4 Best Online Product Management Courses
Start or transform your career to product management by acquiring the relevant skills with online courses
According to LinkedIn, product management skill is one of the top 5 hard skills that job seekers should consider acquiring to increase their employability in 2021. Based on the 50 Best Jobs in America for 2021 report published by Glassdoor, the product manager role is ranked in 3rd place. Moreover, it has the second-highest medium base salary among all IT-related roles in the report.
Therefore, the product manager role is a good career choice if you are exploring and considering various IT-related jobs. However, traditional university education usually does not cover product management courses. Thus, there are many educational organizations, which develop certificate programs to close the knowledge and skills gaps. In this article, 4 online learning providers will be discussed and compared with each other. They are Udacity, General Assembly, Product School, and OpenClassrooms.
Udacity — Product Manager Nanodegree Program
Founded in 2011, Udacity’s courses and programs are focused on IT skills such as programming, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data science, and cybersecurity. Furthermore, many of Udacity’s programs are created in collaboration with leading technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Intel, and Nvidia, etc. According to its website, it has around 100,000 graduates and 100 enterprise clients.
There are multiple product management-related programs offered by Udacity such as AI Product Manager Nanodegree and Data Product Manager Nanodegree programs. In this article, the focus will be the Product Manager Nanodegree program, which does not have any prerequisites in order to study it. This program covers topics of product strategy, product design, product development, and product launch. Based on estimation, one will need to take 4 months with 10 hours per week in order to complete the program. If one chooses to enroll in the program with the 4-month access payment plan, the cost will be $1,556. Alternatively, one can choose the pay-as-you-go payment plan, which costs $549 per month.
General Assembly — Online Product Management Course
By having 15 campuses in 6 countries, General Assembly offers both in-person and online courses. Its courses teach skills that are currently in demand. They are ranging from programming, user experience design, product management, software engineering, data science, and digital marketing topics. Based on the statistics provided on its website, it has about 40,000 alumni and 300 enterprise clients.
Similar to Udacity, the Online Product Management course provided by General Assembly does not require candidates to have any relevant work experience in order to be admitted into the course. A candidate will take 10 weeks to complete the course. The curriculum includes market research, customer research, assumption validation, user experience design, feature prioritization, product planning, and product development framework, etc. Moreover, it provides preparatory lessons which would be helpful for those without any relevant experience. For tuition fee, it is $3,950. If you have any financial difficulties, you can choose to pay with installment plans.
Product School
Product School is an online learning platform that provides only product management training. Its courses are conducted by industry practitioners from leading companies, including, but not limited to, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Forbes. Besides offering courses, Product School also organizes conferences, career fairs, and free online events. According to its website, it has about 20,000 alumni.
Product School provides 3 different levels of certificates. The Product Manager Certificate (PMC) is designed for people who do not have any relevant product management experience. For the Product Leader Certificate (PLC), it is suitable for those who have at least 3 years of product management experience or earned the PMC. Lastly, the Product Executive Certificate (PEC) is developed for product managers with 5 years of experience or people who earned the PLC.
As its courses are designed to suit people who are working, students can choose a full-time schedule by completing the course in 5 days or a part-time schedule which allows them to complete the course in 2 months. For the tuition fees, there are 2 bundles. The first option includes 1 certificate with 2 months of live online training and costs about $4,499. Alternatively, you can choose the second option that includes 3 certificates with 6 months of live online training and costs about $12,599. Furthermore, the second option includes more features than the first option. You can find out more details on its website.
OpenClassrooms — Product Manager Certificate
Headquartered in France, OpenClassrooms offers software development, project management, product management, data analysis, and digital marketing courses. There are 2 highlights for its paid programs. Firstly, it provides one-to-one mentorship which is conducted through video calls on a weekly basis. Secondly, after completing the certificate program, one is guaranteed a job within 6 months with the help of its dedicated career coach. According to TechCrunch, the number of students who found a job or received a career advancement after completing an OpenClassrooms program was 4,300 in 2020.
Unlike the previous 3 course providers, OpenClassrooms has set an admission requirement for its Product Manager certificate program. The candidate needs to have a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or a year of relevant experience, and a TOEFL score of 80 or an IELTS band score of 6.5. Based on estimation, the candidate will take 12 months to complete this certificate program. Its curriculums include agile project management, agile documentation, scrum, prototypes creation, user experience design, product research, product roadmap, testing practices, and lean startup, etc. For tuition cost, it is €500 per month. So, if a candidate takes 12 months to complete the certificate program, the total cost will be €6,000.
Alumni Network Comparison
In the chart below, the number of alumni is based on LinkedIn data. Although it may not include all alumni of these course providers, it can give us some references. The chart shows that Udacity has an alumni population that is about 18 times larger than Product School. However, since both Udacity and General Assembly provide many IT and digital-related courses other than the product management courses, the numbers of alumni that reflect on LinkedIn include those students from other courses. For the tuition fees, Udacity has the lowest fee. On the other hand, Product School’s tuition fees are the highest if one wants to complete all of its 3 certificate programs. Therefore, there is a negative correlation between the alumni population and the tuition fees.
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