Does age affect the product manager?

a three-year-old Product Manager What's the difference between a five-year-old product manager? This article will tell you about the 3 effects of age on product managers .

one day in the company suddenly found around a lot of colleagues arethe five years, and they have been working for 1,2 years, the brutal reality told me that I have been working for five years, It's been five years since I was the smallest employee in the company.

Well, I have to admit that I've become big brother in my career. More people are sad to urge, recently brushed a friend circle to see a few do the product of the peers are also feeling that they are old, and this has become a job search for some companies to reject their reasons.

Before always listen to do technology friends feeling about the age of worry, older after the physical strength is not, I am afraid to withstand high-intensity work, but also some people do a few years after thinking about transformation to do products or operations. Maybe the Product manager doesn't have to worry too much, but age does have some impact on the product manager.

1, unable to understand the needs of users

After the age, the mentality will be the corresponding mature, this is the time to everyone's change. Curiosity about a lot of things will weaken, some things are no longer so high interest, such as chasing stars, even if there is a favorite star, but in the case of income is not very rich, to buy a concert for the decision-making cost is higher than the younger, consumption becomes more rational.

if it is to do a kind of entertainment pursuit star products, I am afraid I can not understand those crazy chasing the stars of the mentality of boys and girls. For products like Bilibiliand moral integrity, you might think that even if they have a demand, they don't expect the user base to be that big and audience-wide. Why the footage covered in the video has been unable to make the video watch properly, but there are so many people like it. Why do people especially like to play with beauty, when taking photos with various stickers. For some social phenomena, if it is a good experience of their own, but some of the culture is gradually popular with the development of society, for example, two times, if the product manager himself did not experience, also can not trace their own in a time period of mentality.

User needs to understand the extent of the product itself also has a relationship, there are difficult to easy, some product needs to understand relatively simple, can be seen as the user beauty, show off the mentality, but some are not easy.

people used to say that age is three years old there is a generation gap, although this statement is not absolute, but there is a reason. If you are doing a product that is too small for a user, for example , for a year or so, you may not be able to understand some of the user's habits and ideas.

not to say that the older product managers must not be able to do the fun products, and some product user needs, and the age of the practitioners are not directly related to, for example , 3,4 line user characteristics, the first-tier city product managers may not understand, We all need to do research. Even if you don't understand some of the user behavior, but you can make up for it through expertise, the key to this problem becomes whether you are interested or motivated to study.

2, to do product interest and enthusiasm in reducing

say this is based on the premise is not only the age, there is the work experience for a long time, did the product type more, the product process will appear a lot of problems you can imagine, career development process will have a certain burnout. This is also because of two objective factors, the first is the emergence of new technology has a certain interval, the beginning of everyone is to do PC -side products, and now generally do mobile products, until nearly two years of VR and intelligent hardware began to fire, only gradually have to recruit this direction of product managers Second, many companies are the same business, you may go to other companies to do products similar to the previous company, from the company's point of view also like to recruit people with similar products experience. But for individuals it is not the same, some people will feel that this is not challenging and fresh feeling.

In addition to the product, a lot of things about the development of the industry also understand, see through, a lot of personal ideas will be different. For example, you may not believe that the product is the king of the view, do not believe that as long as the product can be successful, and do not believe that a company has the resources to do one thing, not so easy to be fooled, do not believe the boss to draw the pie and verbal commitment to the stock or options.

We can say that a person is more mature, but as a product manager is no longer so idealistic. There is also a very practical problem, with the increase in age, the product manager should be a wife and children, the pressure from the family will be greater, life to deal with more things, this also makes some product managers lack of enthusiasm for the material, the pursuit of more urgent, decide whether to join a company's key point is the salary level.

The decrease in interest is also a reason why some product managers are confused after several years of work.

3. Advantages

Of course, old age, more work experience, but also has the advantage. One advantage is the ability to project management and communication skills, the combination of two points to create a direct consequence is whether to advance the project forward.

The former hides the knowledge of technology, and can evaluate the development workload of a project according to the development strength of the company. Some would say that this should be a matter for the technical director, but the product manager would be better to understand. Especially in the development process, will inevitably appear outside the plan, the product manager to accurately according to the development progress of the product needs to adjust.

The latter, as the product manager everywhere communication, according to the company's business different contact people are different, the most basic may only need to communicate technology and leadership, and then extend to the operation, marketing, sales and other departments of communication. With other people can be very good communication in addition to professional quality test a person's emotional quotient, EQ depends on a little talent, but also need to continue to exercise. A person's talent is not very bad, with the experience of the rich communication ability will gradually improve, proportional to the relationship.

I recently wondered: what is the difference between a three-year product manager and a five-year product manager? I think there may not be much difference in product design and document writing. A two-year-old product manager at the same company told me that he had a big difference with me that he couldn't push the project. This is also related to personal professional experience, some product managers may have done 2or3 years have not done version planning and data analysis work.

therefore, because the product manager is not too pessimistic about the age of rejection, if a company needs to do a project from start to finish and the time is not very good, experienced product managers will be very advantageous. And not all companies need young product managers, such as on-the- go products, and some management systems for enterprise customers need to be particularly logical and experienced product managers to navigate.

Summary

I am more inclined to the product team portfolio is experienced product managers and product Managers add together, so that in the work encountered some puzzled user behavior, can consult a young product manager, also play a complementary purpose.

For job-hunting, it is not the older the more valuable. For example, a three-year product manager compared with a five-year product manager, the former three years are doing e-commerce, but the latter do the product direction is very miscellaneous, e-commerce products only made 1.5. If two people go to apply for an e-commerce product Manager position at the same time, the former will be more advantageous.

Source: Everyone is a product manager

Does age affect the product manager?