Product Management as an MBA Career Path | Ep 99

Think product management is just a Silicon Valley thing? Think again. In this episode of The mbaMission Podcast, Managing Director Rachel Beck and host Harold Simansky break down one of the most in-demand post-MBA career paths that most applicants overlook: product management.

Rachel defines the product manager role as that of a “mini CEO” who sits at the intersection of engineering, operations, marketing, finance, and strategy. She explains why the role has expanded far beyond big tech and where candidates with nontechnical backgrounds can find their footing. The conversation covers the AI era and why strategic thinking gives MBAs a decisive edge, the realistic career trajectory from product manager to chief product officer, which MBA programs best prepare candidates for PM recruiting, and why experiential learning is nonnegotiable for this career path.

If you have ever thought “I want to be a product manager” without knowing exactly what that means, this episode is for you.

New episodes of The mbaMission Podcast are released every Tuesday on all major streaming platforms.

00:00 What Is a Product Manager?

03:52 Project Manager Beyond Silicon Valley

06:59 The MBA as a PM Jumping Point

08:59 PM Career Path to Chief Product Officer

14:11 Programs That Excel in Product Management

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Transcript

What Is a Product Manager?

Rachel Beck 0:00

It's not just going to work at Google or Meta as a product manager. There's lots of different places you could be in product management. The reason they want to get an MBA is because they're lacking the business acumen.

Harold Simansky 0:14

Now I think it's almost hard to find a business school that doesn't have something about product management because it's certainly demand, but it's also company demand.

Rachel Beck 0:23

It is being this mini CEO and it's doing things that they hadn't gotten to do before. Operations, marketing, finance, accounting, strategy. That's the bread and butter of product management.

Harold Simansky 0:47

Today on the MBA Mission Podcast, we're diving into one of the most sought-after post-MBA career paths: product management. If you are interested in leading the lifecycle of a product, from the initial idea all the way to launch and beyond, then you are probably looking at a career as a PM. While many people associate product management with Silicon Valley and big tech firms, the role has expanded far beyond that ecosystem. Consulting firms, banks, insurance companies, healthcare providers, and fintech leaders are increasingly building digital products and proprietary tools. And they need product managers to lead those efforts. Business schools can help candidates strengthen business fundamentals, develop strategic and analytical thinking, and gain hands-on experience working with cross-functional teams, skills that are essential in product management. To explore all of this in more detail, we are joined today by MBA Mission Managing Director Rachel Beck, who has worked with countless applicants targeting product management over the past decade. She will help us break down what the product management role really looks like, how MBA applicants can position themselves for PM recruiting, and which business schools offer particularly strong pathways into this career. Rachel, I don't know about you, but frequently clients come to me, applicants come to me and say, I want to be a product manager. And I say to them, Do you know what that means? And they will say, maybe. So, first of all, what is a product manager? What makes a good product manager? What is an education and product management look like?

Rachel Beck 2:14

So this is a hot, this is a buzzy word, right? Product management. I want to go into product management. And I think a lot of um applicants see this as a way to get into the tech world if they come from a tech background or if they don't come from a tech background. So product a product manager oversees just that's what it is, an a product that a company is developing. And so they touch a lot of different points in the process. They touch engineering or technology, they um talk to operations, they talk to marketing, they talk to finance. You know, how are we going to get this done? So they're really kind of the center of this universe. And it's a very interesting job to have. Um, what we see is a lot of people come from an engineering or technology background, and they've made a lot of strides and success in their career, but now they want to shift roles from building things that other people decide they should build and being the person that's strategically deciding what should be built. And so that's why product management is kind of taking off. Um, and it's very buzzy in MBA circles.

Harold Simansky 3:33

That's right. It's almost like being the mini CEO of one in particular again. Exactly.

Rachel Beck 3:38

Exactly.

Harold Simansky 3:38

And this idea here, you're gonna touch accounting, you're gonna touch marketing, you're gonna touch finance. And interesting, maybe you touch tech and maybe you don't. So people always think about product management as tech. Is that actually true?

Project Manager Beyond Silicon Valley

Rachel Beck 3:51

No, I mean, many, many, many industries have product managers. And I think that's something very important to keep in mind. If you're somebody who's like, this sounds like an interesting path for me. Um, I think that um applicants have to look beyond that. Accounting firms, law firms, any types of financial service companies, they're building products for their customers. So there's a lot of opportunity there. So it's not just going to work at Google or Meta as a product manager. There's lots of different places you could be in product management. So I think expanding your view of the world is important if this is something that's interesting to you.

Harold Simansky 4:36

That's right. I say, listen, take the term product manager or product management, put it into LinkedIn, and you'll be amazed as far as what comes out. You can be a product manager in the sneaker business, for example.

Rachel Beck 4:44

Exactly. In the fitness industry, in in really anything.

