I’m seeing fewer briefs these days for a generic “Product Manager”.
Clients are increasingly naming the domain they need instead, and asking me to find candidates against that specific expertise.
If your latest Product brief still reads like a generalist role, it’s worth checking whether that reflects what the business needs, or whether it’s a habit worth revisiting.
Name the domain before you write the brief
The pattern is consistent across the searches I’m seeing: fewer clients are asking for a broad, interchangeable Product Manager, and more are asking for someone who already brings relevant domain or product specialisation. That reflects what clients are asking for today.
The domains coming up most often are:
- AI Product Management
- Growth
- Platform
- Data
- Technical Product Management
If you’re writing a brief for a role that genuinely needs deep expertise in one of these areas, naming that domain up front will get you a stronger, more relevant shortlist than a generic title will.
Work out whether the role needs depth, breadth, or both
Whether a well-rounded generalist is still enough for a Product professional, or whether deeper domain expertise is becoming essential for career progression, doesn’t have a single answer that applies to every role or business.
It does matter for how you write your next brief, because the answer shapes whether you’re screening for breadth, depth, or, more often than either alone, some combination of the two.
Screen shortlists for both, not either
Here’s where I’d push back on treating this as a simple choice between generalist and specialist.
The best candidates I see still combine deep expertise in one area with enough commercial breadth to think across the wider product ecosystem, alongside their domain depth rather than in place of it. Get the screening balance wrong and you risk one of two outcomes:
- A brief written too generically attracts a wide pool of candidates who lack the specific domain depth the role needs, so the shortlist looks full but is thin on relevant expertise.
- A brief screened too narrowly for a specialist tag can filter out candidates who have the expertise you need but don’t use the right label on their CV. It can also reward someone with the domain depth who struggles to connect their work to the commercial picture.
When you write your next Product brief, name the one domain specialisation the role genuinely needs first.
Then, when you’re assessing the shortlist, screen explicitly for commercial breadth and ecosystem awareness in addition to domain depth, rather than treating specialisation and breadth as separate hiring criteria. The candidates worth hiring usually bring both.
Ready to talk about your next product hire? Get in touch.
Katie
Product, Data & Delivery Recruitment
Last updated: September 2026
