Re: Advice for the next stage of my career

[Lestrange]

Hi all, I need some help regarding my potential next steps when it comes to my career.

A bit of background:
I'm 35
No children/dependents
I have a BA, MA and PhD in the arts
I have a couple of teaching accreditations
Experience in project support/management, events, research, teaching
Currently on 30k in a job I started a year ago
Was planning to go into academia but decided against it for various reasons
Now work in a STEM-related field and am doing well

What I would like to achieve in the next 5 years:
Become a senior project manager (I am flexible on the industry)
I can't be based in London/down south
I want to be earning circa 70k by the time I'm 40

I am very hard working, I am prepared to put in the hours when it comes to training etc. I am good at networking and am happy to travel for work.

For those of you who have the experience, what would be your advice for me? What sort of training should I undertake? Which industries are looking for project managers and pay well these days?

I have a lot of experience in managing budgets, stakeholder engagement, writing reports etc so am not starting from scratch. I want to move on to the next level and am looking to upskill a bit in the next year ready to start applying for new jobs in mid-2023.

Any advice appreciated!

Is your project training in the Agile methodology? If not, that's what you need to become a project manager, delivery manager or business designer/business analyst.

@MrsOwainGlyndŵr I have training in Agile but do not have a qualification which is something I'm missing I think-do most companies expect Agile? I am happy to invest in my career-just want to make sure it's the right course for me.

Oh and I should say, my current role is in project support, so it's very much related to my career aspirations and I enjoy it and am good at it, so I won't need to change focus, I just want to be able to progress.

You'll only earn more as a PM if you have industry experience, in every industry you basically start from scratch. You say you won't work in London, so that narrows the field a bit. You'll need to see what industries have lots of the type of job you want in areas you're willing to work. Rail near York, government in Manchester, engineering in Leeds etc. Best bet would be to take any project that says it's Net Zero, even a junior role, that will give you a specialism to expand in over the next 10 years with some leeway to move between industries if you make a bad choice on the first pick.

There are lots of career path options; specialising as project director or side-step into industry operations. You don't really need to decide on all that right now, just make a start. Good luck.

Engineering could be an interesting option, and I could commute to Leeds. I don't want to work in the civil service so that will limit me in terms of government roles.

Does anybody have experience of project management in the computing sector?

IT, yes. What do you want to know?

Yes. Software projects - finance industry.

@MRex @KnickerlessParsons

A couple of questions for you both: do you have academic experience in these fields? Would having an arts background limit me?

What were your first roles? Were they project support of some description?

What are your project management qualifications?

If you have been on hiring committees, what do you look for in candidates?

Academic - not IT, arts isn't limiting.
I started in operational roles, then consultancy business analysis roles alongside junior PM on some small projects, then bigger as I proved myself. Project support is a decent entry point too.

Qualifications: Agile, ITIL, Business Analysis and Prince2. If you do operations IT then you need ITIL as well, government roles tend to need Prince2, most software roles need Agile. PMP is a good qualification too. Companies usually pay for these qualifications for you even in project support roles, ask HR. Don't bother with programme management stuff (certainly not early on), it's experience that's needed for programme management not dry training materials.

Hiring - really depends on the role. Business side and I'm looking for specific industry experience to consider anyone in a PM role. The experience can have come from a more junior role, but they absolutely must understand the terminology and processes. Engineering want scrum experience. Internally though, we'll take anyone smart up the ladder and it's considered perfectly normal for project support / analyst to talk openly to managers about career goals wanting to move into PM. The main thing to consider are typical questions "tell me about a time when...", as well as technical "tell me how you manage RAID on projects". I'll give you a hint; if someone just tells me how they write everything in a log I'm rolling my eyes internally - the good PMs tell me about sessions they've run with the team to identify mitigation plans for the bigger risks or resolve issues, and how they followed through to actually close out some specific challenge. Making successful delivery actually happen rather than writing down progress is the big difference between Project Administrators, many of whom call themselves PM and actual project managers.

I've ended up in a hybrid role as a Business Analyst/Delivery Manager with a bank, but my degree is in French and Business Studies. Before joining my current employer I was in sales and marketing for a while, and pricing immediately before.
I sort of fell into my current role about 15 years ago and did exams in Business Analysis which work paid for. Most of the newer Project/Delivery Managers have done Prince training in project management, and I think this would be a prerequisite these days if applying for a role. The days when people could train and learn on the job seem to have gone.

@MRex @KnickerlessParsons

Thank you both for your advice. It's quite heartening to hear because in my current role I utilise RAID effectively and am currently involved in further developing (and in some cases improving) current systems and processes, and I would be able to talk about this confidently at interview. I work closely with our in-house developers who work in sprints so I am used to that way of working. I have made a number of improvements to systems and processes in the role I am currently in, and this has been a key task as we are expanding the programme at the moment. And I am currently training a new member of staff who is going to be working alongside me.

The issue is that my place of work absolutely will not pay for accredited courses. I receive in-house training (and am pushing for more) but I would have to pay for accredited PM training myself (which I am happy to do-I just want to make sure it's the right course for me).

I work for a non-profit at the moment and I am finding that limiting in terms of progression; they are happy for people to carry on doing their jobs well rather than looking to develop their talent pool in any meaningful way.