Finding Project Management Jobs

The hunt for a new job should always be treated with the same discipline and rigour as all other projects.  This publication is the first of the Arras 3-step plan for landing your next role. The printable version (PDF) can be downloaded as well.

Treating this as a project we break the process down into smaller pieces.  In this case the three steps of:

• Knowing where to Look (Find it)
• Successful Applications (Apply for it)
• Successful Interviews (Get it)

The scope of this publication covers from commencing as a prospective candidate to identifying roles that you would like to apply for.

In Successful Applications you will taken through the steps involved in applying for a role.  This covers everything from CV generation, filling in application forms and speculative cover letters.

Sealing the deal is the focus of Successful Interviews in which we provide the secrets to making the right impression and being offered the role.

The first step to finding your next job is to Know yourself. In this section you will go through the process of Personal Stocktaking, before moving onto Gap Analysis and the introduction of a SWOT Analysis tool that is designed to help you focus your attention.

In Labour Market Intelligence we will examine the range of opportunities that exist for tracking down available roles. Commencing with What’s on offer we explore the various on-line and off-line resources available to you as a job hunter. Included in this is the role that Social Networking can play. Making the system work for you is the theme of Channels to Market and this is where posting your details for others to search is covered.

The final piece of the jigsaw in this, the first part of the process is to Find your Next Role. Understanding job specs can be overwhelming so we have tried to simplify this. This will help you to decide Should I Apply for this role?

Publications of this nature work best when a Checklist is provided. Covering a single page it can easily be printed off and used again and again.

The most important part before you commence finding a new role is understanding yourself. How can you expect to find a new job before you know what you have to offer, what you are good at or even what you enjoy doing?

Personal stocktaking

The process of self-appraisal (sometimes called personal stocktaking or personal development planning) involves an individual reflecting on themselves before planning what to do in the future.

The starting point of this stage is to take an inventory of skills, qualifications and experience. This is often reflected in the CV, but we should be wary that this is only part of the story.

In project management particularly, it is what someone has done that is the best advert for their abilities. 

• Are you able to list your achievements? 
• Do you know what difference your contribution made?

If you are not able to answer these questions, how do you expect to convince your next employer that you are the person for the job?

Going further you might wish to consider your attitude within work. Asking yourself:

• How am I perceived?
• What values do I reinforce?
• What is my style?

Asking someone, who you have worked with or knows you well to give their impressions of you, can be very revealing if you are prepared to hear the responses.

Finally it is worth considering:

• What are your best attributes?
• What do you enjoy doing?

In a tough economic climate it may be difficult to be choosy but you should ask yourself if it is worth continuing with roles that do not exploit your potential or that you do not enjoy doing?

Project management skills are very transferable, but think carefully about areas that you would and would not prefer to work in.

Self-appraisal can be a very rewarding and enlightening process. A key consideration is that the process only really works if you are truly honest in the answers. 

Gap Analysis

Now that you know yourself, you can now look at how you match against prospective roles. From your appraisal you should be aware of the type of roles that you should be applying for.

An immediate distinction within the project management arena is that between delivery and support roles. If you are not sure of the difference or would like to look at the roles available, why not look at our webpages on candidate information. Following the links further on these pages, you can view previous roles and the requirements of each.

Comparison between your ideal roles and your skills, qualifications and experience will highlight any gaps. Deciding whether to downgrade aspirations or invest in ‘up-skilling’ is not an easy one. This may come down to economics as much as anything.

Achieving new qualifications, training in new skills or gaining experience all take time, which if you are in work may be acceptable. For those out of work, this time without paid work may not be realistic.

The important thing is to make an action plan for moving forward.

SWOT Analysis

A simplified way of pulling all this information together is to conduct a SWOT analysis. Normally used to assess a business this tool lists the four elements of:

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

This is often shown as a matrix:

The first two relate directly to you and can be classed as internal. To clarify:

Strengths

• Your skills, qualifications & experience 
• Your achievements
• Contribution to your projects
• Your positive attributes
• The things you are good at
• The things you enjoy doing

Weaknesses

• What skills, qualifications & experience do you need?
• Your negative attributes
• The things you are not good at
• The things you do not enjoy doing

Moving to external factors, we come to :

Opportunities

• What areas could you work in?
• What could help me?
• Who could help me?
• Which sectors are particularly buoyant at the moment?

