July 7, 2018: Question Series #6
Written By: Marc Moskowitz
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One of the toughest decisions I have ever made in my career was to stop being an everyday coder and begin a project management and leadership career. It was flat-out scary, because I knew that I would lose my hard, easily-provable, and highly-marketable skillset quickly, and journey into a career where it was much harder to prove my worth. Nonetheless, I proceeded to take on my first project.
As a side note, I was a pretty damn good coder and technologist, and I have the performance evaluations to prove it! Once you retire from coding, seemingly everyone doubts your technology capabilities. Every now and again, I do small things to remind those working around me that I still know my bits and bytes…
Fast forward many, many years and I still believe it was the best decision of my career, as I knew my passion was projects, people, leadership, and financial management. The purpose of this article is twofold: 1) to encourage anyone thinking of making the same transition to follow your passion and just do it, and 2) talk about how you can show your experience and value during an interview process for a project/program management position. It’s not always easy to do and you’ll have a lot of competition, so I want all my friends and colleagues to get any advantage they can.
Quickly on topic number one: Making the transition. My advice is to always follow your passion first and foremost. Don’t worry about anything else when deciding, as money, title, prestige, etc. will follow you, regardless of your decision. The key is being good at what you do. So, if you’re currently a developer and that is your passion, I would stick with it, even if some organizations push you the other way. If you are more passionate about being a leader, a project manager, or a product owner, make the leap and ask for as much help as you need. You may have to step back a bit to get started, but it will all be worth it in the end. Finally, it’s ok to try it and go back; you may be apprehensible or feel you have a real passion for it, only to find out after six months it’s not for you. I’ve coached many of my colleagues and friends in this exact situation, and it almost always works itself out in the end. They were all able to go back to their passions, and had a great experience and story about their foray into something new. Like any life experience, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and it’s the same in this situation.
Topic number two: How do I show my value when searching for a project or program management job? I know the struggle is real through my own experiences interviewing for/hiring onto my teams and through the coaching/mentoring I’ve done with others. I will share with you my top ten list in terms of preparation work and in-interview stories/information to share as you go through an interview process. Here we go:
1) Get your PMP, Scrum Master, or other relevant certifications as soon as you can. Spend the time, money, and effort to do this, even knowing that you’ll likely never manage projects in the way these methodologies lay it out. Remember, it’s a guideline and every company adjusts it to theirway. I’m not a big believer in certifications making someone better at their craft than someone without it. However, it shows dedication to the discipline, and the companies looking to hire you will know you at least have that baseline of knowledge. Get it done, and you will get more interviews and more job offers. The tougher the certification to get, the more it is worth.
2) Frame your resume, LinkedIn profile, and/or cover letter in terms of the value that you brought to your previous employers. Although Project Management is about making things happen on time, on budget, and on scope, executives don’t look at it quite that way. They look at projects in terms of ROI and what it brought to their bottom line (either cost savings, revenue, or both). Make sure you highlight the value that YOU added to the project and ultimately the business. This will put you ahead of most of your peers, as they spend their marketing real estate reliving specific tasks they completed versus the value that they added.
3) Keep your printed and virtual resume to two pages maximum. Most hiring managers and recruiters spend about 60 seconds doing a first look at your resume. If your resume is too cluttered, too long, or too hard to follow, regardless of how great you are, you will likely not get past this first step. Further, project managers are supposed to be well-organized and have better than average communication skills. If your resume is a mess, disorganized, or fails to communicate what you’ve really done, you’ve failed the very first litmus test. Keep it short, simple, and to the point, while telling your entire relevant story. I have 22+ years of stories, and I can get them all into two pages.
4) Highlight your key skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile clearly and simply. Use keywords; ensure enough whitespace around them or bold them so they stick out. Again, it’s the 60-second test. You want to tell recruiters and hiring managers what you can bring to the table in less than a minute. Think of it as your elevator speech. If you could only send ten keywords to a potential employer, what would they be? Think about it, write them down, think it over again, and update them as your career progresses. Here are my five from my LinkedIn profile: Technology, Operations, Transformation, Innovation, and Executive Leadership. I have specific details that follow, but it would be easy for someone to figure out what I’m good at and what I know. Your keywords will likely be more specific than this, but the higher you go up, the more broad they will become. I believe five to ten is the right number for most people. If it goes beyond that, it will be less effective overall.
