Top 10 Product Manager Skills To Boost Your Resume In 2025
Product managers need to be constantly upgrading their product management skills to stay competitive when job searching or when looking to move up within their organization, company, or startup.
A successful PM is always interested in learning about new technologies or Agile methodologies that could help them be more effective product and people managers, or even better teammates or coworkers.
Listed below are the top skills employers are looking for in 2025 for PM roles.
If you’re just getting into product management, use this article as a checkpoint to brush up on your skills before looking for product management jobs.
Hard Skills vs Soft Skills for Product Managers
Before we review the top skills for product managers in 2025, a quick note on the difference between hard skills and soft skills, and the role of each type for product managers.
Hard skills, also referred to as technical skills, include learned skills in creating a product roadmap or product strategy, writing technical specs, or the ability to effectively use product management technology.
Soft skills include skills like leadership, prioritization, and interpersonal skills.
A successful product manager will have a mix of both types of skill sets. Technical skills are important for developing and designing products, and soft skills are crucial for leading the product team and getting products through the product life cycle efficiently.
Most In-Demand Product Manager Skills In 2025
Below is our list of important skills that any new PM or leveling-up PM should look to master:
Hard Skills
1. Understanding Of Web Development
While product managers do many things, coding or programming isn't necessarily one of them. That said, an understanding of these skillsets is useful. Knowing the product management principles is one thing, but being a great product manager means that you also care about the context you're working in.
It can also help you relate and empathize with your engineering team, as well as communicate with them more effectively when developing timelines and a roadmap.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Talk to your engineering manager about what skills would be most helpful for you to have in order to work with their team
- New PM: Taking a simple coding class specific to your tech stack, like these for Ruby, can be a good start. Look at the job description for the PM job you are interested in.
2. Writing Technical Specs And Requirements
Coming up with new product ideas and optimizations are an important part of a product manager’s role, but without specific technical requirements, product development can stall and get stuck in pre-production.
Being able to create technical product specifications, detailed requirements, and product features for new products provides a specific direction for your engineering team and designers.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Check out your organization’s documentation space (ie. Confluence) and look for example product briefs, spec sheets, etc. See what has worked well for other teams.
- New PM: Read this article on how to write effective product specs.
3. Conducting Market Research and making data-driven decisions
Whether you are a seasoned pro or still in your first months as a product manager, understanding your market and making informed decisions based on data are fundamental skills that can be continuously built upon. Market research, for example, can be a useful tool for identifying your target audience and their needs. This involves assessing customer needs, gathering customer feedback, and conducting user interviews and surveys, often in collaboration with a user research team.
Equally important is the ability to analyze and interpret data to guide strategic product choices. Setting and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as customer conversion rates, user churn, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and feature adoption rates are crucial for measuring your product's success and user satisfaction. Developing a data-driven mindset allows you to make informed decisions that align with both user needs and business objectives.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Talk to product marketing managers in your organization, and ask them what personas they have identified for your product/website. You can also reach out to your SEO team about what tools they use to measure the SEO impact of your product content initiatives.
- New PM: Check out free resources for product managers. Try out your skills by conducting test market research for a made-up product. Additionally, familiarize yourself with analytics tools to monitor user behavior and product performance. Regularly reviewing these metrics can inform your decisions and help adjust your strategies accordingly. Not sure where to start? Check out this guide on product analytics tools.
4. Knowledge Of User Experience Best Practices
While a product team often includes UX and UI experts, it is helpful for product managers to have some technical knowledge of user experience best practices. This will help the product manager speak the same language as the UX product team, and ensure mutual understanding of how quick or time-consuming a task may be.
It also can help a PM communicate requirements more effectively and can be used when creating product wireframes or other product documentation.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Develop a relationship with your UX and design teams. Ask them about any documentation they have around best practices for your product.
- New PM: Read up on UX best practices from sources like this.
Soft Skills
1. Strategic Thinking And Analytical Skills
This is a must-have for any PM. Product managers must be able to analyze information and data and provide actionable insights to their teams. This helps them ensure products provide sufficient value to both the business and their customers.
It's about stepping back from the daily grind to align your product plans with the company's long-term vision. This means not just reacting to current user demands but anticipating future market shifts and positioning your product accordingly.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Engage in a self-assessment of your strategic thinking abilities using tools like the Harvard ManageMentor Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment. This will help you identify areas for improvement and guide your professional development.qappd.com
- New PM: Start by reflecting on your recent product decisions. Consider how they align with your company's long-term goals and identify opportunities where strategic thinking could have enhanced outcomes.
2. Leadership And The Ability To Take Initiative
As with any management position, leadership skills are important for supporting and motivating your team. For product managers at all levels—not just senior product managers—leadership skills need to work in tandem with an initiative to get products into development and to meet deadlines. This means that the best product managers also possess some project management skills in order to see products through product development to product launch.
