Abdulganiyy Ajayi: These 3 Hacks from Product Management Will Propel your Career

Do you dream of an amazing career, one that keeps growing, keeps you satisfied, and lets you reach your full potential? For a lot of people, that dream remains a perpetual pursuit, leaving them wishing for a better tomorrow that seems never to arrive.

While many work hard to excel in their job roles, they often overlook the need for the same level of dedication when it comes to charting their career path. This oversight is a recipe for an unfulfilled career. In today’s rapidly changing world, simply working hard is no longer enough to succeed. Everyone now requires an arsenal of strategies to navigate their career effectively. 

Let me share three proven career strategies drawn from product management. These are time-tested tactics that every professional can adopt to grow their career.

Build your career the agile way

People are usually advised to start with an entry-level job as the foundation for a successful career, then gradually ascend to managerial roles. This advice holds true for many, but it doesn’t account for the diverse circumstances that professionals encounter in today’s dynamic job market, especially if they aim for accelerated career growth.

A typical career now often involves horizontal navigations, upward moves, and at times, a willingness to temporarily take some steps down the professional ladder, which can involve accepting positions with lower job titles or salaries in a bid to explore more promising career paths.

This kind of adaptability is at the core of agile methodology commonly practiced by product managers. They understand that product development constraints are always complex and unstable. Hence, they employ an excellent approach of building products in short, iterative phases.  The goal is to create products that are flexible enough to meet the ever-changing market demands. 

In your career as well, you should always position yourself to grasp great opportunities as they arise. This is a crucial point to note as you make career decisions or acquire new skills.

Career growth analyst, Marti Konstant, defines an agile career as “a self-reflective, incremental career path, guided by response to change, evolving job roles, and designed to optimise creativity, growth, and happiness.” Konstant further advises professionals to “lean into change and make adjustments to career status, rather than sticking to a rigid plan. Acclimate to economic developments and corporate adjustments by uncovering engaging projects.” 

Use feedback as a growth catalyst

To accelerate your career growth, you must go beyond your official performance objectives and appraisals. Actively seek candid informal feedback from your colleagues regarding their perception of your performance and personality. This process will highlight your strengths and weaknesses and ultimately guide you on the competencies you need to focus on that will improve your job performance and enhance your chance for success in future endeavours.

“Be open to receiving feedback even if it is incorrect,” says Kiran Bondalapati, a technology leader and career advisor, “You are still getting data about how you are being perceived. Aggregate feedback and find common threads and unique viewpoints. Taking control of your career is too important to be left to your manager.”

You certainly need feedback from colleagues, friends, mentors, and even family members to continuously improve on critical growth areas that will catalyse your career.

Identify and manage your stakeholders

Just as a diligent product manager relies on effective stakeholder management for success, the same principle applies to career progression. The stakeholders in your career are as vital and multifaceted as those for typical products.

A career coach, Caroline Ceniza-Levine, describes them as “People who have a vested interest in the success of your career because it helps their career, because they happen to like you, or because what you do makes their job easier. These people will fight for you when plum assignments are given, when raises are decided, when restructuring means someone gets the short end of the stick.”

Beyond merely recognising your career stakeholders, you need a well-thought-out strategy to manage them. Understand the unique roles they play in your professional journey and identify the aspects of your career objectives that pertain to each stakeholder. This approach, as highlighted by organisational performance consultant, Jo McDermott, “requires you to think through all the players and come up with both an action plan and a communication plan for each. It will likely crystallise your thinking of the next steps and speed your career on its way.”

In all, regardless of your profession’s specific field, always treat your career as a valuable product that you need to manage diligently. This paradigm shift can propel your career growth to unprecedented heights.

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