If you’re a Director/VP of a Product Management team or otherwise responsible for hiring PMs, there are many qualities to look for in candidates.

Analytical ability, communication skills, technical competency, ability to lead without authority, and organization skills are - and should be - at the top of the list.

But the one skill I look for more than anything else is this…

The *Most Important* Quality I Look For in PM Candidates

Before I get to my most important quality, you might have noticed that my list above did not include “domain knowledge” or “subject matter expertise”. Wondering why?

I omitted “domain knowledge” intentionally - as I don’t think it’s that important in most cases, and it’s often overvalued. For example - when I was building the PM team for a “mobile GPS software” startup, I staffed the entire team with PMs who had no prior “mobile software” or “GPS” experience. But all of them - except for the two hiring mistakes I made - had the qualities listed above, and the one listed below.

“How did the startup do” you ask? They did so well that they recently filed for an IPO - our PM team played an important role (or so I hope!) in contributing to that success. Okay, having said “domain knowledge” is not really important in most cases…

Now I’ll get to the most important quality I look for:

The willingness to do what it takes is far more important for a PM to be successful, than knowing everything there is to know about a domain.

This is especially true when hiring at a startup, but I feel it’s also true for entrepreneurial business units inside large companies.

Bonus Video (Really Cool!)

I’m a baseball fan (See proof). In order to score a run in baseball, the runner has to cross and touch the home plate.

There are many ways to do this:

• Hit a home run, and take a leisurely jog to home plate - like Barry Bonds (greatest hitter of all time!) did so often, here in San Francisco.
• Run really fast and get to home plate before the other team throws the ball to home plate.
• If the ball gets to home plate before you do - Be bigger and stronger than the catcher so you can run him over and get to home plate, or perhaps slide and hope the catcher misses the tag.

In all my years of watching baseball - in person, on TV, etc - the ways listed above are how every single run was scored. Until yesterday, that is!

Check out this cool video - here, the runner simply leaps right over the catcher to get to the home plate. Who told him he could do that? I’m guessing, probably no one - he just wanted to reach the home plate, so he did what it took. Awesome!

What are your thoughts on this quality? Do you think “domain knowledge” is more important than I say? Chime in here…