I had two interesting senior product manager interviews this week, both of which say something about how companies are approaching their hiring practices.
The first call was brief—maybe eight minutes tops. Because,
after the opening small talk, the recruiter brought up the subject of
compensation. He did this because it was risibly low, and he acknowledged that.
I rather got the impression that he’s learnt to open the conversation with this
data point because he’d had too many calls that came to a screeching halt 20
minutes in when it came up in the “normal” course of interviews.
The company in question has had two really major security
breaches in the past couple of years, breaches that affected hundreds of
customers and brought them the kind of press that no software company wants. It
may be possible that they should consider better compensation for the people
who have to clean up these kinds of messes and maybe prevent them in the
future.
The second interview was actually fascinating. The company is
doing interesting things in cybersecurity, has been around for more than a
decade, getting close to IPO, but has never had a product manager. They’ve
crafted a thoughtful job description, enumerating some really high-level
expectations (including briefing analysts and the press, which typically
happens at the director level), and engaged a high-powered recruitment firm to
run the hiring process.
But when we got to compensation, the salary was in the exact same
where-do-you-expect-to-find-someone-senior-at-this-rate range. With no bonus or
equity. Again, the recruiter acknowledged that this was low, but that’s what
was budgeted. He mentioned that the company execs expect this person to “be the
CEO of their product line” (typical buzzwords for this role). He didn’t point
out what was obvious to me: that this person would not have a compensation
package that is in any way CEO-like.
Look, when even the recruiters are embarrassed to talk money, you know these are interesting times.
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