I’m using January to work on a real need I see on both sides of a multi-sided market. At any time, there are 10s of thousands of tech product management jobs open. Product Manager now seems to be the title du jour both in traditional companies adopting a more user/product centric org design and also by re-titling positions like business analyst and project manager to PM (not a good idea but I’ll cover that one another time).

That would seem great for a PM job seeker, right? Not really. Most of these jobs require many years of PM experience. That’s because its difficult to have an entry level PM given the responsibility you have and experiences you need to draw upon. And few companies are investing in extensive training and mentorship programs now with the average job tenure for the <30 crowd at 18 months.

Thus, a chicken and egg problem.

One way we’re solving this is our new Tech Product Management program at NYU Stern. But there still is a gap especially in the process of certifying skills and talents for PMs given many are soft. There’s no code test or portfolio review which is why PM interview processes are so exhaustive.

Watch this space.