There are huge companies in the world. Lots of employees, lots of specific software for internal use only. Do the product managers of such internal products and services gain product management experience, valuable enough for them to later successfully find jobs in the outer world?
Key issues with internal products are as follows:
- product people have lots of contact with their users, but their users in most cases do not have free choice between competing products on the market — they are bound to use the company-wide product (usually just one, be it internally created or bought/contracted). Not much market analysis in day-to-day work internal products’ users do not directly pay for sessions or licenses. Mature businesses can somehow assess the ‘cost’ or ‘revenue’ of usage, but product metrics are usually not measured in money units. That creates lack of experience with GMV, revenue, profit and other money-oriented areas, very important for independent products in the wild
- some (if not all) products may be fully or partly a commercial know-how under an NDA agreement, so the product manager cannot even talk freely about them at interviews
- even if not NDA-covered, internal products and their context are not widely known to potential employers, so it’s difficult even to describe what you did and what was the goal and how success was measured
So, managers of internal products — are they a good potential hire or hopelessly stuck with their current company and it’s choices? Well, that’s a decision for HR and hiring managers to make, but if you are in this position, here’s what you can do to help yourself go un-stuck.
At interviews, when speaking about your products, try to use analogies. Most likely there are commercial products doing the samw thing as your product does.
The same analogies will help you out if your product details are under NDA. You will have to constantly comment on the differences, but otherwise that’s a good way out.
Engage in public events, so that your name gets somehow known, if not the name of your product. Reputation helps to cover blank spots without details.
Try to broaden your experience theoretically if not practically. Join ProductHunt or maybe start your own product analysis of different public solutions and platforms. You can practice the skills not needed for your job as a hobby and present that for interviewers if needed.
The most difficult issue to cover is hands-on experience with live money: you cannot play with unit economics theoretically so that it would produce some experience close enough to reality. Well, if you don’t have a pet product in wild market to play with, then read a lot about money product skills and wait for a chance to apply them. Nothing else to do? Or is there?
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