Threats

• What might stop me?
• Try to think about the “effects” which are in your control

Drawing up a SWOT matrix is a relatively easy way to quickly build up a picture of your situation. From here the development of an action plan becomes a manageable task.

Remember that your SWOT matrix is a dynamic document and can (as well as should) be updated on a regular basis.

To help the thought process, an example has been included.

In terms of this example, the actions might look like:

• Re-write CV to highlight transferrable skills
• Attend a course on managing teams
• Explore charity-based project
  • Could this be done part-time?
  • Is there a budget for a PM within the funds?

Add a time base and some measures and your action plan is ready to go.

What’s on offer

Everyday dozens of new project management jobs are created and filled. A tough economic climate has some impact, but the truth remains that projects still need to be managed and in many cases that means hiring in a project professional.

So how do you find out about these roles?

The easiest way is to look at the welter of job boards that exist today. The sheer choice alone can make your head spin, so it is important to find which ones work for you. The major boards such as: Monster; Hotonline; totaljobs; and, Exec Appointments have a good spread of roles.

Beyond that are more specialist boards that concentrate on particular industries, sectors or professions. For example:

Confining yourself to the internet can be rewarding and may meet your needs but you should not exclude other means. These may include:

• Local press
• National press (many have weekdays dedicated to particular sectors, e.g. Telegraph on Thursday for Engineering related jobs)
• Journals (APM, PMToday)
• Direct employer websites

Very quickly you will be able to see which agencies specialise in particular roles.  Following links back to the agency website will often give you the earliest possible indication of new roles. Many offer the option to be emailed as soon as new roles, which match your requirements, are posted.

Newspapers, trade magazines and professional journals often have dedicated job sections that may lead to websites though you may not have found out about these otherwise. These publications have a further purpose in that you can occasionally spot if someone is or will be looking for staff in the near future.

Any change in the way that an organisation works is an opportunity for a project management professional. The announcement of a major order; construction of a new building; and/or development of a new product all require project staff. The staff may already be in place, but equally checking the company website or sending a speculative CV may be worthwhile.

Social Networking

An estimated 60% of all jobs are not advertised, but rather filled through the ‘hidden market’. Membership of a professional body or using networking to find your next role can be remarkably profitable. The obvious comment here is that if you have a good reputation, then you have plenty of other people working on your behalf.

Much of the feedback from our own community of project management professionals in respect to social networking sites is the ability to keep in touch with people that they have met along the way in their careers or other peer events like project management conferences, seminars and face-to-face networking events. When a job seeker is in the market for a new job, nothing beats the strength of their own personal network in helping them find the ideal job - and more importantly, it tends to be a less stressful way of finding a new position. Joining up for the first time and taking a look around for old friends and colleagues may be the only thing they need to do to find that dream job.

The first suggestion on joining the network for the first time is to take time to create your public profile. The profile is not a CV or résumé, and therefore shouldn't just list your career history.   The profile should be short and to the point, but enticing enough for people to want to contact you and strike up a networking opportunity. Successful profiles tend to focus on a particular project management specialism, high profile programme or project you've managed, prominent organisations worked in and other project management groups you might also be a member of.

Secondly, make it clear on your profile what your objective is in joining the network - if it is job seeking, make it clear on the profile what you are interested in and what you're looking for.  This should help cut down on approaches which are irrelevant to your needs. For any networking to be successful (on or offline), job seekers need to be prepared to put in some effort. Like many things in life, you get out what you put in. Start to build up individual links to others that share similar skills, backgrounds, experiences or offer skills which you don't currently have - whilst you're looking for the dream job, you could be picking up additional skills, advice, tips from others along the way.

lf the sole intention is to find a job, social networking sites tend to work better for consultants (or contractors) looking for short term consultancy work. Some sites have feedback functionality which enables ex-colleagues to leave feedback on someone's performance or successes, a great way to market ones own achievements.

Job seekers currently in permanent positions are naturally quite wary of their intentions to find a new job being broadcasted on a public site which could be accessed by their boss.

