GTM and Specialist Hiring
Why is product hiring difficult?
The short answer
Product hiring is difficult because titles and scope vary, outcomes are shared across functions and much of the work depends on judgement that is hard to observe from a CV. Companies also disagree internally about whether they need strategy, discovery, execution or leadership. Weak calibration creates a broad but incoherent search.
Product roles are among the hardest to hire well because the work is judgement-heavy, the evidence is thin on a CV and companies often disagree internally about what they even need. Recognising the structural reasons is the first step to running better searches.
Titles are inconsistent
A Senior PM at one company is a Group PM at another and a Head of Product at a third. Comparing titles across companies without understanding scope is misleading, and it is a common source of mis-calibrated searches.
Contribution is hard to isolate
Product outcomes are shared with engineering, design and go-to-market. A launch that shipped on time and grew revenue does not tell you what the product leader personally decided. Reconstruction is the only reliable way to isolate contribution.
The mandate is often unclear
Companies frequently open a product role without agreeing whether they want strategy, discovery, execution or leadership. The search then attracts a broad but incoherent set of candidates, and interviewers assess against different criteria.
Assessment can become subjective
In the absence of clear criteria, interviewers default to gut feel dressed up as pattern matching. Structured scorecards, reconstruction of real decisions and multi-perspective references push assessment back toward evidence.
What this means in practice
Invest disproportionately in calibration before launching a product search. A one-hour conversation to agree the mandate, role type and scorecard usually saves several weeks of confused interviewing later.
The Saiyō view
Most product-hiring failures Saiyō diagnoses are calibration failures rather than sourcing failures. The candidate market has strong people in it; the process has to be clear enough to identify them.
Explored in depth
This topic is explored in more depth within How to Hire Product Leaders and Specialists.
Frequently asked questions
See this in practice
Move from the concept to the way Saiyō delivers it.
Related questions
How do you hire a strong Product Leader?
Hire a strong Product Leader by defining the product challenge, then assessing evidence of relevant decisions, customer understanding, technical partnership and commercial impact. The interview should reconstruct real product choices and the candidate's personal contribution. Employer brand and category familiarity should support, not replace, the evidence.
Read the answerAnswerWhat should a scale-up assess in product candidates?
Assess product candidates on customer insight, problem framing, prioritisation, use of data, execution, technical collaboration, commercial understanding and learning from failure. The weighting depends on whether the role is discovery, growth, platform, operations or leadership. Use detailed examples rather than hypothetical product questions alone.
Read the answerAnswerShould product leaders come from the same industry?
Not necessarily. Industry experience is valuable when domain knowledge, regulation or buyer credibility are difficult to learn, but it can also narrow the market unnecessarily. Comparable customer complexity, product model and stage of growth may be more predictive. The decision should distinguish essential domain knowledge from comfort with familiar logos.
Read the answer