Introduction: A Human-Sized Hiring Problem
Despite the steady demand for early-career talent, the system still isn’t working smoothly for new graduates. In the UK, employer groups such as the Institute of Student Employers forecasted that graduate hiring would grow by 5% in 2023/24 — yet thousands of applicants remain stuck in a cycle of endless applications and limited feedback. This gap is especially visible in entry-level Product Manager (PM) roles, where expectations are broad but signals from candidates are weak.
For students, the challenge is breaking through application volume. For employers, it’s separating genuine capability from polished resumes. Universities, meanwhile, are pressured to demonstrate employability outcomes without overloading academic staff. The result is friction at every point of the process: time-to-hire drags, mismatches occur, and candidates struggle to prove what they can actually do.
Talantir’s perspective is simple: what if we shifted focus from promises on paper to proof through real work? This post explores the main frictions, why Product Manager roles are uniquely tricky, and how work-sample evaluation can reset standards for everyone involved.
The Current Frictions in Early-Career Hiring
Early-career hiring is difficult because all sides — students, employers, universities — work with signals that are noisy, partial, or outdated. Below are the biggest friction points.
1. Application Volume
Large employers report receiving thousands of applications for a few dozen graduate PM roles. That scale makes it hard for recruiters to spot motivated or capable candidates. Many promising applicants fall through the cracks simply because their CV doesn’t match automated filters.
2. Time to Hire
Across the UK, the average time-to-hire is around 44 days. For entry-level PM roles, it can be even longer as employers add extra interview rounds to test skills and motivation. This slow pace risks candidate drop-off, leaving employers with thinner pipelines and frustrated applicants.
3. Skills Mismatch
Research shows that nearly 80% of employers in the UK report difficulty finding candidates with the skills they need. For product management, the issue is amplified: the role spans technical literacy, business insight, and customer empathy — a rare mix for a graduate fresh out of university.
4. Poor Signal Quality
Traditional signals like GPA, course titles, or polished resumes don’t tell employers how someone will handle actual product decisions. Students with strong potential may be overlooked because their strengths aren’t easily captured on paper. Employers end up hiring “safe bets” instead of high-potential candidates.
5. Assessment Drift
Even when employers try to assess skills through tasks or interviews, these often drift into artificial exercises. Case studies may not reflect day-to-day reality, and group interviews favor confidence over substance. The result is inconsistent signals and poor comparability between candidates.
Together, these frictions slow down hiring, create mismatches, and frustrate all sides of the process.
Why Product Manager Roles Are Especially Hard to Evaluate
The Product Manager role is one of the most popular aspirations among graduates in business, technology, and design tracks. Yet it’s also one of the hardest to evaluate in early-career hiring:
- Mixed skillset: PMs need to blend analytical thinking, customer understanding, and technical communication. Few entry-level applicants have proven all three.
- Emerging tools: From roadmapping software to analytics dashboards, the tech stack for PMs is constantly shifting. Knowing the “current tools” is less valuable than showing adaptability.
- Unclear titles: “Product Manager” can mean different things in different companies — from market research to backlog prioritization. This creates confusion for students and misaligned expectations for employers.
For universities, preparing students for PM roles is challenging because no single course captures the full mix. For employers, evaluating a candidate’s potential in this multi-dimensional role is risky. For students, it’s nearly impossible to showcase readiness through standard applications.
The Alternative: Work-Sample Evaluation
Instead of relying on resumes or abstract interviews, a growing number of employers and education providers are turning to work-sample evaluation. The idea is simple: give candidates short, realistic tasks that mirror the job they would do on day one.
What Work-Samples Look Like
- A 45-minute task: drafting a lightweight product requirements document.
- A short customer interview plan: outlining how they’d test a product hypothesis.
- A prioritization exercise: given a backlog of five features, explain what comes first and why.
These are not marathon projects. They are focused, time-bounded tasks that reveal how a candidate thinks, structures, and decides.
Why It Works
- For students: Work-samples provide a fairer stage. Instead of relying on prior internships or “brand name” universities, candidates can prove themselves by doing the work.
- For employers: Work-samples reduce noise. Recruiters see how candidates approach problems, not just how they talk about them. Shortlists become stronger and faster to assemble.
- For universities: Work-samples connect learning outcomes with job readiness. They show whether curricula are equipping students with relevant, practical skills.
By aligning everyone around proof of capability, work-sample evaluation turns early-career hiring into a more transparent, equitable process.
Talantir’s Approach
Talantir is a career-readiness and hiring-challenge platform that embeds work-sample evaluation into structured career pathways.
Here’s how it works in the context of Product Manager roles:
- Students practice real tasks. Instead of reading about product management, they complete short cases: defining user needs, analyzing basic metrics, or planning a feature release. Each case takes 15–20 minutes, broken into clear steps. Over time, students build a portfolio of evidence.
- Employers see evidence, not promises. When hiring for an early-career PM role, employers can review candidates who have already practiced role-specific cases. They also see structured abstracts of how each candidate approached the task — how they noticed issues, structured problems, and made decisions.
- Universities align curricula. Career services can roll out company-aligned “roadmaps” that integrate seamlessly into existing programs. This reduces staff workload while providing students with practical readiness. Aggregate analytics show where skills are strong and where gaps remain.
Because Product Management requires a mix of strategy, empathy, and execution, Talantir’s model helps all parties. Students gain clarity on whether the PM path fits them. Employers get faster, fairer shortlists. Universities can demonstrate employability outcomes without building entirely new modules.
Unlike abstract aptitude tests or long assessment centers, Talantir focuses on authentic tasks that reflect actual PM work. This means better signals, stronger matches, and a smoother bridge from study to work.
Conclusion: From Promises to Proof
The challenges in early-career hiring — volume, time-to-hire, skills mismatch, poor signal quality — are felt acutely in Product Manager roles. Everyone agrees the system is inefficient, but the default tools haven’t kept pace.
Work-sample evaluation offers a reset. Instead of guessing from resumes or GPA, we can watch candidates solve real problems. Instead of long hiring cycles, we can surface strong shortlists in days. Instead of leaving universities out of the loop, we can connect curricula directly to job outcomes.
So, what if we evaluated real work, not promises?
For students: would you prefer to show your skills through a real task rather than just a CV?
For employers: would you trust a shortlist built on evidence of capability, not just keywords?
For universities: how could aligning programs with work-sample evaluation strengthen your graduates’ outcomes?
Explore how work-sample evaluation can reset early-career hiring standards.