Podcast: How to Hire for People Ops as a Product Team
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Go listen to the latest episode of the MPL podcast, where we went deep on a fundamental shift in how HR teams are built: moving from a traditional functional model to a product-centric approach to People Ops.
If you're thinking about hiring for a People Ops team that operates more like a product squad—testing, iterating, building, and shipping solutions—you’ll want to keep reading.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the conversation.
1. The Five Core Skill Areas of People Ops as a Product
Jessica introduces a structured framework for hiring that mirrors how great product teams are built. Instead of just hiring generalists or specialists by function (like L&D or recruiting), you’re looking for people with skills across these five areas:
Planning – Project management, sprint planning, stakeholder mapping. The ability to break large goals into actionable tasks is critical.
Research – Running workshops, gathering feedback, user discovery. This is about understanding people’s needs before building anything.
Testing – Hypothesis-driven thinking and validating ideas. This includes small experiments and data-informed decision making.
Building – Actually creating systems, spreadsheets, integrations, workflows. People who can make things real.
Human Ops – Coaching, communication, navigating interpersonal complexity. This is where most traditional HR folks are strongest.
Most People Ops professionals already excel in Human Ops, so this framework gives you a way to balance the rest—and helps ensure you're not over-indexing on any one area.
“If you've got someone that's really good at planning, you can almost get away with anything.” – Jessica
2. What Makes a “T-Shaped” People Ops Hire?
The goal is to hire T-shaped individuals: those who are good across many areas but have a deep spike in one.
For example, Angela, someone on Jessica’s team, started in a recruiting coordinator role and now builds internal systems that automate onboarding and communication across clients. Her spike? Building. But she can flex into testing, human ops, and planning when needed.
The magic of this approach is that everyone brings a superpower—and when combined, the team can operate like a product org.
“When you bring everyone's spikes together, it should make this nice holistic team.” – Jessica
3. How Hiring Looks Different for People Ops as a Product
Hiring for this type of team isn’t about finding someone with the right HR certification or background. It’s about finding builders, thinkers, and testers. That means the interview process needs to change.
Some key shifts:
Use case studies – Show them a messy onboarding problem and ask how they’d solve it.
Test ambiguity – Offer vague feedback or unclear data and see how they handle it.
Look for bias-busting – Can they distinguish between what people feel is the issue and what the data actually shows?
You’re not screening for memorized answers. You’re trying to surface raw capability and interest in solving people problems through structured thinking and creativity.
“One of the biggest myths is that you won’t find great talent inside traditional HR folks. You absolutely can.” – Jessica
4. Hiring from Nontraditional Backgrounds Works
Jessica has hired amazing People Ops talent from customer success, marketing, engineering, and more. If someone has experience building, planning, or running user research, they may be a fit—whether or not they’ve worked in HR.
This is especially relevant in a world where HR teams are expected to operate more like product teams, and less like paper-pushers.
5. What Happens When You Get It Right?
If you follow this model and build your team with intention, here’s what you’ll likely see a year in:
Fewer manual tasks and more automation
Employee experience solutions built with user input
A team that can prioritize, test, and ship quickly
Less reliance on documentation and more focus on outcomes
Ops people who hate busywork as much as your engineers do
It’s not just more effective—it’s way more energizing for the team.
“Our job is to remove administrative burden and improve the experience for everyone. That’s the operating mode.” – Jessica
Final Thought
You don’t need to replace your entire HR team to do this. Most people already have the curiosity and desire to work this way. What’s missing is the opportunity—and the hiring model to support it.
Start by updating how you interview. Use case studies. Focus on core capabilities. And don’t be afraid to hire someone who doesn’t look like a typical HR person on paper.