Social networking sites are excellent for general careers advice, too - maybe you're thinking about moving into a consultancy position, but are unsure about the current market demand or salary/rate associated with your skills. Networking sites give job seekers an opportunity to find advice for free - as long as you're prepared to readily offer your advice on a given subject in return. This is a great shop window in which to display your experience - especially if you have a particular specialism within project management. You can quickly become the site's "expert" with many valuing your opinion on particular topics and, more importantly, inviting enquiries from people wanting to hire your services. The power of networking certainly seems to bear fruit when the concept of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" comes into it.

Top two mistakes project manager job seekers make when joining a networking site:

• Being economical with the truth - some job seekers have a tendency to be a little too enthusiastic when writing the profile which could come back to bite - especially as all their peers and colleagues are reading it
• Thinking that quantity over quality counts - it doesn't matter that you have 600 contacts and a badge for top networker! Ten carefully selected contacts would be much easier to manage, value the relationship more and will be much more productive in reaching your goal

Arras People has been successfully using networking sites for a few months now, as a project management recruitment specialist, our consultants are all project management professionals with their own network of contacts from their careers. Tapping into our own networks and being able to approach friends of friends has been highly successful.

Channels to market

Looking for jobs is one thing; letting the jobs come to you is something else.

There are few job boards that do not have the facility for candidates to upload their details. It might be tempting, to load your details on every available database but a word of caution is required.

The first consideration is whether you will be using the same CV for all boards. This is doubtful as you may wish to highlight different characteristics on some, but not others. The logistical problems of multiple resources is not impossible, but does require managing to avoid inconsistency.

Recruitment agents subscribe to these databases and are therefore able to search your CV. This increases your options, but again requires managing so that you appear cognisant when speaking to different agencies.

Many agencies utilise keyword matching programmes to interrogate your CV. Looking at adverts will provide an indication of the words that are important.

It goes without saying that you should only incorporate words that apply as a fraudulent CV will very quickly be found out. 

The following article highlights this point.

Do not be tempted to produce keyword lists but rather embed the keywords within the text.

Words that have particular relevance for UK project management professionals include:

• Prince 2
• Project Management Professional (PMP)
• Six Sigma
• P3O

Social networking is considered to predominantly occur in a virtual sense via websites. The physical version of this is personal networking. The key here is preparation in readiness for maximising opportunities. This might include:

• Having business cards made up
• Being prepared with your USP whilst at events
• Be prepared to give something away, be helpful, be prepared to link someone to someone else - don’t just be a taker

You see the job of your dreams that you know you can do. What do you do next? For most people it is to send their most current CV and wait.

Wrong!! At least in the majority of cases.
 

Understanding job specs

Before you can apply for a role, you need to fully appreciate what is being asked for so that you can present your best case and thus increase your chances of being called for an interview.

Equality and diversity rules mean that adverts cannot ask for "5 years experience" or "degree in IT".

Let's look at a typical job advert:

"Fixed Term Project Manager required to lead the management of business change and efficiency projects within our public sector client. Reporting to the Corporate Programme and Project Services Manager within the ICT Services section you will ensure the timely and cost effective delivery of business benefits through agreed project management standards.

Candidates will be able to demonstrate experience of managing projects using a defined methodology and using recognised tools (e.g. MS Project) to which they have received formal training. You will possess demonstrable problem solving skills as well as being an excellent verbal and written communicator. Your self motivated, proactive attitude allows you to work well under pressure and you are able to transfer this to motivate your colleagues and peers.

This role would suit an aspiring project manager who is looking to take on their first major responsibilities as well as established project manager job holders looking to expand their public sector portfolio."

Typically an advert should:

• Describe the role
• Tell you what you need to have to apply
• Suggest what is in it for you (i.e. rewards and opportunities)

Exploring the example we commence with the nature of employment. The typical types of employment are: Permanent, Contract, Fixed Term and Temp. These are described as:

• Permanent-Employee of the business on a salary
• Contract-Not an employee of the business, paid through third party on an hourly or daily rate for a set period of time.
• Fixed Term-Employee of the business with a salary but for a set period of time
• Temp-Employed through an agency to work on a limited period assignment. You might be paid hourly/daily but deductions will be taken for tax, NI and holidays.

