PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.
coke products #
every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to
tl;dr
Humans, not AI, are still sifting job applicants in or out
PMs should use AI to amplify their thinking, not replace it
Positive news for product managers in the UK job market
Advice from someone unjustly fired from Facebook
hello
Welcome to this week’s edition of PRODUCTHEAD, the newsletter that is blissfully unbothered by the coming genAI token apocalypse. (Tokocalpyse? Hmmm, maybe not.)
Advice on CVs and job interviews often forms part of the discussion in my product management coaching sessions. There’s still a lot of product people out there seeking a new job for one reason or another. Whilst it’s by no means a breeze to find one right now, it does at least seem (anecdotally) as though demand beginning to increase again.
With that in mind, I wanted to share a few articles with you on various aspects of the recruitment process. The first is by Sam Wright on the Huntr blog. Apparently Huntr have undertaken some detailed research into how Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) actually work and are being used today to manage job applicants. I’ll call out that Huntr have a vested interest in this from the other side of the fence, so keep your critical thinking hats on when reading their findings.
Another recent article is from Mirela Mus. She describes the qualities and attributes Product People (GmbH) looks for in the candidates they recruit. They are AI-forward, although they still expect candidates to think for themselves, rather than outsourcing all their thinking to genAI. It’s an interesting and honest take on what they value in a product person.
Creation Recruitment has published a salary report on the product team (product managers at various levels, plus adjacent disciplines). It focuses on the UK job market specifically, both for permanent and freelance work. It’s a useful data point if you’re hunting for a job right now.
Lastly, a piece by Louise Deason on the bullshit reasons she was fired by Facebook. It’s painfully honest and talks about the trauma involved, without descending into recriminations or self-pity.
Speak to you soon,
Jock
P.S. Although I’ve included reports from a couple of companies this month, this has been on my own initiative because I thought they were interesting and worth sharing, not because I’ve received anything from those companies to do so.
what to think about this week
How Applicant Tracking Systems Actually Work in 2026
Most of what you’ve heard about applicant tracking systems is wrong. No major ATS on the market today auto-rejects your resume. There is no universal “ATS score.” And the formatting rules you’ve seen repeated online come from how these systems worked ten years ago.
Humans are deciding who’s in and out, at least for now
[Sam Wright / Huntr]
The End of the Product Manager as an Assistant: How AI Impacted Product Roles
Recruiting the right Product Management talent in 2026 is exponentially harder than it was three years ago. The candidate pool has exploded, but the signal-to-noise ratio has plummeted. It has never been easier for less qualified candidates to flood companies with AI Slop: highly polished, artificially generated applications that look great on paper but completely mask a lack of underlying substance.
Can you think from first principles in real-time?
[Mirela Mus / Product People]
2026 Product Team Salary Report
The figures in this report come from placements we’ve made and from the salaries people in our network over the last six months have achieved in their new roles. These are real numbers from real offers, not survey averages.
A benchmark for product people in the UK
[Creation Recruitment]
Facebook Fired Me for a Holiday I Didn’t Take.
There is a database somewhere inside Meta that contains the dates and times I badged into the (then)Facebook office in San Francisco. Every morning. Every evening. Coffee runs in the middle of the day. The whole log.
I know it exists because I was the one swiping the badge.
I mention this because the stated reason for my firing was that I had “gone on holiday and not told anyone.” I had not gone on holiday.
The thing nobody warns you about being fired in tech
[Louise Deason / Technically Feasible]
recent posts
Job interviews are rubbish
I’m coming to the opinion that job interviews are a terrible way to assess whether someone can do the job. They take up loads of time to organise and run, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll select a capable candidate at the end of the process.
[I Manage Products]
What to expect from your face-to-face product manager interview
Your product manager interview is as much about you getting to know your interviewers as it is the other way around. Here’s what you can expect along with my tips for standing out from the crowd.
[I Manage Products]
Getting your first job as a product manager
Getting your first job as a product manager can seem impossible. Thankfully it’s not! I share my advice on how to break into a career in product management.
Avoid the chicken-and-egg problem of gaining experience
[I Manage Products]
The product leader’s guide to interviewing product managers
Because I tend to help organisations build up their product team from scratch, I’m often involved in the interviewing and hiring process, so I’d like to share with you my product leader’s guide to interviewing product managers.
How to mitigate unconscious bias when hiring
[I Manage Products]
can we help you?
Product People is a product management services company. We can help you through consultancy, training and coaching. Just contact us if you need our help!
Helping people build better products, more successfully, since 2012.
PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from 110000 candles.