The One Skill PMs Undervalue (But Hiring Managers Love)

If you want to stand out as a product manager, stop obsessing over roadmaps and start getting good at... facilitation.

Too many aspiring PMs spend their time memorizing frameworks....RICE, MoSCoW, OKRs and practicing how to “own the roadmap.” Those are important, but they’re not what hiring managers are secretly hoping to find when they interview you.

What we’re really looking for? A facilitator. Someone who can take a group of people—engineering, design, marketing, ops—and help them make progress in the same direction.

Let me explain.

Why Facilitation Matters More Than You Think

In the day-to-day life of a PM, you don’t spend most of your time “making decisions.” You spend most of it helping other people make better decisions together.That means:

• Running workshops that align cross-functional teams

• Clarifying messy conversations

• Surfacing assumptions

• Creating space for quieter voices to be heard

• Steering a group toward shared understanding

These are facilitation skills. And they’re massively undervalued in most product education.

Facilitation = Influence Without Authority

Product management is famously a role with “no formal authority.”Facilitation is how you earn informal authority.

When you can guide a group through disagreement without escalating tension…When you help teams find clarity in ambiguity…When meetings you run actually feel like a good use of time…

People start to trust you. They start to rely on you. That’s how influence is built.

Three Ways to Build This Skill

Here’s how you can start becoming a better facilitator today:

1. Learn to frame problems, not push solutions.A great facilitator can turn a vague request like “We need a new onboarding flow” into a clear problem statement the team can align around.

2. Use structured conversations.Frameworks like “How Might We,” “Crazy 8s,” or “Dot Voting” might sound fluffy—but they bring discipline to creative thinking. Learn them. Use them.

3. Debrief your meetings.After every major workshop or meeting, take five minutes to reflect: What worked? What didn’t? What will I do differently next time?

Final Thought: The Roadmap Will Change. Your People Skills Won’t.

Product managers who know how to facilitate will always be in demand. It’s not flashy. It won’t get you 10,000 LinkedIn likes. But it will get you hired—and help you deliver real impact.

So the next time you’re preparing for a PM interview, don’t just practice your prioritization framework. Practice running a great meeting.

It might just be the edge you need.