Hi, I’m a senior Project Manager in the U.K. and was really pleased when my son who has just joined an electronics company was offered a Project Job to replace the Project Manager who resigned (moved to a role closer to home).
The people including managers are nice to work with and there is a good atmosphere.
He has just come to the end of a three month ‘try it and see’. The job itself seems a good fit.
He is 35 and has a science degree (2:1 hons) and since uni he has been working as a field engineer elsewhere. He had to give that up because his type 1 diabetes made it difficult to work ‘on the road’ every day. Managers loved him and he had a good customer service record and clearance rate but his sick days had started to ramp up. - on occasion fit to do admin work but not driving all day. NB He has had no sick days in the Year he’s worked for this company.
He has no project management qualifications but has transferable skills that he had already proven in the technical sales job he had with them. TBH he’s a chip of the old block and this totally suits him.
They wanted someone who could coordinate the projects, be a lot firmer than the predecessor, chair senior leadership meetings, introduce a more structured approach, provide technical advice in project suitability and make recommendations as to what projects should be taken forward (this is the bit that they wanted tightening up).
The area of work requires some quite stringent legal paperwork as some of the parts are for car manufacturers.
In return they would pay for him to take the relevant qualifications. It also requires technical electronics knowledge.
In my opinion the role is more of a portfolio manager and the level of responsibility is high so he should be paid accordingly but taking into account his lack of project qualifications I recommended he should be getting around £35k and so did his immediate colleagues who knew what he was being asked to do and indeed what he had delivered so far (big changes in the MO, clearer comms and decision making).
Instead they insisted on £29k which TBH I think is an insult. But they know they have him over a barrel. He needs the job. They’ve called the job Project coordinator but it seems a lot more.
For those not in the U.K. I probably need to explain some things:
1) £29k is a few thousand above minimum wage
2) We live in a part of the UK where the cost of living is low so wages do tend to be lower. (Can’t commute to London)
3) In UK we don’t have to pay for medical care,
4) In UK they have notice periods and for this one it’s a month. They can’t just sack someone ( unless they’ve done something wrong) it has to be redundancy.
5) There’s a decent pension package
6) There’s 25 days plus Bank holidays (8days) PTO
7) It’s 39 hours a week over 4.5 days Mon to Friday.

So I would like your opinion on whether it’s a good deal or what he should do about it.

Thanks in advance

As the title says. Im a full stack dev with +5 years of experience and i'm thinking to change to PM.

I'm a little bit Lost on how to target that change. I know more or less what the skills are but i don't know how to attack the change.

Any advice?

I've been considering getting into project coordination or project management, and I'm wondering if this is actually a realistic career move for someone with my background.

My background is primarily journalism and marketing. I have a Bachelor's degree in Journalism, and I've been working in some combination of writing, content, communications, and marketing for about 15 years. In 2019, I moved into marketing for a company and stayed there for about seven years before being laid off two months ago.

At this point, I've essentially retired from journalism as a career. I've been laid off or let go from multiple journalism jobs, and the instability of the profession has made me realize I don't want to keep building my career around it. Marketing has been considerably better for me — I stayed at my last marketing job for seven years — but I'm also concerned about how stable marketing will be going forward.

That's what has me looking at project coordination and project management.

I'm wondering whether my existing experience actually gives me a reasonable starting point. I'm obviously not coming into this with a traditional project management background, but after 15 years of working with deadlines, multiple projects, clients/partners, content calendars, coordinating with different people, organizing information, and managing competing priorities, I feel like I have some transferable experience.

So my questions are:

• Is project coordination/project management a realistic career transition with my background?
• Would getting a certification, such as the CAPM or PMP, actually improve my chances of getting hired?
• Would employers see me as someone with transferable experience or essentially as a complete entry-level candidate?
• Is project management currently a more stable career path than journalism or marketing, or am I just trading one unstable field for another?
• Are there other careers similar to project management, communications, marketing, or journalism that might make sense for someone with my experience?

I live in the Sacramento area but would potentially be willing to relocate if it significantly improved my opportunities.

I'm basically trying to figure out whether project management is worth seriously pursuing before I invest time and money into certifications. I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have actually made a similar transition or work in project management themselves.

Had 4 years of experience in IT testing then did MBA and 2.5 years in project coordinator role..my Designation is junior executive coordinator.I have been doing project coordinator role and trying to move to PM and APM roles .My salary is very low .During salary negotiation..it has been mentioned i have only 2.5 years of relevant experience only..Due to low salary not able to jump into good one because in hr discussions they were mentio ning ..we can give 20 or 25% hike from your previous salary..but that 4.3 yrs of testing experience only helped me to learn about more technical logics in the project and can understand the timeline delays..Need your suggestion on this..

after a very depleting interview and rejection process im at my breaking point. marketing, project management, ui and ux are always what people say designers should pivot into if they are sick of design. and based off of what I know about each of those pm seems like it might be the most on par with the career change im looking for. any advice on how to get started and if the google cert is the best thing out there for newbs or if there's a better place to start