It seems like every time you look at specific types of news; there are often horror stories of AI coming to take away jobs and send society collapsing into a spiral of unemployment and universal basic payments that will further increase the national debt. While you can take these stories as you wish, the point is that most of them are vastly overlooked and tend to ignore the human touch required for many careers. One such example is that of the project manager, who, although makes heavy use of technology, is an occupation that seems to be safe from the ever-increasing encroachment of AI and will always be in demand due to the nature of how certain things work. However, as with any job that is both in demand and requires a very highly-honed set of skills, the path to career nirvana takes a little more effort than others. We are taking a look at how one might begin on this journey and ultimately end up with a career that has impressive prospects, is incredibly interesting, and can offer ever more exciting opportunities as you climb up the ladder.
Gain Relevant Education And Certifications
Yes, before you delve any deeper into considering the role of project manager, you need to double-check what qualifications you’ll need to get your foot through the door. While you might be protected from AI and the like, you are going to come up against plenty of other people who are more than happy to step in front of you in the line at the job fair. This means that you’ll need all the ammunition you can get in order to help you stand out from the crowd and give you the upper hand when it comes to interviews and selections. The standard qualifications to aim for include the official PRINCE2 training programs (PRINCE2 stands for Projects IN Controlled Environments) that will prepare you to achieve a base level of competence that you can further build upon to increase your knowledge and understanding of what is involved. In most cases, you can start off with the fundamentals and try to drum up your own business to create a portfolio that you can use to wow the recruiters at larger firms when you’re ready to start your official journey. However, it’s always a good idea to get as many relevant and industry-standard credentials as possible that will shine a better light on you when the time comes to apply for jobs.
Understand The Role Of Project Manager
For most of the average non-project manager population, this career is somewhat opaque and might appear as though you’re ordering different people around to complete a job when you then move on to the next job. However, in reality, it’s far more complex and involves a considerable raft of skills that are both learned and mastered on the job. In practice, these folks are the ones who are responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the completion of a specific project for an organization. The key roles and responsibilities will vary slightly from job to job but, in most cases, include the following:
- Initiation: As the name might suggest, this is the process of setting up the project, which includes defining the scope, goals, and objectives that you hope to achieve based on your estimations.
- Planning: Creating a detailed project plan, including timelines, budgets, and resource allocation.
- Execution: Leading and managing the project team, ensuring tasks are completed on schedule.
- Monitoring and controlling: Tracking project progress, identifying and resolving issues, and managing risks.
- Closing: Finalizing the project, documenting lessons learned, and obtaining client acceptance.
All of these points might appear relatively basic, but there is a considerable amount of planning, leadership, and intuition that goes into each step.
Seek Mentorship From Experienced Professionals
Seeking a mentor is a time-honored tradition among almost all kinds of employment, whether it be in a professional manner or simply looking for someone more experienced to take you under their wing, so to speak. The idea is that you can learn a lot from on-the-job training by shadowing a more experienced individual until you gain a steadier footing that enables you to develop your own ways of doing things. When it comes to project management, mentorship can come in various guises, but in most cases, you will have to seek out someone willing to show you the ropes. In many ways, this is a kind of first initiation into the job as it will involve a lot of self-discipline and a go-getting attitude to find those willing to share their experience.
Build Experience Through Volunteer Opportunities
If you’ve gone through the motions, acquired all manner of relevant qualifications, and are still unable to land a legitimate job, your best option is to volunteer your services to smaller operations. This will enable you to gain a massive amount of knowledge of how things work while padding out your portfolio, which you can eventually present to a recruiter to show that you’re made of the right stuff to succeed in this occupation.
Master Project Management Software Tools
As we mentioned earlier, this is a potion that isn’t directly affected by specific technologies, but it is absolutely one that makes deep use of various tools and technology that are required to complete the more complicated jobs. These range in complexity and include the more well-established names like Asana, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace. By becoming au fait and eventually mastering these tools, you will be ready to jump right into the thick of any job you land and hit the ground running, which is something highly desirable for those hiring project managers for their projects.
Develop Strong Communication And Leadership Skills
Project management is, at its heart, a discipline that requires a strong ability to communicate your demands in a way that doesn’t come across as overly aggressive or too weak and being able to direct people to whatever tasks need to be completed and that they are qualified to perform. While you can learn much of what’s involved academically, you will only be fully able to master it by getting real jobs and directing real people to actual tasks. This is easy for some folks and challenging for others, but unless you have some form of deep-seated social anxiety, it is absolutely something that can be developed over time.
Project management is a job that is in demand regardless of where you might be located in the world. As long as you gain the requisite skills to perform what will be demanded from you, you can achieve a remarkable career that eventually results in you becoming the go-to person for a particular job in your area.
