real product manager resumes:
- Lead collaborative efforts within the PMO, vendors, customers, and internal stakeholders.
- Manage developers accountable for coding, database development, UI implementation, and system architecture.
- Manage inventory service levels / overstocks /defective inventory and supplier buy-in opportunities to maximize ROI.
- Lead customization of the company's administrative SaaS software solution by defining features and functionality for internal/external stakeholder teams.
- Lead weekly meetings between engineering, sales/marketing, and QA departments to facilitate communication, collaboration and resolution of product issues.
- Handle design and specification of administration system requirements to efficiently manage, operate, and support client API configurations and sessions.
- Market data, CRM, acquisition/retention programs via project/client management and business development.
- Facilitate overall scrum agile development process, which includes management of bi-weekly development sprints.
- Engage with small dog owners by launching a Facebook initiative.
- Create Facebook presence, participate in blogs and twitter updates.
- Maintain departmental on-line filing records of skincare and supplement products, operating procedures, and FDA compliance requirements.
- Support the Sr. PLM with product data ensuring data accuracy to support category partners during the product creation milestones.
- Re-Vamp NPD stage-gate development processes including design and documentation controls to comply with ISO and FDA qualify system regulations.
- Collaborate with regions to identify sales and GTM hurdles and develop HW, solution and messaging/training plans to address.
- Conduct regression analyses to associate game behaviors with desire outcomes.
Product manager skills and personality traits
We calculated that 11% of Product Managers are proficient in Product Management, QA, and Product Strategy. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Creativity.
We break down the percentage of Product Managers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Product Management, 11%
Lead product management through direct management of application engineering, product development planning and strategy, and leadership of development engineering.
- QA, 5%
Led weekly meetings between engineering, sales/marketing, and QA departments to facilitate communication, collaboration and resolution of product issues.
- Product Strategy, 5%
Gathered and analyzed information to define web-based Performance Evaluation System specifications and communicated product strategy and functionality to the development team.
- Project Management, 4%
Performed extensive project management duties for new customer programs including IT requirements gathering, database setup, administration and data migration.
- Market Research, 4%
Tracked competitive landscape, market developments and market research to generate innovative and creative marketing/communication strategies and implement new business opportunities.
- User Stories, 4%
Partner across functional areas to engage and influence internal and external stakeholders to develop product definitions, requirements, and user stories
Most product managers use their skills in "product management," "qa," and "product strategy" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential product manager responsibilities here:
Analytical skills. One of the key soft skills for a product manager to have is analytical skills. You can see how this relates to what product managers do because "advertising, promotions, and marketing managers must be able to analyze industry trends to determine the most promising strategies for their organization." Additionally, a product manager resume shows how product managers use analytical skills: "identified the project's scope via feature prioritization analysis and conducted a/b testing to optimize the site's pages and navigation. "
Communication skills. Many product manager duties rely on communication skills. "managers must be able to communicate effectively with a broad-based team made up of other managers or staff members during the advertising, promotions, and marketing process," so a product manager will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways product manager responsibilities rely on communication skills: "founder and sole designer of saas scheduling and communication system targeting youth travel sports teams. "
Creativity. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of product managers is creativity. This skill is critical to many everyday product manager duties, as "advertising, promotions, and marketing managers must be able to generate new and imaginative ideas." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "conduct product market analysis and compare overall disty/ channel inventory level. "
Interpersonal skills. For certain product manager responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "interpersonal skills." The day-to-day duties of a product manager rely on this skill, as "managers must deal with a range of people in different roles, both inside and outside the organization." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what product managers do: "required effective interpersonal skills, leadership ability, and strong project management success. "
Organizational skills. Another crucial skill for a product manager to carry out their responsibilities is "organizational skills." A big part of what product managers relies on this skill, since "advertising, promotions, and marketing managers must manage their time and budget efficiently while directing and motivating staff members." How this skill relates to product manager duties can be seen in an example from a product manager resume snippet: "led healthcare organizational team to manage product roadmap, modify products and identify improvements. "
The three companies that hire the most product managers are:
Choose from 10+ customizable product manager resume templates
Build a professional product manager resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your product manager resume.
Compare different product managers
Product manager vs. Vice president product development
A vice president for product development is responsible for leading the product development team in the execution of development activities to enhance the product's brand image in the market and achieve the sales performance target. Vice presidents for product development monitor the product development techniques from the conceptualization to the final execution and market release. They also handle the budget and resource allocation to support product development operations, ensuring that the outputs meet the quality standards and timetables.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, product manager responsibilities require skills like "user stories," "regression," "product specifications," and "product vision." Meanwhile a typical vice president product development has skills in areas such as "analytics," "architecture," "software development," and "contract negotiations." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Vice presidents product development earn the highest salaries when working in the technology industry, with an average yearly salary of $164,622. On the other hand, product managers are paid more in the retail industry with an average salary of $114,839.vice presidents product development tend to reach similar levels of education than product managers. In fact, vice presidents product development are 3.2% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 1.8% more likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Product manager vs. Director of product development
A Director of Product Development supervises and implements product development policies, initiatives, and objectives. They conduct market research to determine consumer needs and identify competitors.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that product manager responsibilities requires skills like "user stories," "regression," "user experience," and "product vision." But a director of product development might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "software development," "product quality," "product launch," and "process improvement."
Directors of product development earn a higher average salary than product managers. But directors of product development earn the highest pay in the manufacturing industry, with an average salary of $142,193. Additionally, product managers earn the highest salaries in the retail with average pay of $114,839 annually.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Directors of product development tend to reach similar levels of education than product managers. In fact, they're 0.5% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 1.8% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Product manager vs. Manager, strategy
A strategy manager is an individual who reviews a company's objectives for growth and works with executives to formulate actionable plans to achieve these objectives. To make comprehensive recommendations, strategy managers must conduct data analysis of the organization as well as the overall industry. They must provide assessments of market trends and identify business threats and opportunities. Strategy managers should also work with department heads to develop individual team goals and break them down into actionable steps for the employees to complete.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a product manager is likely to be skilled in "product management," "qa," "user stories," and "regression," while a typical manager, strategy is skilled in "portfolio," "business strategy," "corporate strategy," and "strategy development."
Managers, strategy earn the highest salary when working in the technology industry, where they receive an average salary of $116,769. Comparatively, product managers have the highest earning potential in the retail industry, with an average salary of $114,839.managers, strategy typically earn higher educational levels compared to product managers. Specifically, they're 13.1% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.4% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Product manager vs. Vice president, product management
A vice president of product management is responsible for handling the overall operational decisions of product deliverables, creating strategic procedures for product marketing strategy, and ensuring that the outputs provide the highest customer satisfaction. The vice president of product management monitors the department's budget, allocating adequate resources to every team to support operational promotions and research on current market trends. They also adjust product management approaches to meet the company's goals and objectives and identify opportunities to increase revenues and profitability.
Types of product manager
Updated January 8, 2025
