Calling all Project Managers

[DinaFox]

I am at the start of my career in project management (I'm currently a Project Officer), and I would like to progress. I do not have a PM qualification and am planning to start a course in the new year but am unsure which one would be best.

If you are a PM, which qualification do you have? Is there a specific industry you would recommend I look into? I'm currently in education but would be happy to change industries. I currently earn £30k but want to significantly increase that in the next decade.

Hi all, more questions from me! I have found a HEO role in the Civil Service as a PMO Support Officer that I am going to apply for. For those of you in the Civil Service, how should I structure my application? They are asking for my CV and there are two boxes to complete: one which says 'Employment History' and the other 'Previous Skills and Experience'.

Should I list all my job roles and key responsibilities to date in the Employment box and then focus on my skills in the second box? Should I structure it in bullet point form or a longer narrative?

@HundredMilesAnHour that sounds really positive, thank you for the insight. It is disheartening that so few companies these days seem to want to invest in training their people. I fully appreciate that for the PM roles you may need the accreditations to hit the ground running but I see PO roles paying less than I earn now wanting PRINCE2 etc.

The civil service recruitment criteria are quite specific. I would have a search of Mumsnet as there have been a lot of threads about it before. Applying for the civil service is a bit of an art form (one I’ve never mastered) but there is great advice elsewhere on MN.

The PMs that work for my DH are also required to have a good financial background as well which is not the case where I work.
Being able to do the work is just as important as the qualification - DH has interviewed many people that have PRINCE2 but have no experience in the project financial aspects whereas those strong all round but not necessarily with the PM Quals have succeeded.

@DinaFox I don't believe the qualifications help anyone hit the ground running to be frank. Good project management is more of an art than a science and textbooks and checklists will only get you so far. Experience working on projects is key as learning the hard way will make you a much more effective project manager, as long as you're self-aware, learn from your mistakes and act on feedback.

Some people just aren't suited to be PMs. Usually the same people who think a 1 week Prince course makes them a PM (and inevitably turn out to be bloody useless). There was a Business Analyst who worked in my consultancy division who was desperate to be a PM (he thought it was the way to get promoted/increase his salary). He had good feedback on his BA work from other members of the management team (I was on the the management team as head of delivery so responsible for all the programme and project managers in our division). He'd taken Prince and was desperate to be a PM.

I had a vacancy for an extra PM in my team at my client's (well known global bank) and convinced my client to give him a go by bringing him in as a BA/PM. What a disaster. He was hopeless. He thought (and acted) like a BA rather than a PM. He didn't listen to feedback (he thought he knew better!). I spent hours with him and basically gave him step by step instructions on what he needed to do. He didn't do it. 😡People complained about him to me. As consultants we are constantly under a microscope being judged and expected to be amazing or we get complaints. On the day when I'd had FIVE complaints about him by 10am, I'd had enough. I kicked him off the project and refused to consider him for any future PM work and said he was more suited to being a BA. He still didn't get it and went running to the rest of the management team. I held firm and refused to have him within my delivery team ANYWHERE. I should also add that he was a laughing stock at the client and I had to work hard to remediate the damage he did to our reputation. So he resigned from our company and stropped off to do a contract role as a PM. 😂It went tits-up within a few months (because he's useless as a PM!!) and he came crawling back to our company as a Business Analyst (personally I wouldn't have hired him back but it wasn't my choice). He currently says he's looking for C-suite roles on his LinkedIn. 😂In his dreams. Total lack of self-awareness (sadly typical of quite a few men in my industry).