Evaluating Competing Opportunities
A coach can help you think through your opportunities, but they can’t make the final decision for you. If you are working alone or with a coach, consider building yourself a prioritization grid to decide what you want to do next.
When considering different opportunities (new jobs, new roles in your existing company, new career tracks) you need to decide for yourself what are make-or-break decision points. The following is a list of eight common considerations when balancing PM roles (if you think I missed one, feel free to ping me at intrico.io@gmail.com) plus a bonus one for career switchers:
8 Common Considerations
Role
Brand
Industry
Product
Income
Growth
Mentorship
Psychological Safety
Bonus: (For career changers) Function
Let’s dive into each one:
Role - For some, this breaks into two subcategories: Title and Responsibilities. Many times they go hand-in-hand. Sometimes we forgo one for the other.
Title - Sometimes the title is more important than the role. I can hear some people objecting from here but many of us have seen people less competent than ourselves win roles they were less qualified for because they had the higher title at another company and we still had the weaker role. Yes, sometimes you want to take the title to facilitate growth in a year or two.
Responsibilities - If you are looking to grow, it might be the scope of the projects you are assigned or the size of the team you will manage. Typically there is some jump from a previous role in a new company or your existing company.
Brand - Typically this is the brand of the company. Sometimes we decide to forgo the title and responsibilities to get a big brand on our resume. Think Google or Meta over the up-and-coming tech company.
Industry - Some people are generalists but more and more we need to specialize. If you want to move up the ranks in an industry you might prioritize your next decision based on that. Or if you want to be big fish in a small pond, you might opt for a different industry, not directly related to tech on the surface. For example: FinTech vs Food Service
Product - The most common trade-off here is B2C (consumer-facing) vs B2B (typically SAAS or an internal product/platform team). If you are sick of platform work, you might take a more junior role to get closer to the consumer again.
Income - It is not always at the top of the list but it is rarely at the bottom of the list. We often take a role we don’t love because of what it pays. There is zero judgment here. Life throws everyone different challenges and sometimes we just have to take the best paycheck. Or maybe we are sick of being undervalued in terms of pay and it has led to being undervalued in title and responsibility.
Growth - By which I mean career growth. This is most likely manager-dependent but it could be growth potential of the company will translate into career growth potential for an individual.
Mentorship - This one is all manager-dependent. You will need to look for servant-leader potential in your prospective boss. The biggest reason people quit is a bad or ineffective boss, but we rarely make that decision the center of our acceptance decision. Some people with trauma from previous managers will index highly on this one, I can tell you without a doubt I do. But you can’t always control for it. People aren’t the same day-to-day as they are in many interviews. You can try to screen for it but your screening will be imperfect.
Psychological Safety - This is slightly different from mentorship because not all managers that will not mentor you create a hellish work environment. There is typically a lot of overlap but by no means is it a rule. You can also have a great boss in a work environment that is known to be high pressure without a lot of room for mistakes. You need to trust your gut a bit based on your readings during interviews or backchannel checks on your manager. (Yes, backchannel checks are perfectly acceptable in my book. Your manager will do it to check on you. Therefore you have the same right if something doesn’t seem right to you.)
Function - This is mostly for career switchers or people laid off who need cash flow before they can find the perfect role. Sometimes you need to look at the function, does it get you pointed in the right direction and still engage your brain? For example: Analyst, Data Science, Technical Program Management (TPM), Sales Support, Customer Success, etc. If you plan to go into a big or small company and they switch functions before you move on to product management you want a role where you can learn but most importantly where you can shine. For some that is an analyst role, for others, it is a TPM role. You must decide based on experience and opportunities at the time. I know people from all the aforementioned functions that have made the switch.
I advise you to create a decision matrix and assign a weight to each element above, according to your individual needs and preferences. I have provided a sample here. BUT please note the weighting is just an example and very individual to people, the environment, and the opportunity at hand, just to name a few.
Less Common Considerations
These are still valid but less important for the majority:
vacation time
family leave (think having kids)
health insurance benefits
Footnote on Opportunities within your Company
Many people who start job searching could actually take a role within their company in a different department. But, in some ways, that is harder than leaving and coming back. Roughly 80% of tech managers are deemed bad or ineffective managers. If you don’t believe me, survey 10 people you know in tech and ask them if they have a good boss. Moving from a bad manager to another team is difficult at best. Most times you need a fresh start. But, if you work your network, you can also find a new team. But that requires extra effort on your part and can be hampered by a bad manger who speaks ill of you where you can’t defend yourself. That is the reality of life.
