Using Product EQ to Hire the Best Product Managers – Kate Leto on The Product Experience

Product people love to study frameworks, techniques, and approaches that have worked at other companies. In Kate Leto’s new book, Hiring Product Managers: Using Product EQ to go Beyond Culture and Skills, she gives an overview of how to actually use those tools – both in building a team and day-to-day, as a product professional.

In this episode, sponsored by Amplitude, listen to learn about:

• What Product EQ is
• How to hire well
• Hiring diversity
• Human skill vs. tech skill

Quote of the Episode

As with anything that doesn’t go right, there’s always finger-pointing. If you did have higher levels of human skills, maybe you’d be able to acknowledge that you made your own mistakes – wouldn’t that be great?

Related Links

• Follow Kate on Twitter, LinkedIn, and her website
• Kate’s new book, Hiring Product Managers: Using Product EQ to go Beyond Culture and Skills
• Seth Godin’s Let’s Stop Calling Them Soft Skills
• Jack Welch’s Hiring Batting Average
• EQ (Emotional Intelligence) interview questions

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• Visit The Product Experience homepage for more information and more episodes!
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• Like our theme music? It’s Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s Arne Kittler!

Our Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Head of Innovation at Go Compare and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol (which now has 800+ members!) and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy is a product consultant and coach who has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. A recovering music journalist and editor, he launched Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, and has worked across sectors including museums and arts groups, online education, media and entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. Randy’s book, What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19 is out now, with all profits going to COVID-19 relief efforts.