Curiosity to find what people search for about product management, led me to dig a bit into what people searched online in the last one year.
I split the the search queries into these categories:
- Job Search like “product management interview questions”
- Software tools like “product lifecycle management tools”
- Skill upgrade like “product management certification”
- Informational like “what does a product manager do?”
Share of different categories of search queries
Cost of search engine advertising for different categories
Not surprisingly enough, the average cost for search advertising is the highest for software tools, but a bit surprising was that the least was for jobs. The normalised data is shown below:
Top queries that saw the maximum increase in the last year
| Queries | Increase over previous year |
| digital product management | +50% |
| agile product management | +40% |
| product management internship | +40% |
| Product manager salary | +40% |
Top four queries in different categories
| Top search queries in Informational category |
| product lifecycle management |
| what is product management |
| product portfolio management |
| associate product manager |
| Top search queries in Job Search category |
| product manager salary |
| product manager jobs |
| product manager interview questions |
| product manager resume |
| Top search queries in Skill Upgrade category |
| product management certification |
| product management training |
| product management courses |
| product management books |
| Top search queries in Software Tools category |
| product lifecycle management software |
| product data management software |
| free product management software |
| product portfolio management software |
Looking at the data above as a whole, I have a few observations:
- Product Management seems to be getting matured. I was able to categorise 90% of the 500+ unique queries into the above categories unambiguously
- Jobs are being searched heavily but advertisement costs are the lowest – perhaps head hunters and companies are a bit weary of getting way too many unsuitable candidates?
- “Associate Product Manager” – makes it to the top 4 in the category – shows great interest in the stream and to make it while you are young
- I expected “lean” to be as popular as “agile” as far as product management is concerned, but “agile” beats “lean” by a very wide margin
Perhaps a similar exercise every six months might reveal how product management has been evolving over time.
The Product Mantra 
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