Jeremy Shinewald 4:49

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Rachel Beck 5:25

What I think is key though is that you do have to come with some knowledge base. Like you can't just go into product management, you know. And I'll admit this, I'm coming from a journalism background. I probably wouldn't have been a great product manager because I don't have that technical knowledge that is required. You have to know something. That doesn't mean you have to be an engineer or a technologist to be a product manager, but you have to come with some of that to the table. So you have to figure out how you're getting that knowledge. And I think that I've seen with clients over the years who we begin the process and they say, Well, this is what I want to do. And I'll say, So what's your your technical background? And the truth is, is they don't have it. And some of them get into business schools and they kind of bump up against a wall. It's hard, it's hard then to actually make that your career path if you don't have that technical background.

Harold Simansky 6:23

That's right. At the same point, passion matters. And what I really mean by that, if you've been really invested in, again, I'll free when we talk about a client who loves sneakers, had a side hustle selling sneakers. Part of that was knowing everything about sneakers in terms of how they're manufactured, what marketing of different sneakers look like, what were some of the things that worked and what didn't work. And again, he'd be a great product manager in the sneaker business. So if you have a passion, just see how it manifests, because there may be a product management, I would say, journey ahead of you. Correct. Depending on what you really want to do and what really is something that's important to you.

Rachel Beck 6:59

An MBA is a great jumping point. That this is where you can really level up a lot of skills. And I think that's something very, very important for people who are like, this sounds interesting to me. There are things you can do during the MBA that will help you reach your goals. Um, and I think it really starts with the core curriculum at a lot of these MBA programs. Like I'll have clients say, oh, well, this program has a great certificate in product management. And I'll say, but really the core is going to give you that foundation that you're gonna need because operations, marketing, finance, accounting, strategy, that's the bread and butter of product management. So I think that's very, very important.

Harold Simansky 7:45

It's interesting that you say some schools now have certificates in product management, and it sort of works both ways. And what I mean by that is they've been building curriculums in product management. So at some point they end with a certificate. So now I think it's almost hard to find a business school that doesn't have something about product management because it's certainly demand, but it's also company demand at this point. The products are becoming more sophisticated. They need people who know all sorts of different things, and that's what a product manager is.

Rachel Beck 8:12

I think in this era that we're heading into, the AI era, I'll call it, where there's all these questions of like what's happening to technologists, what's happening to engineers, what's happening to all of us, really. But I think that there's some desire to go into product management because those people are making AI isn't isn't setting a strategy, right? That it's not going to be capable of that. That strategic thinking is something that humans do very well. And I believe artificial intelligence won't do it as well as we will. So sharpening these skills can be very, very important, help you kind of grow in your career if you're coming out of fields that might see some headcount reduction due to AI.

PM Career Path to Chief Product Officer

Harold Simansky 8:58

Yeah. No, listen, I think that's right. And also the thing about product management, there is a fairly clear trajectory by becoming a product manager, eventually maybe becoming chief product officer. And that's the way that every company is going right now. Right. CPO, I don't know, when you graduated business school, I didn't know what there was no chief product officers at this point, then it has become very common. And entry point again is being a product manager, more likely an assistant product manager at some of these big companies. Yes. Listen, I think where becoming a product manager is really something that's exciting for people is if they've already been in the industry and if they've plateaued in some ways, or if they're only seen as a technical person, or if they're only seen as a marketing person. Because at the end of the day, you you do have to have some industry knowledge before you're going to really be able to become a product manager.

Rachel Beck 9:46

Absolutely. I mean, obviously, people who have the technical knowledge are at an advantage. And the reason they want to get an MBA is because they're lacking the business acumen. They don't understand that that part of the equation because in their roles in these technical fields, they're mostly working on projects that have been assigned to them. And so there's a very definitive view of what they're doing. But the product manager sitting down the hall is deciding all the, you know, scattering all the pieces and all these technologists or engineers are working on that. And the the product manager is deciding, well, what what should we work on first? Is this even possible? Are we going to be able to even get this to market? Do we have the buy-in from the C-suite? Um, how is this going to advance our company or our team? So coming to an MBA program is a great path because you already have the hands-on technical skills. You know how to work on, you know, a Gmail enhancement, or you've been doing a great job, you know, on some construction or something. Whatever it might be. You get to business school and you're put in a really different seat because you're thinking about lots of different people who are part of the equation that also have to buy in to the project that you're working on or the product that you're creating. And that mindset is a lot different than what you're used to. Right. You're working on this little widget, right? In your old job, but in the job you really want to have, you're thinking of a much bigger picture and the impact is much bigger.

Harold Simansky 11:40

No, absolutely. And listen, I think one the difference between a technician, let's say, someone who's really on working on the technology side and product manager is the customer. It's all about the customer. And I think many people come to an MBA program. Yes, they're coming out of business, but they have no idea who the customer is. They've never spoken to a customer. They only have the vaguest sense. Someone is telling them what the customer even wants. So what I have always found many ways most valuable to business school education, it forces you to understand who the end user is. It gives you tools to then go and talk to the people. I mean, honestly, it's hard for me to imagine creating a product without focus grouping, without testing. Yet most people, in whatever role they're in, whether it's in finance, whether it's in tech, whether it's in consumer product, before business school, they have never met a customer. And that's what I think actually is really exciting about product management is you're sort of getting out there. You're gonna have to put yourself different type of thinking in terms of, okay, who are you really serving? What is this all about?

