This is a broad question and varies greatly upon industries, but is it possible to hold a Product Manager position without a college degree?
Since the title means almost nothing without qualification, sure why not.
I’ve seen it before, especially in some start ups, but I wouldn’t call it common.
It really depends on the industry and the company. For a small firm that sells stuff, where the product manager is mainly in charge of sales, as long as a candidate the right stuff, sure. For a manufacturing firm that relies on some sort of technical expertise, probably not. For a pharmaceutical company, forget it. If you had worked there for 10 years and developed an outstanding reputation, you might get it without a PhD.
What about at high tech startups? I see that most require a minimum BS Computer Science degree but like to know if you can work into that role without one, if let’s say you proved yourself as a Sales Rep.
There are too many variables. Some companies will promote you as long as they like what they see, regardless of what kind of degree you got (or didn’t get) so many years ago.
I have only a two-year tech degree, plus a handful of tech and business service management certifications, and I was able to work my way up to a Directorship in IT (government sector). I initially got my foot in the door as a contractor drafting IT crisis management framework and operations continuity plans, and apparently the people in charge liked what they saw and converted me to FTE and I was able to move up to Operations Manager, Change Manager, then Program Director. All of this happened within a span of about four and a half years.
While my example may not be typical, it does happen. You may not be hired as a product manager, but if you can get your foot in the door and have all the right stuff, maybe you can work your way up.
I assume your talking a software company then?
If so they’re gonna have to absolutely love you or I don’t see it happening.
Granted, it’s been a few years since I’ve been in the job market, but my experience has been that it depends on the company. The majority of companies don’t seem to care about degrees, but maybe 10 or 15 percent do, and if you don’t have one, you’re not even going to get your foot in the door.
The rest of them? They’re fine with it, as long as you have equivalent experience. You’re not going to walk into a project manager job with no degree and absolutely no previous software/PM experience, but if you have a few years of one or the other, I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a chance at the position.
For the record, I’ve been a manager, albeit in small stretches, and I don’t have a degree. I much prefer being a worker bee, though, so I never really pursued the management track, and nowadays work at small companies where you pretty much just do what needs to be done - coding, managing, etc.
A Product Manager doesn’t manage people - they manage products. So I don’t think this part of your response applies.
At a high tech startup if they are hiring from outside there are plenty of good candidates with degrees and experience. If you are already inside the company I could see you moving up to a Product Management role once you’ve proven your worth. Do you have any relevant experience that would help that transition? If not, you’re resume won’t even get past the screening process.
If you’re some kind of all star and you have an in with the company and can wow them with how great you are, anything is possible. But in general I agree it’s pretty unlikely.
Yes, I have known product managers without degrees. However, they all had been employed by the same company for years, had proved themselves in sales and new more about their particular product than the people who originally designed it.
So, my answer is, a college degree or a proven track record.
Yes that’s what I was hoping. My concern though, since I don’t hold a degree, is will I be able to be in the market for Product Manager positions with other companies after I became one at the current firm.
If you network well enough, sure. Just get your clients to recommend you to other vendors.
In my own company, thorough knowledge of the industry (Healthcare) and its regulations is more important in a product manager than technical knowledge, even though we are a software company. Product managers tend to be people with years of experience in either the clinical or financial aspects of healthcare, not people with degrees necessarily.
I meant project manager. I know very well what the difference is between managing people, projects, and products. But yeah, I should have made that clearer in my response.
I’ve never worked for a software company that have half-a-whit whether a candidate had a diploma or not.
I’ve worked at startups, small firms, and huge software companies, and at all places we’ve had employees without diplomas. But, except for during the dotcom boom a degree was needed to get in the door at any significant pay scale. The only exception was experienced software engineers - in that case all that mattered was your code.
I guess I should qualify that somewhat. I am a software engineer, and I work at Internet companies without around 500 employees in the Seattle area. I understand companies on the east coast are a lot more formal about things… so that might be a cultural difference depending on where you are.
But even for my first IT job, my lack of a diploma was never brought up during the interview, and never an issue during my employment. And even subsequent job came from networking with people I met at the first job, so again it never came up.
Experience in a field can qualify you in place of a degree, but with neither I don’t know how you talk yourself into the job.
I second this. My entire career is based on getting hired for jobs I’m not qualified for on paper (including an internet product manager at one of the largest banks in the country).
I do have a masters degree, but it is not in anything remotely related to what I do, so being able to check that box is helpful if the company is one where you need to first get past an HR rep before getting to the person who actually makes hiring decisions.
But with my lack of paper experience for jobs, I’ve always moved up and around based on personal recommendations and people knowing me.
Without a relevant degree (when I was a product manager, on a team of 8 product managers I was the only one without an MBA) I imagine it would be very hard to get in the door, cold, at a lot of places. But if you have good demonstrable experience then once you get beyond the first wall you’ll often have a fair shot.