Fast Facts

Join hand2mind as a Product Manager, Curriculum, where you'll design custom educational kits and collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance learning materials and meet client needs.

Responsibilities: Key responsibilities include customizing educational kits, collaborating on proposals, preparing quotations, and supporting product delivery while ensuring standards compliance.

Skills: Candidates should possess a Bachelor’s degree and have 4 years of experience in educational product management or teaching, with proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, especially Excel.

Qualifications: Ideal candidates will have a background in Science, Literacy, or Math, along with strong organizational abilities and project management skills.

Location: This position is based in Vernon Hills, IL.

Compensation: $70000 - $81000 / Annually

About hand2mind:

We bring learning to life! Trusted by teachers for more than 60 years, hand2mind creates engaging, classroom-tested materials that empower children to learn by doing. We are a 150-person strong, family-owned company that's been voted one of the Chicago Tribune's Top Workplaces for the last six consecutive years. In addition to building high-quality, hands-on learning materials for the classroom like VersaTiles® and Cuisenaire® Rods, we also develop educational toys for the home that make learning math, reading, social-emotional learning, and STEM fun and interactive. As a company, we are committed to our employee’s personal and professional development. That’s why we offer a competitive benefits package, a supportive culture, and a variety of training and development opportunities. We are looking for professionals who are truly just kids at heart! We hope you’ll come join our award-winning team today!

Team & Position Description:

We are currently seeking a Product Manager to join our team of custom solutions experts. In this role, you will work with our educational sales team to design custom kits for school districts based on client requests, work collaboratively on creating school proposals, and prepare quotations for school bid and RFP submissions. In addition, you will partner with Curriculum Product Managers to develop and price Math and Literacy kits for publisher and prospect accounts. You will work cross-functionally with our supply chain and planning teams, to assist in the timely sourcing, planning, and assembly of kits during the duration as well as providing follow-up support after development has been completed. 

What you’ll do day to day:

• As the subject matter expert on kit design and hands-on materials, you will participate in sales discovery calls with our education sales consultants and school district customers and prospects.
• Correlate clients’ product specifications to hand2mind’s vast product master to develop kit packages for Math, Literacy, and Science. 
• Review clients’ curriculum activities where needed to accurately select components and provide options designed to meet clients’ price, quality, and learning objectives. 
• Prepare custom school quotes based on customer budget targets and hand2mins profit goals determined by Director of Product Development and Senior Manager of Custom Solutions. 
• Partner with Operations to facilitate creation of prototypes to size and price packaging.
• Collaborate with Planning department to determine product availability to achieve customer objectives for on-time delivery at time of proposal.
• Work with hand2mind’s Quality and Compliance team to ensure kit components and labels meet applicable governmental safety standards and clients’ performance standards. 
• Use Microsoft Excel on a regular basis to organize product details and kit pricing. 
• Perform other duties for this role as assigned and necessary. 

What we’re looking for (Key Performance Objectives): 

• Within 60 days:
• Learn and demonstrate proficiency navigating the product master and accurately correlating customer requests to create price quotes.
• Demonstrate functional knowledge of bills of materials (BOM) structure.
• Within 90 days:
• Facilitate the kit prototype process and create BOM uploads using Excel following required formatting and data standards.     
• Learn and demonstrate the ability to work within Monday.com project management software to retrieve tasks, update projects and close out completed items.
• Within 6 months:
• Develop foundational product knowledge including functional use, grade level appropriateness and key differentiators across products.
• Communicate effectively with internal sales representatives and customers to develop kits that meet the end-users’ learning objectives and budget requirements.
• Within one year, with minimal oversight, manage assigned projects from initiation through completion including setting up, organizing and maintaining all project tasks in Monday.com.

Requirements/Ideal Attributes:

• Bachelor’s Degree 
• 4 years of Classroom teaching or educational product management/editorial experience
• Science, Literacy and/or Math background desired 
• Proficient working in a computer environment 
• Microsoft Office Suite: Intermediate level Word/Excel/Outlook 

We are a drug-free workplace and an EEO employer.

Please note: This role will be filled by our internal recruitment team, so no assistance is needed from any outside staffing agency at this time.

Compensation Range: $70,000 – $81,000 annual salary – Actual compensation may vary due to other factors such as: years of experience, skill set and location. Total compensation includes profit sharing bonus potential, 401k matching, and a variety of other benefits (details can be found here). 

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