Rachel Beck 12:38

Definitely. I think it also forces you to think about the different stakeholders within your organization that you might not have, they might not even be on your radar, right? Like, oh, I don't I don't know anybody in marketing. Oh, well, you you need to know about these people in marketing because they're taking what you're building and they're selling it to the end user. So um I think that and I this is what's really interesting about being a product manager and why MBA students want to go into it because it is being this mini CEO and it's doing things that they hadn't gotten to do before. And I think that a lot of MBA students need to realize there's a path, right? You're not going right from your MBA to being the product manager. You mentioned before, you know, you might be an assistant product manager, whatever it might be, but you have to, it's because there's a huge learning ramp. You absolutely don't just put on that MBA backpack and you know, I took corporate finance and accounting and marketing, and now I'm ready to go. You have to learn within the organization how that operates.

Harold Simansky 13:45

Right. And so that's important. Yeah, and that's why business school is so valuable. You really have to be sitting next to an accountant in your class. You really have to be sitting next to a marketing person, you really have to be sitting next to a strategy consultant. Because if you want to be the product manager, those are the people you're going to be interacting with every day based on understanding, first of all, just what they actually do, what they're like, the types of conversations you have to have. And that I think is what business school does. That's just really, really valuable.

Rachel Beck 14:11

Which is why I always say to applicants who want to go into product management, something that I think is great to write about in their essays, great to um think about is programs that have a lot of action learning, hands-on experience, experiential learning, whichever way you want to phrase it. That's crucial for a product manager. And um we want our clients to understand that you're not, you can't learn this in a silo. You want to learn it during your MBA, just as you were mentioning, where you're just immersed with people who are interested in the same end goal, but are coming at it from different angles.

Harold Simansky 14:55

And listen, I think that's also ref reflected in the schools that really specialize in it. When people say product management, sure they think about the usual cast of characters, but I say, listen, if you're serious about product management, think about a school like Carnegie Mellon Tepper. Think about a school like Washington Foster, because that's really what they do very, very well. University of Texas, for example. So at the at that point, then, this notion here of you're locked into a certain industry or locked into a different certain school to go into a particular industry, that in fact may be the least true of product management.

Rachel Beck 15:26

Exactly, exactly. I wanted to reflect on a client who really wanted to go into product management. Um, he had worked in a communications capacity pre-MBA. Really, really smart, very, very successful test taker, like showed demonstrating really strong quant skills. Um and I'll admit I was a little bit nervous to put product management down in the application, but he had a lot of connections in the tech world because the communications work he was doing was tech related. And he got to an M7 school and got an internship. I'll call it product management adjacent. Yep, it wasn't in product management, it was close. Um, but then ended up struggling to actually kind of get on the path to product management because he did not have the technical background. And he was so focused on tech that he he he couldn't make inroads there. And he had to kind of take take a plan B, which was to go work at a startup that's right, um, that gave him the opportunity to kind of work as a quasi-product manager without the without the big lights on Broadway, right? Like, and it's a great experience, and he got it, and now he can call himself a product manager.

Harold Simansky 16:50

So no, no, no, that makes sense. And actually, I have a somewhat related story in terms of a non-traditional product manager. I had a woman actually who used to work for a big oil company, and it was a real specialty oil company, and she really had to convince people that she was really a product manager. And again, what does that mean? Touching different functions in a company, again, really knowing the customer very, very well. Uh and she could be somebody who sits at the center of the equation for this particular product or service offering.

Rachel Beck 17:19

Yep.

Harold Simansky 17:20

Yeah.

Rachel Beck 17:20

So definitely, definitely. I wanted to mention another school. You had mentioned Foster and UT Austin, McCombs. So a school that I really wanted to mention, which I think does a really good job giving applicants lots of different options for this pathway, is Kellugg. KellUG has a pathway into product management in its full-time two-year MBA program, but it also offers accelerated programs which partner with either the engineering school or the school of design. Those the MMM program and the MBAI program. So if you're really interested in this path, Kellogg is a very good program to target. And they can, these, these joint programs can give you those technical skills and the business acumen, which would set you up for success.

Harold Simansky 18:14

That's right. And they also emphasize just how broad product management can be. Because right now I've had a couple of clients in the MMM program and they're actually both focused on healthcare. And that would not be an industry that one would expect to see a product manager. But again, this is sort of how ubiquitous product management has become.

Rachel Beck 18:30

Yes, it's huge. It it touches many, many different industries. And I think a lot of applicants get very, very caught up in the tech companies, the big tech companies, but there's other places to look as well.

Harold Simansky 18:42

Yep. No, no, absolutely, absolutely. Well, certainly if you want to talk to us a little bit more about product management or talk to us about the business school application generally, sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with Rachel, with me, or some of the other consultants here at MBA Mission.

Jeremy Shinewald 19:00

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