With strong local roots, but an international footprint, Friday Media Group is a great place to work. We’re a positive bunch, full of drive and not scared of hard work, but there’s no hint of ‘corporateness’ – we prefer the relaxed and friendly approach. We try to devolve responsibility as much as possible, which means there’s freedom to make decisions and, well, do your job.
There’s a lot going on here, and we’re not scared to try new things or change direction, so you’ll never be bored. We have about 80 brands to our name – some long-established market leaders, some just starting out in the world. Most of them aim to create value by bringing people together; buyers and sellers, recruiters and jobseekers, brokers and customers.
If you’ve got the skills that fit the bill listed below, we’d love to welcome you as the newest member of our growing family. You’ll be joining a team who are making the decisions that are pivotal in the direction and success of our business.
Job Description
The Senior Digital Product Manager is responsible for a set area of the business and all of the products that fall within that. In this case, we’re looking for someone to work on our Recruitment and Classifieds businesses. You would be joining us at an exciting time, working alongside other members of the product team to research and develop our next generation of digital products, reporting directly to the R&D director.
We want our products to deliver indispensable value to our customers and users, and to be a pleasure to use. As a Product Manager, you’ll work alongside our Indian development house, and Barcelona design team to conceive and develop innovative products and features that help us achieve this. You’ll focus on delivering the best possible website experience for our users across devices, with intuitive and useful features.
Attention to detail and an eye for quality, along with the ability to grasp technical capabilities and translate them into customer benefits is crucial. You will be the expert in the platform, products, audience and buyers.
This will include (amongst other things and in collaboration with the Group business teams):
- Researching the market where necessary to solve problems for our customers and enhance their experience with our brands
- Prioritising product development opportunities and requirements
- Overseeing development of products and updates (working with our Project Management team)
- Working with the Product Marketing team to plan and implement a marketing strategy, taking the product to the point where it can be successfully integrated with the business teams
In more detail, you’ll be…
- Observing and analysing current products – are customers getting value?Are they hitting obstacles? Why are they not renewing or upgrading?
- Researching the scope of new opportunities: How big is the market? Who are the competition and what are they doing? How much money could the Group stand to make?
- Researching the new product/feature in greater depth: What are the customer needs? What’s it worth to a customer to have those needs solved?
- Planning the development with the Project Management team – what resource is needed, what are the costs, what are the timescales? From these questions, prioritising developments.
- Planning/speccing out the product itself: user experience planning, mockups/wireframes, design briefs.
- Creating a process for fulfilment of the product (and planning resource), including customer service needs and processes.
- Producing a timetable for taking the product to market
- Thoroughly testing the product: is it intuitive, does it make life easy for the user? Does it solve the problem we set out to solve?
- Collecting feedback and analysing data after launch to inform later iterations of the product. This might include, for example, accompaniments with salespeople, listening to sales calls etc.
Necessary Skills & Desired Characteristics
- Commercial mind & ability to relate to the customer
- Element of analytical skill – ability to take insights from data
- Ability to craft effective copy
- Attention to detail & eye for design/usability
- Natural inquisitiveness/curiosity, particularly when it comes to new technologies or solutions
- Creativity and an open mind to test new concepts and ideas
We’re looking for the right person, not the right CV, so whilst a background in product might help, a good mix of the above characteristics and a drive to succeed are more important.