When it comes to project manager jobs, the very title of the role (Project Manager) is prominent as is the fact that this is within the public sector. Research should therefore focus on understanding the nature of business change and efficiency within the public sector. 

If the organisation is named, then direct any research into examining their strategic plans. For a public sector body look for Public Service Agreements (PSAs), which set national and local targets agreed by individual local authorities and government. These can be found on the local authority website or through the Communities and Local government website.

The role is based within the ICT services section but counters this by concentrating on 'business benefits'. This suggests that whilst a technical background is useful, the focus of change is very much on business transformation.

Moving onto the next paragraph, we see that candidates must:

"...demonstrate experience of managing projects using a defined methodology and using recognised tools (e.g. MS Project) to which they have received formal training"

Breaking this down further requires that an application conveys the length of experience that you have of managing projects. 

The term "using a defined methodology" may not be restricted to Prince 2, but could include other formal project management techniques. Even where Prince 2 is stipulated it may be worth checking to see if the organisation formally uses the approach. Experience has shown that often the phrase "received formal training" is the key statement, and as Prince 2 is perhaps the best known of this that is why it is requested.

This emphasis on project management methodologies suggests that this is the focus rather than an out-and-out technology specialist. Given that the role is based in the ICT services means that an understanding is required, but often this requires the project manager to be the translator/facilitator between the technologists and the end users.

You might expect that problem solving skills and excellent verbal and written communications are the norm for a project manager job holder, but how can you demonstrate these? Merely writing that you have these skills does not help to set you apart from the crowd; an example that highlights how you have used these will.

Asking for someone who is "self-motivated and proactive" suggests that you will need to convey a leadership role. This could indicate an environment where formal project management is just being introduced. In these situations the project manager needs to maintain the momentum. 

• How have you managed your teams? 
• How have you motivated them

The use of the word "aspiring" in the final paragraph indicates that this role could help with career development. This further suggests that whilst knowledge of managing projects is required, this need not be at too high a level. Using "established" invites project managers with greater experience to transfer to the public sector.

This is only one example, but the same methodical approach is required to fully understand what an employer is looking for. Once you have an idea of the requirements, it is time to see how well you match up.

A degree of honesty is required when considering applying for roles. Those that apply for everything irrespective of the requirements of the role portray themselves as unfocused.
 

Should you Apply?

If you believe you match the requirements, then ask yourself the following two questions:

• Am I right for this job?
• Is this job right for me?

In relation to the first question, consider:

• Does your experience match the requirements?
• Do you have the necessary qualifications?
• Have you worked in the sector before?
• Can you do the job?

If you can answer all of these, then move on to answer the second question. It may seem obvious but:

• Is the role within travelling distance or are you willing to relocate?
• Does the salary match your expectations?  Is it in the range of previous earnings?
• Does the role complement your career?
• Could you stay in the role for the length of the term or up to 2 years?

If you answer "no" to any of the questions you might consider devoting your energies to other roles.

If you can answer yes to these questions, you can then ask:

• Does your CV reflect your abilities?

Amending your CV to best reflect your skills, experience and qualifications increases your potential for an interview.

Personal stocktaking

• Are you able to list your achievements? 
• Do you know what difference your contribution made?
• How am I perceived?
• What values do I reinforce?
• What are your best attributes?
• What do you enjoy doing?

Gap Analysis

SWOT

Labour Market Intelligence

• Job boards
• Networking
• News outlets
• Professional publications
• Recruitment Agencies
• Recruitment databases
• Buzz words
   

Understanding job specs

Typically an advert should:

• Describe the role
• Tell you what you need to have to apply
• Suggest what is in it for you (i.e. rewards and opportunities)
• Am I right for this job?
  • Does your experience match the requirements?
  • Do you have the necessary qualifications?
  • Have you worked in the sector before?
  • Can you do the job?
• Is this job right for me?
  • Is the role within travelling distance or are you willing to relocate?
  • Does the salary match your expectations? Is it in the range of previous earnings?
  • Does the role complement your career?
  • Could you stay in the role for the length of the term or up to 2 years?
• Does your CV reflect your abilities?