Also, product managers often have to lead cross-functional teams that may include representatives from the development team, product team, engineering team, marketing team, sales team, and other teams. Leadership is important in getting all team members on the same page and working toward the same goal.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Look for opportunities within your team and organization for you to take on a leadership role. Maybe you can start a social group at your company, or lead a training session.
- New PM: Put examples of prior leadership roles on your resume, and if you don’t have any, start volunteering for them! Try searching for organizations in your area that are looking for help.
3. Flexibility
Priorities can change daily in the world of product management. One day a certain product is the priority, and the next it’s something different. Product managers need to have prioritization skills and must be able to keep up with changes in their business and in the competitive landscape and stay flexible to ensure products are developed and launched in a timely and efficient manner.
A crucial part of this is managing prioritization. Along with keeping up with daily changes, can you adjust your team's priorities accordingly?
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Keep in mind that the customer and the business come first, and be sure not to let your own self-interest cloud your judgment. We all want our projects to get delivered on time, but there are times when you need to allow for another group’s priorities to take precedence.
- New PM: Keep up with the ever-changing product management space by following blogs like this one, and be sure to keep your potential customers top of mind.
4. Problem-Solving
At their core, products are intended to solve problems, for a business and/or for a specific type of customer. Great product managers need to create products that fundamentally achieve this.
They also need to be able to solve problems for their team, for example by implementing the right systems or software for effective product management. A problem-solving mindset is a key part of creating and brainstorming product ideas in the PM role.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Be sure to empathize with your customers when brainstorming new ideas for products. Their problems should be the driving force behind your decision-making. Learn how to make a customer empathy map here.
- New PM: When solving a problem, even in your everyday life, it’s important to clearly define the problem, so that you can properly focus on a solution. Even if it sounds silly, try saying the problem out loud.
5. Time Management
Product managers are constantly splitting their time between different products and projects, as well as always adjusting to shifting priorities, as mentioned above.
Time management skills help product managers juggle everything on their plate, while still completing tasks efficiently and pushing products through to launch. Time management skills can always be improved upon as you learn what works best for you.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Discuss time management best practices with all of your stakeholders, so that your team has a voice in scheduling and delivering tasks on time.
- New PM: Practice your time management skills by setting weekly or daily priorities, and block out time in your day to get your priorities accomplished.
6. Communication Skills
This skill is essential for product managers. Proper communication skills, including written and spoken communication, ensure that the product manager can effectively communicate with and lead their team to get successful products launched on time and on budget.
PMs also need to be able to communicate with stakeholders outside of their team, particularly when reporting on product success or opportunities for improvement.
How you can learn:
- Current PM: Ask for feedback on your communication with your team members, and identify areas where you can improve. Certain stakeholders prefer certain forms of communication, so be sure to take that into account.
- New PM: Try practicing public speaking wherever possible, so that you can develop confidence in communicating with people you do not know personally.
Integrating AI Literacy into Product Management
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept; it's a present-day reality transforming industries and redefining roles, including that of product managers. Developing AI literacy is becoming essential, as it intersects with and enhances many core product management skills.
Why AI Literacy Matters
AI literacy involves understanding the fundamentals of AI technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. This knowledge enables product managers to:
- Enhance Communication: Effectively collaborate with technical teams by speaking a common language, leading to more efficient development processes.
- Drive Data-Driven Decisions: Utilize AI tools to analyze large datasets, uncovering insights that inform product strategies and improve user experiences.
- Lead Innovation: Identify opportunities where AI can add value, positioning products competitively in the market.
Current PM: Engage in AI-focused courses or workshops to deepen your understanding of AI technologies and their applications in product management. This knowledge will enhance your ability to integrate AI into product strategies effectively.
New PM: Start with introductory resources on AI concepts relevant to product management. Building this foundation early will prepare you to navigate AI-driven product landscapes as your career progresses.
If you're looking to lead AI initiatives on your team and want to upskill, check out this list of top AI certifications.
By integrating AI literacy into your skill set, you not only stay relevant in the evolving tech landscape but also enhance your ability to lead and innovate in product management.
What Skills Make A Great Product Manager?
There are as many different PM skillsets as there are answers to the question, "what does a product manager do?" Along with the above hard and soft skills, there are lots of intangibles that boost a product manager's ability, like product vision, emotional intelligence, and asking the right questions. What skills do you find valuable as a product manager?
There are lots of ways to build your skills, such as attending product management conferences, listening to podcasts, and reading expert blogs. Keep upgrading your skills to stay relevant and effective as a product manager.
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And if you're just getting started on your dream PM career, here's some insight into how you might navigate that with minimal experience in the field. You may also want to check out this helpful podcast about transitioning into product management.
