A Project Manager Career Path: From Entry-Level to VP

If you’re ready to take the next steps toward this new career, consider enrolling in the Google Project Management Professional Certificate through Coursera. This program covers foundational skills, including project documentation, stakeholder communication, and using Agile and Scrum practices. Learn about skills, salary, requirements, and reasons to consider a versatile career in project management. Some project managers are generalists who work in all business-related fields and are comfortable executing projects for clients in a variety of industries. However, many project managers choose to focus on fields like construction, real estate, information technology, sustainability and transportation. Most project management certifications — such as the PMP — expire after a few years.

Regardless of your level of experience, obtaining a project management certification can help speed up the process. There are numerous free resources available to support project managers throughout their careers, from free trials of top project management solutions to free seminars and even free certificate test prep courses. Currently, PMI is one of the top providers of free resources, offering users a free KICKOFF course that covers essential PM concepts and even free test prep for PMI-sponsored certifications, such as CAPM and PMP. Communication is key when it comes to managing projects, regardless of size or scope.

Is project management a good career path?

If you’re looking to join a fast-moving, in-demand industry, a career in project management can be a great fit for you. With the Project Management Institute (PMI) recent jobs report projecting a need for 88 million project management professionals before 2027, there’s never been a better time to explore a career as a project manager. Read on to learn more about project manager career paths, educational opportunities, and job titles. Lead or senior project managers help execute projects with larger scopes, like scaling processes across teams, developing complex products, or leading projects with longer time frames. They generally have several years of project management experience and experience managing and leading people directly. As a project management professional, you will use your people skills and technical skills to lead teams of professionals.

Accidental or unofficial project managers are everywhere, leveraging their critical thinking skills, people skills, and years of experience in other roles into project-related duties. A career in project management is more than just juggling deadlines and budgets. It’s also an opportunity to grow as a leader, learn how to resolve problems and make decisions under pressure, strategise over a variety of projects and priorities, and to keep up with the latest software and technology.

Why Choose a Career in Project Management?

Directors of project management oversee the strategy and success of a project management division within a business. They work to ensure individual projects are aligned with the larger goals of an organization and create a blueprint for how those goals can be achieved as a project management team. They can manage multiple project managers, work cross-functionally, and interact with higher-level leaders within the organization. Project management certifications are a critical aspect of a successful career in project management – but obtaining those certifications requires dedicated exam preparation. The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, administered by the Project Management Institute, is widely recognized as the premier certification for project managers worldwide. The PMP certification is best for any project management professional looking to advance their career while highlighting a mastery of key project management concepts.

Others may work as consultants to get exposure to business processes and sharpen management skills. Many project managers get their start in non-managerial roles and work their way up to project managers as they take on more responsibilities. Believe it or not, you can shift careers into a successful career in project management without going back to school. Many professionals don’t even realize that they have project management experience, from implementing team ideas to managing budgets and other tasks that are lesser-known contributors to project management experience. By attaining certifications, such as a CAPM or PMP certification, and supplemental experience, for example, you can successfully pivot into a new role as a project manager. In most cases, you can pursue entry-level project manager positions if you hold a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field like business or project management.

Top Project Management Careers

In a perfect world, projects would run flawlessly, with all tasks executed on time and on budget. The project manager role was invented to make the world just a tiny bit more orderly. If you’ve worked directly with anyone in this profession, hopefully, you’ve noticed they have an uncanny way education project manager of keeping everyone informed, pushing through obstacles, and getting the job done on time—even when problems arise. This means you’ll have many options as you embark on your project manager journey. In addition, gaining experience as a project manager can add dimension to your career path.

Here’s an overview of some of the most popular degrees for project managers to help start your formal project manager education. Advances in drugs and medical treatments play a huge role in improving health and quality of life. From aerospace to manufacturing, companies hire engineers to design new products or find better (faster, cheaper, safer, etc.) ways of doing things. Engineering project managers work closely with these engineers as they figure out how to create something new or solve a given problem.

Planning and initiation

Portfolio managers have the highest level of responsibility in project management careers. While they don’t often have a hands-on role in the completion of projects, they spend a great deal of time relaying information about projects to organizational leadership. The job of the project managers involves taking ownership of the project lifecycle overall by guiding teams and staff, facilitating communication between stakeholders, and monitoring progress toward project goals.

A crowded global marketplace necessitates that organizations think carefully about how to get their products and services noticed. They collaborate with marketing strategists to develop a vision and how it can be implemented to reach the target audience. They develop timelines and oversee the work of writers, designers, and others responsible for bringing objectives to life. The outlook for jobs for project managers is expected to be very good through the 2020s. Employment of project managers is projected to grow over 20 per cent over the next decade, about as fast as the average for all occupations.

Common Traits & Skills of Project Managers Professionals

You’ll understand the ins and outs of the work required, empathize with team members, and have a better grasp on how to approach a project. You’ll understand the ins and outs of the work required, empathise with team members, and have a better grasp on how to approach a project. Hard skills are the ones you learn in a more conventional sense, whether in the classroom or through on-the-job experience. The project manager usually doesn’t do much (or any) of the actual work of the project. But that doesn’t mean the project manager gets to sit back and relax — there’s still plenty to do.

Whatever role you’re currently in — marketer, designer, developer, whatever — you’ve likely been honing your project management skills all along. The methodology is part of an engineering or project management framework that defines the overall process to be completed according to predetermined objectives and deliverables, which have been accurately scoped. The intuitive Waterfall approach is a structured, top-down process for planning projects.. Extreme Programming is a software development methodology that relies on frequent releases in short development cycles to foster rapid learning and responsiveness to change. XP accomplishes this by rigorous definition of customer-centric requirements, paired with automated unit testing, incremental design, and immediate implementation of code. Developers then frequently release new code into the development environment where it can be tested.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 7.6% employment growth for construction managers between 2021 and 2031. There’s also an agile-specific PRINCE2 certification, PRINCE2 Agile, which is available at both Foundation and Practitioner levels. If you work in an industry where agile practices are the norm, you might decide to get an agile certification instead (or as well!).

• In most cases, you can pursue entry-level project manager positions if you hold a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field like business or project management.
• Some universities have even begun offering project management as a major, with majors such as business administration, accounting, economics, and marketing standing out as top majors for future project managers.
• If you’re looking to join a fast-moving, in-demand industry, a career in project management can be a great fit for you.
• This means that you’ll need to retake the exam every few years to show that you’re still up-to-date with PM best practices and standards.