5) Prepare for the interview by learning about the company’s core businesses. I know this is fairly common sense, but it’s even more important for roles that don’t have hard skills like developers, testers, bookkeepers, accountants, etc. By running a project, you are basically running a mini-business within the bigger business. Know what drives company success, and scour their website for deeper insights. Network and talk to people that work there if you can. Find out why projects succeed or fail in that company’s environment, and think of stories to fit in the potential company’s narrative.
6) During the interview, prove that you know the project management fundamentals (including the now ever-popular agile frameworks and tools), and quickly move onto your success stories. Hiring managers want to envision you having success in their organization. This is your time to brag. Share your success and highlight how you used project management fundamentals to guide you to success. Further, bring your personal strengths into the picture during these stories. That is what will separate you from your competition and make you memorable. Make sure to show your passion during your success stories. It goes a long, long way.
7) Be prepared to talk about project failures and turnaround situations. A good hiring manager will always ask this question, as they want to know how you handle adversity and failures. They also know that most projects fail in some way or another, so they want to see if you’ll admit that you don’t have a perfect record. No one is perfect, so highlight some projects or parts of projects that didn’t go well for you. Make sure to state what you learned from it, and how that learning makes you a better project manager today. Think of your favorite sports team or player: they too failed and faced adversity prior to making it big or winning a championship. The Chicago Cubs faced 100+ years of it! The St. Louis Cardinals faced injury adversity prior to winning a championship in 2011. Note: Be careful to not tell too many failure stories. One is usually enough. You don’t want to show a trend in terms of having too many failed projects. Explain why that project was challenging, beyond any mistakes you made.
8) Show that you understand how to pitch a new project (asking for money and approval), and that you know ROI is important. Doing these two things will let the hiring manager know that you care about what a project returns to the company, and that you’ll bring a business perspective to the projects you are managing. This ability also separates the junior project managers from the senior project managers. Project management is more than just ensuring a list of tasks gets done. It’s about making a business better. I know I want to hire the best business men and women possible, and so do most hiring managers.
9) Have specific metrics to talk about that prove you can handle a certain level of scope. What is the difference between a junior project manager and a senior program manager? It’s all about scope! Ok, it’s about a few other things too, but have your scope metrics handy and intertwine them into your responses. Examples of your scope metrics include: Team Size, Budgets, Global Footprint of your team and product, Company Size, Revenue or savings that your projects generated, Number of projects you’ve run at one time, etc. Warning: Be truthful in your answers, as they are easy to investigate and overlay onto your resume. Further, remember Miller’s Law, which states that 7 ± 2 is where human capability is in remembering details on a list or managing concurrent thoughts. I’m a huge believer in this law, and when someone tells me they managed ten projects at one time, they were either microscopic in size or they are bloviating. Keep it real people! No one manages more than three or four large projects at one time successfully. If you’re in a management or director type role, your portfolio may have a lot more projects in it, but you are not actively managing them, and that is the point I’m trying to drive home.
10) Last but not least, it’s about your stakeholders, relationships, and communication. Make sure to talk about these three things during your interview as much as you can. The best of the best are masters at handling their stakeholders, developing relationships across an organization, and communicating appropriately. Think of it as your success triangle. If you keep these three things in mind at all times, you will be successful. Bring specific examples of how you’ve handled this triangle, and you will set yourself up for a new job! A few ideas include: (example status reports, emails/slide decks that communicated project successes, and stories about good/bad stakeholder relationships…and how you handled them.
My list could go on and on, but recall my 60-second rule and keyword list. I’ve shared ten key things you can to do improve your chances of getting hired for a project manager or program manager role. The value will be obvious, if you can clearly articulate your story and how you have been successful in the past.
What do you think? What else can help your fellow project managers show their value during an interview process? If you’re a hiring manager, what do you look for in a candidate? Please comment below and share so we can all learn together.
Thanks for reading!
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