Ive been a Project manager for 7 years. Got a PMP cert last year. Starting to realize I am a little too comfortable in my current role doing marketing project management. I am looking at changing careers strictly as a money grab for 2-3 years. Possibly in tech. Any suggestions on where to start learning with money being most important? Javascript, Python, HTML5?
PMP Certified in project management - what next?
- Thread starter cdub123
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If you have a PMP and 7 years of experience I'd look into switching job or consulting/high-level contracting if you aren't making the money you want. I don't know why you'd switch paths at this point unless you just didn't like the work.
Yeah, the pay is good but I know there's more money to make out there. I am doing project management in media but I know that doing SDLC or something related to coding has longevity beyond what I am currently focusing on. I guess next is figuring out if I want to just focus on consulting or focus on a specific craft/industry change. Appreciate the response.
How was the PMP certification process, the test itself, hard or easy? Was looking at adding that skill
It is a beast of a test. 200 multiple choice questions. Takes about 3.5 hours to finish it. I would recommend it though, I get a lot of consulting offers just off the strength of having my PMP. But I would also suggest intensive studying to prep for it. There's a class I took that helped me a lot for it. Ill look it up when I get home today and send you the information.
Appreciate it
Ok, so here's what you would need. You need the official PMI PMBOK book. This gives you all the information required from PMI's standpoint. It's a very dense read though so you need supplemental materials with it. One supplemental book that a lot of people recommend is Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep book. It costs some bread but if you have some skills you can find it online. Over 500 pages. Last recommendation is 'The PMP Exam - How to pass on your first try'. This book is an easy read and really breaks down everything in a simple format for you to understand the practices behind project management and how to easily remember things as a lot of this is straight up memorization of processes. I took a 6 week intensive course after work that went through each chapter each week of that book. I believe TIA (Techinical Institute of America) is the name of the school I went to. After that, I studied for a solid 6 months to pass this thing. Definitely was not easy as the test tries to trick you a ton of times simply by changing a word here and there just to trip you up. One last IMPORTANT jewel, go to the app store on your phone. There are two apps that REALLY helped that I would do practice tests on. PMP Exam Prep and PMP Pocket Prep. I found that some of those questions I found on the test were variations of what I saw on the app. So just take as many practice questions as you can. Repetition is key. Every little bit counts as I can't stress how much of a beast this test is. By hour 2 you are going to be ready to quit and only on like question 75 out of 200.
beenz
Rap Guerilla
As a project manager, you don't need technical skills do you? Can't u go into tech without knowing all that shyt as long as you have an understanding of what needs to be done and what everyone's role is in the process???
That's my dilemma. To answer the question, sort of, if you can finesse your way in to it, you can definitely get tech PM jobs without the tech experience. But if you want to see crazy paper (for example: financial companies that have tech departments (some of those guys make $200-$250k a year here in NYC)) it helps if you have a decent knowledge of coding, a PMP cert and have years of experience managing people/processes.
Thanks for the useful info. I'm working on obtaining certs. as well - information tech, data governance, data management. Is the PMP cert broad enough to apply to those who may not have specific project management experience? But I'm also thinking that project management encompasses any type of job requiring the management of work flow, meeting deadlines, managing people , etc.
It's another type of finesse, but yes, you basically answered your own question. Everyone in one form or another has done project management. For me, I luckily was able to get in from the beginning and dedicate hours to the discipline. In order to even apply to take the test, you have to show that you have worked 4,500 hours within project management. They have you fill out a spreadsheet where you have to explain each project you worked on and break down how much time you spent on each project to get you up to those hours. It sounds daunting but if you are sensible about it, you can build out something with no problems because as I stated earlier, we have all done project management in one form or another. BUT, I stress being sensible about it because if things don't make any sense (like saying you worked 365 days straight and triple overtime on Christmas day to get to 4500), they will audit your ass and call your references. It's rare that the call happens, but it can happen.
You also need to show you went through 35 hours of project management education. But you could arguably take an online class within Udemy and get those hours quick.
Thanks much!! helpful to know- motivated to take this on.
beenz
Rap Guerilla
The reason I asked is cuz my last job was at a software company and I was routinely involved with implementation as a functional resource. Our PM's never had any working knowledge of our products or what the products did. They just drove the meeting to ensure we got our milestones on time and the clients were happy.
Word, you are definitely right, we can come in to projects and just manage them. Those dudes probably max out right around 6 figs, 100-120k a year. But then if you can show you can do some of the work and build out development strategies, you can get some more bread.
PMP, if you wanted to go back you could look at getting a CISSP and going into security consulting .