An industry veteran without product discipline may build what worked years ago, ignoring current market dynamics. A skilled product manager, though new to the industry, will use discovery to find today's optimal solution, avoiding costly failures based on outdated assumptions.
The playbook for user research and discovery differs drastically between B2B and B2C environments. Hiring a product manager or UX researcher with experience in the correct model (e.g., regulated B2B vs. high-volume B2C) is often more important than them knowing your specific industry.
The most valuable industry experience is the tacit knowledge gained from witnessing how an industry reacts to market forces like economic downturns or new technologies. This lived experience provides a deep perspective that is difficult to replicate through research alone.
Less mature companies over-index on industry experience, believing it shortcuts customer discovery. More mature organizations prioritize strong product discipline, knowing a skilled PM can learn any industry but a subject matter expert often struggles to learn the product craft.
In an interview, your audience is someone with a problem they need solved immediately. Instead of focusing on your lack of industry experience, research their likely challenges and frame your skills as the solution to their urgent need, giving them the confidence to hire you now.
Instead of viewing a lack of industry experience as a weakness, frame it as a strength. An unbiased point of view is valuable for challenging ingrained assumptions and seeing solutions insiders miss, especially regarding team dynamics and stakeholder management.
A key benefit of industry experience is a pre-existing network of clients, partners, and vendors. This allows a product manager to quickly validate ideas and conduct discovery by making a few phone calls, a process that could take months for an outsider starting from scratch.
Hiring managers increasingly use AI to generate job descriptions. These models often automatically include "industry experience preferred," even if it's not a priority. This dilutes the signal for job seekers and adds unnecessary friction to the hiring process.
While industry experience provides context, true 'product sense'—the intuition for what might go wrong or what questions to ask—is primarily developed through strong product management discipline. It’s about knowing how to serve a user, a skill that is transferable across industries.